Raytheon have a discriminatory attitude to recruitment
I applied to Raytheon's local office in Malvern for an entry-level graduate job (£40k/yr) as a support engineer for their SCi Toolset, recently transferred to the business from Collins Aerospace.
I am a Chartered Engineer with a Master's in Engineering from the University of Oxford with 25+ year's of experience in Linux, Windows and server infrastructure design, build, integration, testing and support as well as software and electronics engineering qualifications and experience. I have run my own business performing all customer sales and technical interaction for 6+ years.
Having progressed to the second onsite interview with Neil Griffith and David Ettridge, I was sent a standard response from their automated systems:
"Thank you for applying for the position of 01842007 Technical Support & Sustainment Engineer . We have reviewed your skills, qualifications and experience; however, you were not selected to move forward in our hiring process at this time."
Having requested further feedback, Susan Jordan gave the following as reason:
"The team felt that while you brought some positive experience and strengths, the role requires a particularly strong level of customer-facing communication, including the ability to clearly adapt messaging, build confidence with stakeholders, and communicate in a way that supports customer engagement. Based on the interview, we felt this was an area where we did not see the level of alignment required for this specific position."
These areas were not particularly explored during the interview, but I had mentioned my customer experience in running a business. So I pressed further and received the following response:
"To clarify, the feedback was not intended to suggest that you do not have customer-facing experience. Rather, the decision was based on the panel's assessment of the interview against the requirements of this specific role. While your background and experience were carefully considered, the panel felt that the interview did not provide the level of evidence they were looking for in relation to customer-facing communication, stakeholder engagement, and the communication approach required for this particular position.
I appreciate you have outlined examples from your previous business experience. However, recruitment decisions are based on the overall assessment process, including how the required skills and behaviours are demonstrated during interview."
So particularly nondescript and excuse-worthy.
During the second interview Neil and David brought in one of their existing support engineers I would be working alongside, to test my technical knowledge. A young man, they explained that he was an ex-firefighter who had been trained internally in IT, presumably without any previous experience in engineering, software, IT or customer relations.
So there is a clear discrepancy between their willingness to train a young and unqualified man into the role, and taking on an overqualified, mature experienced candidate.
In conclusion I allege that Raytheon and Collins Aerospace have a discriminatory recruitment policy against over-qualification and age for a role. Their criteria is not merit-based.
I suggest everybody gives this company and its parent, RTX, a very wide berth.