I applied through an employee referral. The process took 1 day. I interviewed at Sandia National Laboratories (Albuquerque, NM) in Jan 2008
Interview
Sent application after discussing potential for post doc position with staff scientist. Staff scientist submitted the position to HR, and I applied for the position online when it showed up. There was some background check paperwork to fill out. I accepted the offer to come out and interview. It consisted of a sit down with HR to talk about benefits and requirements. Then a presentation to scientists in the department, and then 1:1 interviews with various scientists in the department and lab tours, as usual. I went to lunch with some researchers and then to dinner with the staff scientist offering the position.
Interview questions [1]
Question 1
Only question that took me off guard was "If you had money to run whatever research program you wanted, what would you study?"
Gave a seminar, which is entirely normal. Did a behavioral interview with a panel of 10 people, which was legitimately weird. Nobody asked difficult technical questions. I don’t think they interviewed anyone else for this position.
Standard job talk and followup individual meetings, nothing really out of the ordinary. Communication leading up to the interview was clear and I was told who would be interviewing me in advance.
Interview questions [1]
Question 1
Mostly subject matter specific questions about my research
I applied online. The process took 3 months. I interviewed at Sandia National Laboratories (Albuquerque, NM) in Mar 2023
Interview
I had a two-process interview. The first interview was virtual, with basic introductory questions. The second interview was an on-site interview. When I arrived, I got a brief tour of the facilities and then had a 30-minute behavior interview with the team. I had to share a 45-minute presentation regarding my Ph.D. work and answer technical questions for 30~45 minutes. After that, I had two other (more informal) individual interviews with current postdocs to talk about life at Sandia. Overall, it was a very positive experience and got me excited about the available projects.
