Museum of Fine Arts, Boston Interview Questions
& Process

I had several phone interviews for this part-time educator role. Then I came in for a mock teaching session where the interviewers acted like children, speaking in baby voices, which I found quite uncomfortable. The whole process felt quite long for a part-time position.

I had a phone interview first which went well, then an in-person interview was scheduled. I thought I was just going to meet with the person I spoke to on the phone, but I was actually meeting with her first and then having a second interview with another person. The whole process took 2 long hours. I met with the person I spoke to on the phone and we basically just expanded on what we talked about over the phone. The second person was more in-depth with the certain position. At one point she told me how I would normally do something, and how I had gone about doing it at my previous job was wrong and I should never do that. I think that was the make or break of the interview. In the end the job sounded way too stressful. Apparently they have a limited staff, limited resources to call upon when in need of higher assistance because of the size of the museum, and you are discouraged from handling problems by yourself, but should still be able to handle those problems. It was confusing and I walked away hoping that they wouldn't call me. I really didn't want the job.

I applied online and the manager for my department emailed me a few weeks later to set up an interview. I scheduled the interview, and on the day, I first met with the HR person. She then walked me to the department's office where I met with the department manager and my immediate supervisor. The HR person was really nice and easy to talk to, which helped calm my nerves. This part of the interview was more about my general experience and previous jobs. We also discussed salary, and she told me the pay range for the position. I'm not sure if they always do this or if she mentioned it because she knew it would mean less pay for me and wanted to see if I was still interested. The part of the interview with the department was more focused on the job itself, asking about my experience and explaining the job details.

Met with a small panel of senior curators and administrators from the relevant department. Conversation was (mostly) focused and genuinely enjoyable. Highly comfortable overall, and featured a one-on-one with HR both before and after the Teams meeting. While amicable at the time, HR failed their promise to keep in touch, never following up after the interview and silently withdrawing the job posting weeks later.