San Diego Community College District Interview Questions
& Process

The first interview was with a panel of around 7 people. They give you 20 minutes to prepare for the questions before the interview starts. It's a very dry interview because they have to stick to their list of questions. The second interview was with the person you would report to and other supervisors.

The interview process felt very rigid and impersonal, almost like dealing with a bureaucracy. They clearly got a lot of information from me through their set of ten questions, but I barely learned anything about them beyond how inflexible the entire hiring system seemed to be. Although I received an offer, the HR department's intensity was overwhelming. They were calling constantly and leaving urgent voicemails about responding to a major life decision within 24 hours, a decision they had taken months to make themselves. Consequently, I declined the offer and I'm relieved I did. I didn't want to be part of an organization with that kind of approach. They really need to overhaul their process if they want to attract talented individuals. It seemed like a potentially great place, but the HR experience was so off-putting it was genuinely surprising. I believe the Dean or President should be handling the hiring, not HR. The human element completely disappeared after my final interview.

The interview process was quite different than what I was told in the invitation email. It was supposed to be 60 minutes of questions plus a teaching demonstration, but it ended up being 50 minutes INCLUDING the demonstration. The demo topic felt a bit too high-level for what they seemed to be looking for. The really off-putting part happened before the interview when I arrived at the office. The secretary was chatting with a director, I introduced myself, and they had me sit aside and kept talking. Then one of them said something a bit inappropriate before I was led into the conference room, and she shut the door behind her, leaving me in silence. After that, I received the questions 5 minutes past the scheduled time. Then I went into the interview, and the cold atmosphere made me feel it was over before it began. The whole interview was strictly timed with a timekeeper, which felt overly rigid for a higher education interview at a community college. The questions were the same ones from the online application, and I didn't get the sense they were truly interested in getting to know me or the other candidates. It's hard to say for sure. I definitely won't apply here again and will advise qualified colleagues to steer clear too. The people in the room seemed so cold, I can't imagine it would be easy to work with them.

I got an email about an open day for an interview, so I called back and set it up. The first interview was a panel with a sheet of questions for which to prepare answers 15 minutes beforehand. I got a call for a second interview a week later. This time it was an HR person and someone from the finance department. I was made aware that 3 other people were jockeying for the same position. I got an email a week later that someone else was chosen for the position. I sent the HR person a thank you letter.