Glassdoor is your free inside look at Charles River interview questions and advice. All 21 interview reviews are posted anonymously by Charles River employees and interview candidates.
Charles River Interview Questions & Reviews
Getting the Interview 21 Interviews
Interview Experience 21 Ratings
Manager at Charles River
Declined Offer – Interviewed in Boston, MA (US) – Reviewed Sep 29, 2012
Interview Details several phone screens, then in person interview with hiring manager, and then a follow up session with senior mgmt who make extra effort to discourage one from joining the firm. There is fine line between vetting and discouraging but i suspect Charles River crosses it often. One of their MD was completely unprofessional.
Interview Question –
several scenario questions...."what would you do if ...happens"
based on the questions, it seemed as if the firm has issues with its clients otherwise they should be at Harvard providing case study examples. Something is clearly worng at this place.
Answer Question
Reason for Declining – got the sense that they are full of themselves, and sr mgmt leadership was weak. Other mgmrs strong but with weak mgmt (MD level), can't imagine they have a bright future.
Helpful Interview?
Yes |
No
Problem with this interview?
Marketing at Charles River
Declined Offer – Interviewed in Burlington, MA (US) Nov 2010 – Reviewed Apr 19, 2012
Interview Details Standard interviewing procedure - pre-screen with HR and then on to interview with hiring manager and her staff at the time. Everyone reporting to and including the hiring manager were pleasant and professional. A second interview with the hiring manager's manager turned me off with overtly rude behavior and questions.
Interview Question – Standard experience questions around software and other experience Answer Question
Reason for Declining – Obnoxious, "lifetime employee" senior management with no actual managerial skills and a culture that to me seemed all about squeezing as much as possible out of you. The offer was obscenely low ball for the standard amount of hours they want their employees there (It's more than 40 per week - it's actually their policy and they are very clear about it.)
Helpful Interview?
Yes |
No
Problem with this interview?
Senior Software Engineer at Charles River
Accepted Offer – Interviewed in Feb 2010 – Reviewed Apr 13, 2012
Interview Details Was approached by the company's recruiter after I posted my resume on their site. A phone interview was arranged which was a overview of the kind of work I had previously done, mostly technical. Then (after a week) there was an onsite interview, 1:1 with 4 different people, all technical. The interviewers were all very nice and pleasant. Then after a couple of days another onsite, this time there was an IQ test. Got the offer on another weeks time.
Interview Question – How will you generate fibbinacci series using a select statement? Answer Question
Helpful Interview?
Yes |
No
Problem with this interview?
Software Engineer Co-op at Charles River
No Offer – Interviewed in Burlington, MA (US) Mar 2012 – Reviewed Mar 21, 2012
Interview Details HR contacted me offering me the interview after reviewing my resume. I met with 3 people, the Principle Software Engineer, the Technical Team Lead, and the Director of Engineering. The first person asked me many technical questions about c#, Java, and SQL database stuff. The other two were mostly behavioral. In the end, they had me take a 13 question analytical test (read a paragraph, answer questions). They were very hospitable and constantly checked in if I needed to use the bathroom or get a drink. Everything took about 3 hours.
Interview Questions
- What is a delegate? What is a method pointer? Given these two tables, design an inner join on columns A and B, etc... Given this certain card game in Java, what are the objects that will be needed? Answer Question
- What is the hardest problem you had to solve in the past year? Describe your ideal job. Answer Question
Helpful Interview?
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No
Problem with this interview?
Software Engineer at Charles River
No Offer – Interviewed in Feb 2012 – Reviewed Mar 07, 2012
Interview Details
Interview Question – lot of questions from databases - join, trigger, index, deadlocks, normalization, query optimization, difference between truncate and delete Answer Question
Helpful Interview?
Yes |
No
Problem with this interview?
Co-op Software Engineer at Charles River
Accepted Offer – Interviewed on Burlington, MA (US) Mar 2011 – Reviewed Mar 03, 2012
Interview Details
For co-op,
total 4 interviews - one on one.
Each person asked about resume and work ex.
1 - behavioral
2 -technical
3 -technical
4 -technical
Interview Question – OPPS, Java concepts, Collections, Threads, Recursion programs, etc Answer Question
Helpful Interview?
Yes |
No
Problem with this interview?
Compliance at Charles River
No Offer – Interviewed in Jan 2011 – Reviewed Feb 10, 2012
Interview Details Two phone interviews, one is from the recruiter and the other is from the hiring manager. Half of an hour for each interview. I applied through my school career service website. First one went really good so I got a call from the hiring manager.
Interview Questions
- Do you understand the company's business? Answer Question
- Are you familiar with compliance or have any related experiences before? Answer Question
Helpful Interview?
Yes |
No
Problem with this interview?
Engineering at Charles River
Accepted Offer – Interviewed on Burlington, MA (US) Jan 2009 – Reviewed Dec 26, 2011
Interview Details
Standard phone screen questions on the phone such as understanding of Java collections, OOD/OOP.
More detailed questions on the interview. Mostly along the same lines. Written database knowledge test. (If you know how to write inner and outer joins, you'll be fine) plus English language test for non-native speakers (easy).
Interview Question –
This isn't really the most difficult question
i've ever heard but...
Say you have the following classes
class A
{ public String doIt() { return "A"; } }
class B extends A
{ public String doIt() { return "B"; } }
class C
{ public static String doIt() { return "C"; } }
class D extends C
{ public static String doIt() { return "D"; } }
Now consider the following code snippet
A b = new B();
String s1 = b.doIt();
C d = new D();
String s2 = d.doIt();
What will be the values of s1 and s2?
View Answer
Helpful Interview?
Yes |
No
Problem with this interview?
Associate Consultant at Charles River
No Offer – Interviewed in Boston, MA (US) Nov 2011 – Reviewed Nov 30, 2011
Interview Details
The interview process was a bit over the place. On the day of the onsite interview, they did not have a room I could interview in and they had me moving all around the office. However, interviewers were good.
They called me the next week and extended me the offer. Two weeks after that, they just called and withdrew the offer which was extremely surprising. The reason given me to was that they had found someone else.
They are a mid sized company but behaved in an extremely unprofessional and an unethical manner.
Interview Question – Writing Test, Analytics Test and rest was behavioral Answer Question
Helpful Interview?
Yes |
No
Problem with this interview?
Client Services at Charles River
No Offer – Interviewed in Sep 2011 – Reviewed Nov 11, 2011
Interview Details
The process consisted of 2 phone interviews, one with HR and one with a CS manager, and a day long onsite panel interview. The experience matches what others described here, including the absence of a conclusion. I never heard from them.
In hindsight I should have considered CRD's reputation and not have wasted my time and efforts.
Interview Question – One difficult aspect ,though not a question , was the lack of engagement and disinterest on the part of two panel interviewers, both senior staff members. They conveyed that the session was a waste of their time. View Answer
Helpful Interview?
Yes |
No
Problem with this interview?
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