I am writing this review to help others as the other review does not provide enough information. My aim is to save people the heartache of going through the entire process.
An internal BSW recruiter will initially contact you to let you know that their hiring manager is interested in interviewing you and will ask for your contact info. The next step is an invitation from said hiring manager for a group interview that they run once per month. They have you come in early in the morning in Temple, TX (apparently they do their interviews in Dallas as well) and tell you to expect to be there the entire day if selected.
At this point, I was a bit apprehensive about going but had nothing better to do that day so I figured I would go for the experience.
Approximately 15 of us showed up. Right from the beginning, everyone was trying to stand out by smiling and talking to one another. It felt artificial at first but as the morning progressed some of us became friends and exchanged contact information.
The first exercise was a pen/paper case study. If you have poor handwriting, don't even bother going. You will not have enough time to complete this exercise and be legible.
After the case study, we were put in a room where two teams faced each other, with a panel of 5 judges with notepads looking at us, and they had us play a game but gave us no specific rules; the point was to figure out efficiencies as a team. The second game involved a puzzle where they rushed us to read some rules and get started. My best guess is that here they were looking for collaboration, rather than competition and to pay attention to detail. The third exercise involved planning out a strategy to play a game that also required to become efficient and to communicate with the team.
At the end of the morning, after waiting for over an hour in a conference room, the hiring manager said that their team found none of us to be of interest and told us all to go home. They said they would keep our resumes on file in case other positions opened up within BSW.
Now. They said that we all had good qualifications but all they were looking for was a "good fit". I saw some people who were highly experienced and with low experience try to stand out, ask relevant questions, participate actively, perform well as a team, etc. So that makes me wonder what it was that they were looking for.
What I did notice from their panel of judges was that they were very reserved and serious, almost immune to humor. I don't know if that was part of the exercise or if that was how they were on a day to day basis. My take is that they were looking for someone who is serious, solves problems quickly with very little information.
My advice for those who are in the Austin/Round Rock region is to not waste their time and drive all the way to Temple UNLESS they are good at solving puzzles and absolutely love to play teamwork games. If you are not used to this, you will be wasting your time. You will fail at their games, and you will be told to go home.
If you have been unemployed for a while and after several interviews with other potential employers; in other words, if you are desperate for a job and you figure you may luck out by showing your personality, you will be wasting your time.
What bothers me the most is that they could have easily weeded many potential candidates out by having the candidates take an assessment online that shows that a candidate has low potential for solving puzzles as fast as they expect. It just doesn't make sense. Not everyone is fit for this type of work and they should be upfront about it instead of wasting people's time. Perhaps they are just trying to fill up their database with resumes - who knows. They never give you any feedback.
I do want to note that I am not upset at BSW, I'm just trying to be as objective as I can to provide them with feedback as I know they monitor what gets posted here (they mentioned it themselves) and for others to know what they're walking into. I know they mention that everyone has potential but their screening process is too intense for it to be so vague in the invitation.