How I did not get a job at AT&T or a little about corruption in the Czech Republic
Published at the request of my friend. Maybe someone’s story will save him from similar situations.
About a year ago, a good friend of mine told me that he found a job as a network engineer in one of the AT&T European offices in Brno, Czech Republic. Having described in detail what was offered to him and how the interview process is going on, he suggested that I join him, since the company had plenty of open vacancies. Armed with the contacts of a recruiter, and a pro-update resume, I also decided to try my luck.
It turned out that the AT&T company itself was not engaged in recruiting personnel, but entrusted this function to one Slovak recruiting company, and in the future, after a successful interview, this company takes the person to work, and then essentially rents it out to AT&T . A day or two after sending the resume, the local recruiter called me back and, having talked about whether I really want to work in the Czech Republic, what my experience is and why I am interested, said that my resume was very interesting to them, and she sends it further to AT&T, but for now I will be sent additional information on the conditions of work and moving to Brno.
A few days later, the recruiter called me again and set a day and time for a telephone interview with AT&T managers. Initially, another technical interview was planned with an employee of a recruiting company, but then they were felts because I had recommendations, felts because they really liked my resume, they immediately introduced me to AT&T.
Telephone interviews were held in conference call mode, and was quite complicated due to the quality of communication. In fact, the Czechs tried to be friendly, joked a lot and asked relatively simple questions of the CCNA, CCNP level, but the quality of communication and Czech English led to the fact that after the interview (which lasted about an hour) it seemed to me that my head increased in volume in two to three times.
After the interview, about a week passed, and one of the managers called me, whose team they took me to and said that they would be glad to see me in their team. The recruiting company informed me about the same somewhere else a week later, and after that the process of preparing documents for obtaining a Czech work visa began.
Initially, there were no problems. Recruiters promised that they would compensate absolutely all my expenses, you just need to keep your checks, and they took over most of the paper work. All that was required of me was from time to time to receive pieces of paper by mail from them, to fill them out where necessary by hand and send them back, well, to make several translations by sworn translators. It’s not so cheap to send the truth by DHL, but then I was full of the most optimistic thoughts.
And here is a bunch of documents (including a work permit in the Czech Republic) in my hands. I go to visapoint.eu and try to register myself for submitting documents. It should be said that the recruiter immediately warned me that registering through the site is very difficult. Basically, it simply does not have a single available time slot for filing documents, sometimes it just lies, often does not accept captcha, etc. She advised me to try at different times of the day, but if I did not succeed, her other candidates found some peasant who, for a modest amount of 300 euros, could register for the submission of documents. Of course, this amount is also compensated to me, but only after my arrival in the Czech Republic.
The fight with VisaPoint begins. A couple of days, after trying to register at different times, I decided to write a letter to the Czech Foreign Ministry with a request to report on the reason that I can not register. Just a couple of weeks later :) the answer came that this is due to the huge number of people who want to apply for a work visa and advice to continue to try. During this time, I gave up, contacted the peasant, and a couple of days later he brought me a printout of a letter confirming that I can submit documents ... in Donetsk. According to him, this is practically impossible to do in Kiev, because due to the large number of complaints, it is more difficult for its "employees" in the Czech Republic to arrange for submission to the capital consulate. At the same time, the peasant complained to me about life, that he sends 3/4 of the money to the Czech Republic, and that if he could take less, he would leave everything to himself.
Well, I'm going to Donetsk, I'm submitting documents. On the attitude to people in the Czech consulate, you can write a separate topic :). Nevertheless, I begin to wait. By law, they must tell me within 3 months. At the end of this period, after the nth attempt to get through to the consulate, there still someone picks up the phone and tells me that I have a refusal, does not give a reason, refuses to send a refusal to me or the employer, and says that if I need a document , then you need to come for him personally to the consulate.
Actually, it would have been necessary to stop at this place, but managers from AT&T called me again, kindly asked how I was doing, and advised me not to lose heart. It seems that I arranged them so much that they agreed to wait, and in addition they would put pressure on the recruiting company to do anything to bring me to Brno. "We already have a table and a laptop for you. Everything is ready and we are waiting for you! ”. Six months have passed since the interview. Encouraged by such attention, I declare to the recruiter that I am not going to give up, and I will besiege the site Vispoint.
In parallel, I am sending letters to the deputies of the European Parliament from the Czech Republic, to the Czech Foreign Ministry and the Ministry of Internal Affairs, in general to all I can. In principle, in addition to one member of the European Parliament, who promised to transfer my letter to the Czech Foreign Minister, all the others simply ignored me.
Somewhere in a month I get lucky, and on Saturday morning, I see a free slot, again in Donetsk. There is! A confirmation letter in my mail, the submission of documents in a month again in Donetsk. I again contact the recruiters and tell them that I was able to register, and that I urgently need all the documents again. And most importantly, everything was done without a huckster.
A month later, I am again at the door of the Czech consulate. Through the intercom, the aunt begins to name the names of those who are today recorded to submit documents. Reaches the end of the list and disconnects. I call the intercom and ask why they did not give my name. Aunt states that my slot has not been confirmed by me. I say that I have confirmation in my hands. Slowly, we start cursing with her through the intercom, as she states that she is listed as not confirmed on her list. In the end, it just stupidly turns off. I call again and declare that I demand a meeting with the Czech consul, and yes I understand that he is busy, and that’s okay, I’ll wait and wait at least the whole day.
After 5 minutes, they call me to the building where the documents are being submitted. The head of the visa department is sitting there, and also tells me what her aunt said before: I did not confirm my application. Well, or it was not confirmed by the one who registered for me (here I was generally in shock, in fact the consular officer admitted that he knew that the applications were not registered personally, which is prohibited by the rules). 5 times I had to show him a letter with the words "Your appointment have been confirmed". He gave up, but asked me to show a civil passport. To the question “Why?” he said that he was obliged to check my residence permit, since a decision had been issued 3 days (!!) that the consulate could accept applications only from citizens registered in the consular district. And yes, no matter that my application was drawn up almost a month before the adoption of this decision, and the law has no retroactive effect, even in Europe. And yes, he will not use the rule that in some cases (of course not indicated in which) the consul can accept documents from any citizen of Ukraine, at any consulate. In general, I had to argue with him for about 15 minutes, after which he got up, and saying that I can complain anywhere I just left.
After that, I called the recruiters and said that I no longer want to apply for a work visa, and offered them to apply for a Czech green card or a blue card, which they said they could not do this and the only option is a work visa.
This is all over. The saga cost me about 1000 euros of various expenses, and six months of hassle. However, from this I came to one conclusion: you should never be carried on any huckster. If the company can’t apply for a visa to your country with absolutely legal methods, you should not spend your time and energy on them. They can’t offer you anything good, and obviously they don’t really need you that much either.
PS Having talked with acquaintances from the Czech Republic, I came to the conclusion that everyone knows about corruption with labor migrants in the Czech Republic, but nobody really does anything. A few years ago, Czech television showed a story about a Moldovan citizen who officially worked in the Czech Republic, and whose local policemen demanded a bribe for extending a work visa. When she, with the help of local journalists, announced this, the policeman was fired, tried and given him a suspended sentence. After the appeal, he was reinstated by the police, but her visa was not extended, she was deported from the Czech Republic with a ban on entry into the EU for 10 years.
About a year ago, a good friend of mine told me that he found a job as a network engineer in one of the AT&T European offices in Brno, Czech Republic. Having described in detail what was offered to him and how the interview process is going on, he suggested that I join him, since the company had plenty of open vacancies. Armed with the contacts of a recruiter, and a pro-update resume, I also decided to try my luck.
It turned out that the AT&T company itself was not engaged in recruiting personnel, but entrusted this function to one Slovak recruiting company, and in the future, after a successful interview, this company takes the person to work, and then essentially rents it out to AT&T . A day or two after sending the resume, the local recruiter called me back and, having talked about whether I really want to work in the Czech Republic, what my experience is and why I am interested, said that my resume was very interesting to them, and she sends it further to AT&T, but for now I will be sent additional information on the conditions of work and moving to Brno.
A few days later, the recruiter called me again and set a day and time for a telephone interview with AT&T managers. Initially, another technical interview was planned with an employee of a recruiting company, but then they were felts because I had recommendations, felts because they really liked my resume, they immediately introduced me to AT&T.
Telephone interviews were held in conference call mode, and was quite complicated due to the quality of communication. In fact, the Czechs tried to be friendly, joked a lot and asked relatively simple questions of the CCNA, CCNP level, but the quality of communication and Czech English led to the fact that after the interview (which lasted about an hour) it seemed to me that my head increased in volume in two to three times.
After the interview, about a week passed, and one of the managers called me, whose team they took me to and said that they would be glad to see me in their team. The recruiting company informed me about the same somewhere else a week later, and after that the process of preparing documents for obtaining a Czech work visa began.
Initially, there were no problems. Recruiters promised that they would compensate absolutely all my expenses, you just need to keep your checks, and they took over most of the paper work. All that was required of me was from time to time to receive pieces of paper by mail from them, to fill them out where necessary by hand and send them back, well, to make several translations by sworn translators. It’s not so cheap to send the truth by DHL, but then I was full of the most optimistic thoughts.
And here is a bunch of documents (including a work permit in the Czech Republic) in my hands. I go to visapoint.eu and try to register myself for submitting documents. It should be said that the recruiter immediately warned me that registering through the site is very difficult. Basically, it simply does not have a single available time slot for filing documents, sometimes it just lies, often does not accept captcha, etc. She advised me to try at different times of the day, but if I did not succeed, her other candidates found some peasant who, for a modest amount of 300 euros, could register for the submission of documents. Of course, this amount is also compensated to me, but only after my arrival in the Czech Republic.
The fight with VisaPoint begins. A couple of days, after trying to register at different times, I decided to write a letter to the Czech Foreign Ministry with a request to report on the reason that I can not register. Just a couple of weeks later :) the answer came that this is due to the huge number of people who want to apply for a work visa and advice to continue to try. During this time, I gave up, contacted the peasant, and a couple of days later he brought me a printout of a letter confirming that I can submit documents ... in Donetsk. According to him, this is practically impossible to do in Kiev, because due to the large number of complaints, it is more difficult for its "employees" in the Czech Republic to arrange for submission to the capital consulate. At the same time, the peasant complained to me about life, that he sends 3/4 of the money to the Czech Republic, and that if he could take less, he would leave everything to himself.
Well, I'm going to Donetsk, I'm submitting documents. On the attitude to people in the Czech consulate, you can write a separate topic :). Nevertheless, I begin to wait. By law, they must tell me within 3 months. At the end of this period, after the nth attempt to get through to the consulate, there still someone picks up the phone and tells me that I have a refusal, does not give a reason, refuses to send a refusal to me or the employer, and says that if I need a document , then you need to come for him personally to the consulate.
Actually, it would have been necessary to stop at this place, but managers from AT&T called me again, kindly asked how I was doing, and advised me not to lose heart. It seems that I arranged them so much that they agreed to wait, and in addition they would put pressure on the recruiting company to do anything to bring me to Brno. "We already have a table and a laptop for you. Everything is ready and we are waiting for you! ”. Six months have passed since the interview. Encouraged by such attention, I declare to the recruiter that I am not going to give up, and I will besiege the site Vispoint.
In parallel, I am sending letters to the deputies of the European Parliament from the Czech Republic, to the Czech Foreign Ministry and the Ministry of Internal Affairs, in general to all I can. In principle, in addition to one member of the European Parliament, who promised to transfer my letter to the Czech Foreign Minister, all the others simply ignored me.
Somewhere in a month I get lucky, and on Saturday morning, I see a free slot, again in Donetsk. There is! A confirmation letter in my mail, the submission of documents in a month again in Donetsk. I again contact the recruiters and tell them that I was able to register, and that I urgently need all the documents again. And most importantly, everything was done without a huckster.
A month later, I am again at the door of the Czech consulate. Through the intercom, the aunt begins to name the names of those who are today recorded to submit documents. Reaches the end of the list and disconnects. I call the intercom and ask why they did not give my name. Aunt states that my slot has not been confirmed by me. I say that I have confirmation in my hands. Slowly, we start cursing with her through the intercom, as she states that she is listed as not confirmed on her list. In the end, it just stupidly turns off. I call again and declare that I demand a meeting with the Czech consul, and yes I understand that he is busy, and that’s okay, I’ll wait and wait at least the whole day.
After 5 minutes, they call me to the building where the documents are being submitted. The head of the visa department is sitting there, and also tells me what her aunt said before: I did not confirm my application. Well, or it was not confirmed by the one who registered for me (here I was generally in shock, in fact the consular officer admitted that he knew that the applications were not registered personally, which is prohibited by the rules). 5 times I had to show him a letter with the words "Your appointment have been confirmed". He gave up, but asked me to show a civil passport. To the question “Why?” he said that he was obliged to check my residence permit, since a decision had been issued 3 days (!!) that the consulate could accept applications only from citizens registered in the consular district. And yes, no matter that my application was drawn up almost a month before the adoption of this decision, and the law has no retroactive effect, even in Europe. And yes, he will not use the rule that in some cases (of course not indicated in which) the consul can accept documents from any citizen of Ukraine, at any consulate. In general, I had to argue with him for about 15 minutes, after which he got up, and saying that I can complain anywhere I just left.
After that, I called the recruiters and said that I no longer want to apply for a work visa, and offered them to apply for a Czech green card or a blue card, which they said they could not do this and the only option is a work visa.
This is all over. The saga cost me about 1000 euros of various expenses, and six months of hassle. However, from this I came to one conclusion: you should never be carried on any huckster. If the company can’t apply for a visa to your country with absolutely legal methods, you should not spend your time and energy on them. They can’t offer you anything good, and obviously they don’t really need you that much either.
PS Having talked with acquaintances from the Czech Republic, I came to the conclusion that everyone knows about corruption with labor migrants in the Czech Republic, but nobody really does anything. A few years ago, Czech television showed a story about a Moldovan citizen who officially worked in the Czech Republic, and whose local policemen demanded a bribe for extending a work visa. When she, with the help of local journalists, announced this, the policeman was fired, tried and given him a suspended sentence. After the appeal, he was reinstated by the police, but her visa was not extended, she was deported from the Czech Republic with a ban on entry into the EU for 10 years.