Center for Effective Philanthropy Analyst Interview Questions
& Process

First, a phone screening. Second, a timed Excel assessment sent via email. Third, a 3-hour interview with 3 separate 55-minute sections, each with a 5-minute break, and you'll meet two team members in each section.

I played phone tag with the hiring manager who canceled my phone screen the first time. Then I got notice that I’ve moved onto the 2-hour-long skills assessment phase. After spending 2 hours outside of my full-time job completing that, I was brought in for a 4-hours-long ordeal in-person to interview with different members of the team. I prepared tirelessly for this, had to purchase business casual clothes, and had to take the day off from my current job in order to be there. In each interview, I was only given about 5 minutes to ask questions. One of the 2-person groups that interviewed me kept exchanging looks and laughs that made me feel like an outsider. I got no responses to the thank you emails I sent to each staff member after interviewing. After 2 weeks of radio silence, I had to follow up with them to find out that I did not get the position.

The interview journey kicked off with a phone screen covering my background and stats knowledge. Initially, I didn't pass the skills assessment stage, but they got back in touch about a month later asking me to continue because they needed to hire another analyst. I then did the skills assessment, which was super basic – just a few Excel tasks like making a pivot table or finding duplicate emails/spelling errors. You didn't even really need shortcuts, though they help save time. After that, I had a quick call with the same HR person to chat about how I did on the tasks, plus some more stats questions, like which test I'd use for analyzing certain data. About 30 minutes later, I was invited for the in-person interview. I have to say, this whole process was long and mostly done via video, which meant a lot of screen time that wasn't ideal for me – blurry vision and a headache by the end. I get they want you to meet people in different offices, but breaking up the interviews or having someone in the room would have been better. The interviews themselves started with a case study, which was the best part. You get some background info and charts, then draw conclusions and think about what's missing. They give you 20 minutes to review before discussing it with two team members. That was great and felt like a real representation of the job. Then, I had an in-person chat with another analyst. He was really nice and around my age, but it felt like he was just reading off a list of questions about my analytical background, not really a conversation. Finally, I had a video call with a manager and her direct report. They immediately mentioned their good relationship, which is fine, but they made me feel like an outsider. They weren't very warm and kept looking at each other, laughing, and saying things I couldn't quite hear. Maybe they didn't realize, but it's hard to tell on video. This was also when I was staring at the screen for an hour straight, which brought on that headache again. The questions were behavioral: how I like feedback, handling little direction, and fixing past mistakes. Standard stuff, but the vibe made it unpleasant. An analyst then walked me out, and since it was Friday, the office was empty, which felt a bit strange, but if that's the work culture, it's good they weren't hiding anything. I sent personalized thank you notes to everyone, knowing their time commitment. I never heard back. Following up with the HR rep a few weeks later yielded no response either. After a 4-hour interview, a simple update on the job status would have been appreciated. The kicker? I'm now on their mailing list, getting constant emails.