I expected to have a better experience interviewing for an engineering position at Ruger Firearms. An outside recruiter discovered my credentials on LinkedIn and reached out to me by contacting the receptionist at my place of employment (instead of sending a discrete message through LinkedIn). After discussing the position with him, I decided to send him a copy of my resume to be submitted to the hiring manager despite having read the negative reviews on Glassdoor. Within about 2 hours of submitting my resume through the recruiter, I received a request to schedule an onsite interview directly bypassing a preliminary phone interview. Had the hiring manager spent 15 minutes on the phone with me, he would have been able to tell I did not have the high volume machining experience they were seeking. I spent a total of 4 hours at the facility, 2 of which was spent waiting in the reception area. The actual interview lasted only one hour and the other hour was spent having lunch in a gas station with two shop floor members that had never seen my resume nor did they ask me any questions pertaining to my background. During my time spent in the waiting area, approximately 8 people had come and gone for general shop floor interviews which is a clear indication there is a high turnover rate at this facility. The worst part of the entire interview process is that not only did I take a vacation day from my current employer to drive 3 hours (one way) and spend a night in a hotel due to an early interview for a position I was clearly not qualified for, I have been informed that it is not Ruger's policy to reimburse for interview expenses including mileage. A 15 minute phone call could have spared me a wasted vacation day, 10 hours of my time and approximately $300 in travel expenses.

the interview process was very casual, the team was very professional and asked a lot of good questions. They were genuine about the work culture and appeared to have good chemistry working with each other.