Pomona College Interview Questions
& Process

I just sent in my resume and cover letter and then had a quick in-person interview. It was a pretty straightforward process, and I got the job offer pretty quickly. All in all, it was fine, just the usual personality questions they tend to ask.

The first round was a 1-hour Zoom panel with 7-8 people I'd work with, and the search committee chair oversaw it. The questions related to the job. The second round was on campus, with paid expenses and a hotel stay. The schedule was packed from 8 am to 6 pm with little break time. It was hard to stay energized, but it gave me a good sense of the culture and important people at the College.

This was a really thorough interview process. I met with people from all over the company and even some from places we partner with. The interview day itself was about half a day, and it included lunch and some time to just hang out. It started with meeting the big bosses, then I had meetings with different teams. Each meeting wasn't longer than an hour, depending on who I was talking to.

The interview process for this Director-level role was really long and drawn out. It started in July with my first Zoom interview with the head of the department. We had a good initial conversation and they laid out a clear vision for the department. A major issue throughout was the poor communication. There were often multi-week gaps with no email responses, followed by scheduling for another round of interviews, and then more silence for three weeks. This continued from July to November. I had a total of 8 interviews over 4 months. Three were with the department head, three were group interviews, and two were individual interviews, all lasting an hour via Zoom. It was also concerning when a former colleague mentioned the department head had called one of my previous workplaces asking for feedback from someone who didn't even work there when I did. If they had asked me directly, I would have provided contact information for my former supervisors. After the department head told me they would decide on a Monday, I received an email from Pomona HR on Wednesday asking for references. This was the first time HR was involved in the entire 4-month process. Even after submitting references, there were two more weeks of silence before I found out I didn't get the job. Overall, their communication is a big problem and their hiring process needs a serious overhaul. HR should be involved much earlier, and they shouldn't string candidates along for months, especially during a pandemic.