I applied online. The process took 2 weeks. I interviewed at RTI International (Chicago, IL) in Jan 2016
Interview
I emailed my resume, cover letter, & transcript. Heard back a few weeks later and talked with the director for the center. We talked about my experiences and what I wanted from a job. She described the recent work of the center and then (basically) offered me the position at the end of the conversation.
I applied online. I interviewed at RTI International (Raleigh, NC)
Interview
My experience with this organization was almost comically frustrating. I actually went through something like an interview process with them twice. The first time was the summer of 2015. I did a phone-screen, and they told me they'd like for me to come in for an on-site interview. However, it took many days to arrange this. I had to fill out several incredibly involved forms, which I was happy to do. The reason was that they were considering me for a position that was slightly different from the one I'd applied for. This all took so long that, in the meantime, I interviewed with and was offered a job by another company in the area. I called RTI and asked if we could expedite the interview process at all. No can do, I was told, as everyone was on vacation for something like the entire month of August. I told them I couldn't afford to wait, but we should stay in contact.
About a year later, I applied for another job for which I felt very qualified. I had a phone screen with the recruiter, and she told me I had all the skills they were looking for, and that I'd be contacted by someone from the data science organization shortly. I was very optimistic, since I had heard from a few people there *on the data science team* that they were looking for people with my skillset and were really having trouble finding people. However, I never heard back. I contacted the recruiter every few days to see if there were any updates, and she always said "no, I haven't heard anything." I eventually gave up.
This was especially funny since a friend of mine was, at this time, going through something similar for a public health analyst position. She did two phone interviews and an on-site and was told that they were *drafting her offer letter*, and then....nothing. Months went by and she eventually got another job, as did I.
I get that priorities and budgets change, but good grief. This is an incredibly sloppy way to treat someone, especially someone with a relatively rare skillset, and especially in this job market, where data scientists can pretty much name their salary and every company seems to be hiring.
Interview questions [1]
Question 1
I was asked to describe my PhD research and previous data analysis experience.
I applied online. The process took 3 weeks. I interviewed at RTI International (Research Triangle Park, NC) in Dec 2014
Interview
I had an initial phone screening and several weeks later had a day of several meetings with different stakeholders. The day on-site meetings was long, but not unpleasant. I didn't feel like I was being grilled at any point, rather it seemed like they were more interested in learning more about my experiences, and how my background and experience meshed with the sort of work they were doing.
Interview questions [1]
Question 1
I was asked about my research agenda, which seemed a bit odd as I was not applying for a PhD-level position.