Tacoma Pierce Country Health Department Interview Questions
& Process

I applied once and didn't hear back. The job was posted again, so I reapplied and got an invite to set up an interview. It was a virtual interview with a group of 5 people, and they each asked 2 questions, making it 10 questions in total.

I applied online for the Administrative Assistant II job with the Environmental Health Department. HR invited me to take a test on May 12th, which I did on May 16th. The exam covered MS Word, Excel, and Access, and I got the results back the same day. I got an interview invitation on May 18th for May 24th, which I confirmed. When I got there, they gave me a list of questions. It was a panel interview with three people. One interviewer was a bit intense and didn't smile. They mentioned that a lot of the job would involve sending out reminders for septic systems. I got an email on June 1st saying I didn't get the job. The whole process took about a month.

The interview process itself was okay, but the overall experience was bad. It was a panel interview with 3 people asking around 7 or 8 questions. They were disorganized but nice. The biggest problem was the communication, or lack thereof. I was told a decision would be made by the end of the week I interviewed (early May), but when that didn't happen, I followed up multiple times over the next few weeks with no response. I also tried contacting HR beforehand multiple times through calls, voicemails, and emails, also with no response. It took a whole month to get a final decision, and HR basically said I wasn't selected. I was looking for a career change, but honestly, I feel like I avoided a bad situation.

HR first looks at applications that meet the requirements. Then the supervisor gets these qualified applications. The supervisor sets up an interview panel, calls and sets up the interviews, makes a list of questions, does the interviews, and decides who to hire. The interview team needs to document everything well, turn in all their paperwork, keep things confidential, and give a recommendation that isn't biased. The manager or supervisor makes the final choice. HR checks that all the paperwork is correct, that the interviews were done ethically, and makes the final job offer.