RAND Research Analyst Interview Questions
& Process

There were 2 rounds of interviews with different people. The second round involved an 11-page exercise that was sent out 2 days before the interview. The interviews were only conducted by white men. Feedback after the second interview was not good and seemed to go against instructions given earlier.

The interviewer seemed busy and breezed through the interview. The conversation lasted for 20 minutes plus a few minutes for me to ask questions. The interview was competency-based and was meant to be the first in a longer selection process. However, I never heard back from the organisation, despite RAND stating to be a values organisation.

After my CV was shortlisted, the first stage was a chat with a research leader, kind of a competency round. We talked about my past work and how my career aims fit with RAND. We also covered my experience with the technical sides of research, both quant and qual. Then came the technical round, which was about an hour. It had two parts: a research task and a project management task, both presented on the spot. For the research task, I had about 15 minutes to come up with ideas based on a client brief. The focus was on general research thinking, not deep domain knowledge. They asked things like what the potential research questions (RQs) could be, what concepts to explore, and data collection methods. It felt like a brainstorming session where I could think aloud and ask questions. The project management task took about 10 minutes and presented two scenarios (like internal project delays), allowing for discussion. Again, I could think out loud and give immediate ideas. The final chat was with HR to go over HR stuff like salary and start dates.