Htydjtk

I am interviewing for a position at a huge multinational company in Germany. I will have an on-site interview soon. The company sent me a travel expenses reimbursement form. This form was horrendously designed, both technically (.doc format which they somehow managed to be unable to fill out with Word) and stylistically (unclear where to put info, not enough space for some parts, way too much space for others).

Shall I bring this up at the interview? And how much of a red flag is this?

To make the motivation for this question clear: I have worked for a company with an incompetent administration before and it was a pain. And even that company took great care to ensure that everything that was sent to a third party was streamlined. If a significant part of a job involves fighting internal bureaucracy, I am not interested.

I am applying for a technical position. I will have nothing to do with marketing. My worries are about the level of incompetence or even malice that is to be expected when dealing with the internal bureaucracy of that company.

Assuming the company does not work in the business of providing forms or HR outsourcing services, this should not be a big deal.

I would not bring it up in the interview, other than maybe asking if you filled it out correctly.

It's obviously a form nobody cares about. You will probably not care about it either once your expenses are approved.

If the worst thing about the company is the reimbursement form, join up immediately.

Honestly, this may have just been thrown together at the spur of the moment to get you in there. Mention it at the interview and you will blow any and all chances of ever working for them. They will rightly see that as petty and ungrateful.

Just go in, and wow them in the interview and don't focus on minor things.

What does that say about the company?

Nothing meaningful. They might have the most amazing, easy to use Expense Reporting system ever created, but you need to be an employee to use it.

Shall I bring this up at the interview?

No.

And how much of a red flag is this?

None. It's entirely possible the people who are using this form are just as frustrated by it as you. They need it just for record-keeping.

And how much of a red flag is this?

Depends on your perspective. If you care a lot about external appearances (things like travel reimbursement forms, email templates, email signatures, branding, logos), and the company doesn't, then it is a mismatch of values. I'm not sure I'd call it a red flag, but I would for sure be curious as to whether a badly designed form is just that or the tip of a giant "nobody cares about details" iceberg.

Shall I bring this up at the interview?

Any question is feasible at an interview, especially if it is important to you. It is however, crucial to frame the question in a way that gives you knowledge about the company instead of putting them on the defensive. Exclaiming that something is badly designed is just a statement, and frankly not that helpful.

However, you could say something along the lines of:
I didn't have space to fill out the fields X,Y,Z on the form. Does this still look okay to you?

That way, you are simply asking for help and at the same time, looking for clues as to whether or not they actually notice the bad design of the form. I suspect that the latter is the most important to you (checking if they have the same eye for detail as you do).

[...]What does that say about the company?

Oh it says a lot more about you that this is a grievance for you.

Shall I bring this up at the interview?

Please do and tell us how your jobhunt went after you never heard back from this company.

And how much of a red flag is this?

It's really red... Like, super red...no really, sooo red!

...seriously though, are you interviewing to design their forms?

Short of that, I feel like your question is trolling us and if you'd bring that up during the interview, they'd probably think the same.

Those things are not works of art, nor are they supposed to be anything more than means to get you reimbursed.

Who knows who made them and what criteria (if any) were set.

Just fill out the damn thing and concentrate on getting the job or move on if that disqualifies them for you.

It might be a red flag if you are interviewing for a Linux position (LibreOffice still manages to damage bad designed Office-Documents) or if you are going to travel frequently for the company.

Definitely ask how timekeeping is done. In the worst case you have to fill out a similar designed timekeeping-form every day.

Can you do it better? I mean, if you know what the form is supposed to ask for, can you redesign it to be much better? If so, I would do it (or just mock it up with all your info already in it), print it out and bring it along with the official one. If the interview goes well, then when they ask if you have any questions: "By the way, is working outside of strictly defined roles OK? Of course I would not let these side projects interfere with my assigned work, but I like to improve things."

If the interviewers ask for an example, you can display the two forms with equal information side by side on the table. The improvement should be obvious in quality and usability.

I do not know German formal approaches, but hope they would take it as evidence interest in the entire firm instead of only your little part of it. Clearly you aren't the type to be a timeserver/clockwatcher.