The first interview was with the managers and it was good. They explained the role working hours etc. They were basically looking for a trilingual travel designer that would cover the US market and GCC market that’s why they wanted an Arabic speaker. They explained that during summer months work can exceed the daily 8 hours shift and that a travel designer would need to be available to answer calls at anytime after working hours as the company provides a company’s cell phone and laptop. They didn’t discuss anything regarding the salary but they asked about the desired salary and explained that if we proceed to the second phase of interview with HR they will discuss the salary part.
On the second interview with HR, the HR manager made some questions about work experience and how do you handle different situations and at the end asked about the desired salary. I told him a number that is a normal salary for a travel designer working in a B2B agency and asked if they pay for overtime and how many hours they would be, he didn’t specify anything but he said they don’t pay for overtime and for tasks done after working hours. He said it’s gonna be difficult to provide the salary I asked for but he will see what he can. Some days later he gave me a call offering a basic salary that didn’t come up to what I was getting when I was working as a travel agent in a B2C agency 5 years ago and I didn’t had to work over time. He was trying to stress on the fact that I would get in additional to that an Edenred card with an amount of 120€ per month plus a private health insurance ( perks that I was getting as well when I was working in a travel agency 5 years ago).
The overall experience was not bad but their offer was too low for the amount of the work and overtime they are asking for.