Lucile Packard Foundation for Children's Health Interview Questions
& Process

I went through a 4 week interview process with for a mid-level/AD role and while I appreciated the initial interest and timely communication, the overall experience left a lot to be desired. The process began with a recruiter outreach on LinkedIn followed by a 45 min screening video call with the hiring manager that seemed aligned and straightforward. Things quickly became more intense with a take-home assignment that was supposed to take about 2 hours but in reality required over 3.5 hours of UNPAID work. They gave a week to complete and it consisted of answering a managerial behavior scenario and a technical reconciliation assignment. I received no feedback on the assignment, but was moved forward to a finalist round after submission. The final interview was a 4 hour in-person panel interview with 7 (!) staffers across multiple rounds— no lunch, no compensation, just 30+ rapid-fire behavioral questions (think S.T.A.R. method over and over again). The interview panels were professional, kind, and thoughtful but made little connection/eye contact just looked at paper and asked questions. By the end, I was repeating myself and mentally exhausted after hours of the same questions with no real human conversations. This kind of high-pressure interview format (especially without any accommodations or signs of basic hospitality) was a huge red flag. Also during the final panel, I was told (for the first time) that the role is “extremely fast-paced, high-pressure, and high-volume with constant shifting priorities.” It was made very clear that work/life balance was not the norm and people were 'drowning' in work. Red flags galore!!

The whole thing took like 2 months and spanned the holidays and New Year's. First weird thing was getting a take-home assignment from RCG Talent during Christmas week, they didn't seem to care about the holiday. Anyway, the process included a 45 min recruiter call, then a 30 min HM zoom chat, then the take-home, then a 30 min team interview with 2 people, and finally a 45-60 min presentation of the take-home to upper leadership (Director, VP) and the HM. They also asked to record two of the interviews, which was odd. RCG Talent wasted a lot of my time and I'm still not sure why they advanced me. The take-home asked for a communication plan work sample and a scenario outlining how to include a stakeholder in a project plan. They said it would take 2-3 hours but it took longer, and I was hesitant to share previous work samples. RCG Talent also asked for referrals before an offer, which seemed premature. I was told I'd hear back in two weeks after the final round, but never did after 3 weeks. The whole process lacked empathy, clarity, and logic, and RCG Talent seemed clueless about the actual effort involved in the assignments. LPFCH also seemed to not care about the candidate experience.

Got contacted by a third-party recruiter to do an initial screening. Then I had to do a take-home assessment. I wasn't selected for the next stages, which would have been presenting the assessment to the team and then a coffee chat with the hiring manager and another team member.

What got me irritated is the fact that these places don't understand that some of us work and expect us to do an interview immediately. I took the time out of my lunch break to do an interview with the nurse. I felt like I answered the questions correctly because its the same typical questions big companies always ask. The feedback I received got me infuriated because apparently I somehow 'did not answer the questions' and supposedly sounded 'vague'. I felt like that was just an excuse to waste my time because I spoke the same way in another interview and the interviewer understood me. Well, this place lost a good worker. I guess it is a good thing I did not get an offer. Now I know what to avoid.