Independent Project Analysis Interview Questions
& Process

It was okay, pretty standard stuff for an interview. But it was really confusing and I couldn't figure out what they were actually looking for in a candidate. They seemed really unsure and all over the place.

Had a single round interview that was mostly behavioral. I talked to someone from the internship program and someone from the team I might be working on. It was pretty chill and casual. They answered my questions about the role but didn't have a lot of info on what I'd actually be doing.

Got an initial call with a recruiter within a week of applying, which was about 30 minutes. They were really transparent about things before the next interview. A few days later, I hopped on a video call with a Senior Analyst to chat about the job and my background. Then, about two weeks after the first call, I had a full-day interview. This involved meeting like a dozen people from different departments, with four or five separate interviews (most had two people). I also had to do a 10-15 minute presentation of my research, with time for questions afterward. Most folks I met were nice and talked a lot about their jobs and the company. The questions were mostly structured and behavioral, but a few were more out-of-the-box. I sent thank-you emails after the last interview, but only heard back from the admin who set everything up. I tried following up again in a week or two and heard nothing. I reached out again about six to eight weeks later, and still got no response. They had mentioned the process might be slow since my expected start date was three months away, and my feedback call was the day after my last interview. I never got a reply and figured I wouldn't at that point. I get that not everyone is a fit, but it would be cool to know the decision, especially after putting in the effort for a presentation and blocking out a whole day.

It was a three-round process. First, I had a phone interview with the Research team. It took a whole month to get the results. Then, there was a second round with another manager from the Research team. The last round was an onsite interview that lasted from 8 am to 3 pm. Before that, there was an online Maths and English test. After that, I had about 5 interviews with different groups from the Research and Project teams. Each interview had 2 people from the team. I also gave a presentation about myself and my recent work, explaining how it relates to IPA's work. The interviewers were nice, but be ready to talk all day. So many interviews make it exhausting.