Discover Manager Interview Questions
& Process

It started with a phone screen from the recruiter, followed by a more in-depth chat with the hiring manager. Then, I had an on-site interview in Riverwoods where I met with 3 Directors, each for about 45 minutes, and also the hiring manager. The recruiter was really helpful and answered a lot of my questions before the on-site. Honestly, after that first interview, I should have backed out – he was pretty upfront about how slow things moved there and that if I wanted to make changes, I probably wouldn't be a good fit. The next interviewer asked me if I thought I was overqualified, which was a bit of a strange question given I was interviewing for the role! Maybe they meant 'mature' since I was likely 5-10 years older than the rest of the team. I got a rejection email two days later. I did really like the hiring manager, though – smart, strategic, and full of energy. It's a shame the rest of the team wasn't quite like that.

The hiring process kicked off with a phone interview with the Senior Manager from the department. They went deep into technical aspects of building models, covering everything from data cleaning, selecting variables, interpreting results, to revalidating models. This call went on for over an hour. Later that same evening, I got an invite for the on-site interview. The on-site involved meeting five people: two Directors and three Senior Managers. I had 45 minutes with each. The Directors focused on assessing my potential and how well I'd fit the role, without asking technical questions. The Senior Managers, however, did ask technical questions and presented a case study on modeling user preference between two credit cards. After waiting for three weeks, HR let me know I didn't get the offer. Since I'm a fresh graduate with no prior experience in this field, this wasn't entirely unexpected. They ended up hiring someone with previous experience. Overall, it was a positive interview experience; everyone I met was really nice.

An HR rep reached out via email. I first had a phone call with the HR manager to check my background. Since I had the right experience, I then went on to have a long afternoon of interviews with the team. After 4.5 hours, I was bummed I didn't hear back from HR. I wish I could have gotten some feedback or at least a confirmation that they chose someone else. I know they have a lot of good people applying, so they picked who they thought was best. I followed up to get some closure but still no word from HR. I thought it was pretty unprofessional for a big company to ghost me like that. A quick email saying they went with another candidate would've been fine.