NORC at the University of Chicago Research Interview Questions
& Process

I had applied online for a research assistant position. A week and a half later, the Senior Recruiter reached out and asked if I was interested in an administrative assistant position instead, because the position I applied for was closed. I said yes and we planned to have a phone interview the following week. I gave her my availability (on a Friday) and she didn't reply until Sunday night saying the next day would be good. I had to email her twice the next day (the day of the interview) to find out the time since I had given her a 6 hour window. She finally replied and set up a time in two hours. During the phone screening, she was reading questions off of a list. They were pretty standard, but a lot of them were about my research experiences which threw me off since I had prepared answers for an administrative assistant position. The interview lasted about 25 minutes. There were a lot of awkward pauses and it didn't feel conversational at all. After a week I heard back and she said their hiring team was interested in interviewing me for another research assistant position. I was glad to be considered for this position as I had expressed great interest in doing research during the phone interview. She then passed me on to the administrative assistant who would set up the in-person interview. I had to reach out to the administrative assistant to ask about a time because she did not follow up with me. The admin assistant said they were still organizing things but also wanted me to do another interview with the vice president of the department because she would not be able to be there for the in-person interview. I gave her my availability for that as well (this was on a Friday). The date for the in-person interview was set up, but not the times. The phone interview was supposed to be the following week, so when she did not reply to my email, I had to reach out to her again to ask about a time because it could be as early as the next day. She said they were still figuring it out and would get back to me at COB. Finally, we set up a time for Tuesday for a phone interview with the VP. On Tuesday, two hours before the planned time, they cancelled because of a last-minute conflict. I told her I was also available on Thursday and Friday. I also inquired about the time of the in-person interview which was the next Monday - that time was also not organized. Ultimately, I withdrew my application on Thursday afternoon because I decided to pursue another job. But at that point she still hadn't set up a time for a phone interview. I do wonder when they would have let me know the times had I not reached out to them to withdraw my application. This was for their Healthcare Department, so I don't know if other departments might be like this. But overall it was extremely disorganized and also just inconsiderate because I don't want to wait around all day to know when they want to talk to me for 30 minutes.

Had a somewhat uncomfortable initial phone interview. The job listing talked about various research and admin duties, but the interviewer mostly asked about my direct experience with surveys. I get why they focused on that given the company, but the job description didn't specifically state it was a requirement. They didn't ask anything about the actual research topic.

It started with a quick call with HR to go over my resume. Then, I had a longer phone interview with a senior researcher. The final stage was an in-person interview that lasted about half a day with several researchers. This last one was mainly to see if my personality fit with the team. Pretty straightforward.