Initial interview was over phone. Took about 1.5 hours. About half was behavioral questions, as in "what would you do over if you could", etc... Second half was more interesting. I was given 4 topics (that had nothing to do, necessarily, with my area of expertise) and I was to pontificate on it. Totally off the cuff type stuff. This part was peppered with questions. After this, I was told if I did well enough, I would get an invite to a Shell Recruitment Day (SRD). Two days later I got an email invitation to attend a SRD.
The part that screws everyone and I'm confident that no one has had an easy time with this, is when they tell you to download the Shell Recruitment Day Briefing Packet. This is where the issues lie. This is a global document (as per a Shell HR's reps comment) and so it doesn't really apply to everyone. I happen to have a Ph.D., so my interview process is 80% different that what is described in this document. So my suggestion to anyone looking to interview with Shell, contact your recruiter and get the info. from them, because more than likely, the briefing packet will not apply to you.
My trip consisted of 3 days. This day consisted of a 1 hour seminar from me and 3 interviews with different potential colleagues. I would have interviewed with 2 others, but because of HR's screw up, I couldn't.
Day ended around 2 PM and a car that was supposed to pick me up never showed up. So one of the chemists I might work with drove me to my hotel. Another fabulous HR debacle.
That evening I met with 2 other candidates that I would be with during the SRD. We met, went over some specifics about what the SRD would be like and had a practice discussion about one of the tests we would go through the next day. Dinner was picked up by Shell and a recent hire met us for dinner to talk to him and get a feeling about what it is like to work at Shell.
This was the challenging part. The day consisted of 3 parts, technical interview, case study and group discussion. The technical interview was probably the easiest because it was basically answering open ended questions on my research. Of note, if you are not a Ph.D. candidate, you will not have a technical interview, you will have something different which I was not privy to.
Second part for me was the case study. This is what we practiced the night before. We were given 1 hour to go over approximately 30 documents ranging from memos, to emails to newspaper clippings. All were fictitious, but based on reality. You play the part of a Shell Business Manager and need to put a 5 minute presentation together to present to Shell executives (played by two of the four assessors) and you need to explain to them why you have picked the scenario you have. This is followed up with questions. This part was about 2 hours long all together, including the prep time. Unless you make billion dollar decisions on a daily basis, this will probably be pretty foreign to you.
The third part was the group discussion. To me, this is not really as difficult but can appear to be a killer if it doesn't work out for your position. You play a govt. representative of a fictitious country that Shell wants to donate money to because they operate in that country. You represent the country, but need to abide by Shell directives. You prep for 30 mins looking at your options and then you have 30 minutes to discuss with the other candidates and you need to end up picking 2 out of a possible 12 (in our particular situation) scenarios that you want Shell to contribute to. In this situation, you only interact with your fellow candidates and the assessors observe you. It's a little weird, but if you get into it, you really don't notice the people watching you.
What Shell is looking for is called CAR(T). Capacity, Achievement, Relationship, and in my case, Technical skill. For nonscientist, I am not sure if you have a fourth criteria.
The whole point of this is to see if you can fit into the Shell culture. From what one Shell employee told me, the SRD is worth about 90% of the decision to hire or not.
Unfortunately, Glassdoor does not have an option for "Interviewed, but have not heard back yet", which is where I am now. I just interviewed yesterday and the day before, so I am waiting on the outcome. The offers can be made as quickly from the day after the SRD (as they assessors hand in results the same day as the SRD) up to a month or so afterwards.
So here I sit and wait. I do need to say that apart from the HR disaster, the company as a whole looks like it is a fantastic organization and I would really love an offer as I think It would be a great place to work.
Hope this helps someone.
Cheers!