City of Boston Interview Questions
& Process

Had two interviews for a manager role. The first one went well, a 30-minute mini-panel with standard questions and time for my questions. I got a second interview two weeks later. The hiring process felt slow and bureaucratic. They asked me to complete an assignment before the second interview, which was another, bigger panel interview. The structure was the same, but they ghosted me afterwards, never giving feedback even though they said I'd get it in two weeks. I even emailed to follow up but was ignored. It felt like they just wanted the assignment done and didn't plan to hire anyone.

I had an initial phone chat with a Fellow from the Mayor's Office of New Urban Mechanics. They were nice but didn't know much about the hiring process or what kind of candidate they were looking for. A few days later, I got an email inviting me to a group interview/workshop on a Friday afternoon with other finalists. The date and time were fixed. I couldn't make it because I had a prior work commitment I couldn't miss, and honestly, I didn't want to be hired in a mass hiring like seasonal retail workers. It was disappointing because the process felt neither fair nor respectful to candidates.

I got an email with some questions to answer before the interview, and I had to send them back. The first interview was a video call with a project manager and someone from IT. The second interview was with the IT director, a future colleague, and the chief of enterprise applications. The Chief and Director of IT told me that all of us applicants (there were 5) would hear back from HR. HR then contacted me to ask if I was still interested in the job, and I said yes, but I never heard back. I followed up, and HR said they'd know more in a week, but this was 3 weeks after the 2nd interview. I never heard back after that - pretty unprofessional.

So first, there was a Google Questionnaire asking stuff like why you want this job, your stats/math background, and which city departments you'd be excited to work with. Then, if you got selected, you had to do this quantitative reasoning thing with 4 main questions about data analysis scenarios. The first interview was basically follow-up questions on that, asking about stats concepts, and some general behavioral questions with the manager and two data analytics folks. Then, a final interview with more behavioral and some quantitative questions, with the hiring manager and two more analytics team members. After that, I assume there was a background check and then an offer.