International Rescue Committee Consultant Interview Questions
& Process

The job posting had spelling errors and no salary listed, which were red flags. The first interview was with HR and went well, creating a warm environment. However, the second interview was scheduled outside of business hours and felt like an interrogation. The Program Director and Senior Technical Advisor asked questions rapidly with no room for conversation. Despite being told there would be time for questions at the end, the Senior TA kept interrupting, showing no interest in my perspective or alignment concerns. The overall vibe was condescending, which was surprising given they work in workforce development. It felt like an 'old world' economic development division where employees are expected to be grateful for any job. I only had two minutes for questions. When I asked about their team's strengths and improvement areas, they only answered the strengths part and said they "had to think about" the improvement areas, which seemed disingenuous and indicated a lack of self-awareness or willful ignorance. There was no Point of Contact listed for the Workforce team. Also, the job was listed as Program Officer but the duties were clearly Director-level, likely because the Director travels a lot. This would be fine if the salary was 90K+, but it's only 70-80K.

I went through four interviews, each over an hour long and conducted over the phone. The interviewers were really engaging and seemed genuinely interested in talking to me and invested in the conversation. After a few weeks of these calls, they mentioned they still had to interview one more internal candidate, which made me feel like a pawn. It seemed clear to me, and even the HR Director implied it, that I was the more qualified and experienced candidate, but they were set on promoting from within. I think it's tough to get into this company at a mid or upper level; you probably need to join at the ground floor.

The interview process had 3 stages: HR recruiter call, a panel interview with the hiring manager and a senior leader, and then a reference check with 5 references. The recruiter seemed disengaged and didn't really listen to my answers, like talking to a wall. They took 10 minutes to get started and find papers. The interview itself was pretty chill and informative about the role and company. It was a super long process though, with 6 weeks between the first and second interviews, which was crazy. They didn't seem to be in a hurry to hire or value my time.