Had an initial telephone interview with the recruitment consultant on a Friday, and on Monday I was invited to the assessment day which was on the next Friday. Very pleased with the communication!
The assessment day was held at Millennium & Copthorne Hotel (at Chelsea Football Club), which was an indeed nice place. They had booked a few large meeting rooms and it was a very relaxed environment. The interviewers and Trader Media staff were very friendly.
Before the interview they gave us (6 of us) a scenario on which we had to discuss our opinions and come to agreement. It was about 6 people in danger of death, and we had to decide in which order to rescue them based on their profiles, considering that we may not be able to rescue them all. It was a great experience and it certainly relaxed us into the environment.
We then separated, each of us going for either the interview, a pair programming test, or filling an application form. The first stage for me was the 2:1 interview. I was asked questions on Java and OO basics, and test-driven development. (Remember, if you're applying to Trader Media as a developer, be prepared to answer questions about test-driven development and JUnit).
After my interview we went for lunch, where we again had the chance to chat with other candidates and also the TMG staff.
I then moved on to the pair programming exercise where I and a member of TMG development team worked on solving a problem. This was again test-driven and we had to extract football match scores from a data file, and output the name of the team with the smallest goal difference.
The last stage for me was the application form which was a fairly easy one. Just the standard stuff like education and employment history, why you're suitable for the job, and if you like to add anything that you think will help in your application.
We then came back to where we met first, to wrap things up and say goodbye, hoping to see them again.... Shame I didn't!.... I liked them, would definitely accept an offer!