Put in my resume and heard back a week later from HR to set up a phone interview with two associates, whom I shall not name. I was invited to an on-site meeting a couple days later, but I declined. Why? To start, when I was asked over the phone to define and explain the t-test, I did just that. However, one of the interviewers mistaken the t-test for the F-test, and he tried correcting me. I pushed back. I pointed out he was wrong. I went so far as to reference the Wooldridge econometrics textbook to explain to him the difference between a t-test and an F-test. The guy said, "Oops, my bad." That was a red flag for me. Then there were the programming questions. I asked them if the company used R or Python. There was a brief silence. Then one of them said, "Naw, me and him don't know nothing about R nor Python." Another red flag. I'm an English language purist. I know what's grammatical and what's not when I hear it. This was not grammatical. These two reasons alone--(1) the failure to grasp basic statistics and (2) the inability to speak grammatical English--were sufficient for me to decline to proceed further. I was looking to join a company with high-caliber people from whom I could learn and acquire new skills. After my phone interview, I didn't think I would get that here at Acumen. I was unimpressed.

I submitted application online, and got invitation to a statistical test. Once passed, you will receive phone interview followed by on-site interview. I went to Acumen's office, talked to 7 people. Most of the conversation is about past research experience and some basic statistical modeling questions. They also shared what projects they are working on at Acumen. The on-site interview includes a numeric/logical test. They also took me to a neighborhood restaurant for lunch.