After his first few months as an intern at Citrix, we caught up with Sam Hyde to find out how he found the process of securing a role with Citrix
"Citrix’s initial application form was a breath of fresh air after far too many job applications featuring multiple essay-style questions which take hours. Enter your personal details, answer a few “tick-box” questions, and upload your CV – simple and quick! The second stage was an online coding test. This is nothing too complex or exerting, just requiring a bit of logical thinking, and it can be done in almost any language.
Two stages down. Next up: the phone interview. Unusually amongst phone interviews, it was not awkward but rather a simple, engaging and fast-moving conversation with a friendly interviewer. It’s the applicant’s choice on the interview time and, for me, the interviewer was very accommodating concerning northern Surrey’s dire, and intermittent, phone signal.
I had never worn jeans to an assessment centre but, at Citrix, this set the tone for an effective yet informal and relaxed assessment centre. I particularly enjoyed the technology-themed presentation and of course the food (which by the way is a regular fixture of Citrix life). It’s not all plain-sailing, however; speed networking with about a dozen managers is not as easy as it sounds! Plus, for me, I think the less said about the second of my two technical interviews, the better. Also, the company appreciates that an assessment centre is a two-way street: applicants should be able to assess the company as well as vice versa. As such, I came out of the day with a much clearer idea of what Citrix does and what working at Citrix is like.
Within the next couple of working weeks I had received an offer. Bright Network were incredibly helpful in negotiating a change in my office location from Cambridge to Chalfont – this was all completed in a couple of days. They even contacted my university on my behalf to remedy any issues. This was despite the fact that it was late December – just a few days before Christmas. They really went above and beyond their call of duty – this made me really feel wanted at Citrix.
Before the assessment centre, I did not expect to take the job – I had had other interviews with companies I thought I wanted to work for. After I had discovered Citrix’s culture and work environment, it was a foregone conclusion. The recruitment process left me in no doubt that I wanted to be a Citrite over all the other opportunities I had explored."