The Newport Group Interview Questions
& Process

I put in my application via LinkedIn and the CEO reached out the same day to set up a call. We emailed back and forth a bit after that. The next day, the VP called and asked me to come in for an in-person interview. It was about two hours long. Some parts of the interview were pretty casual and not what I expected, and I didn't really get a clear picture of what the job day-to-day would be like. There were also some awkward and inappropriate chats that made it hard to focus on the job. The CEO and VP both asked a bunch about whether I wanted part-time or full-time. The job ad said part-time, and I told them I was good with that but could also do full-time if needed. It was definitely a different kind of interview experience.

Expect a process similar to how we advise clients to hire wisely, using our SMART search approach. We had several hours of initial phone screening, then face-to-face meetings with the Director of Team Building, the Executive Vice President and General Manager, and the President. In total, we had 7 hours of discussion before the offer and acceptance.

I went through 3 in-person interviews over 3 months. The first was a 90-minute in-person interview with John (CEO) and two managers who apparently didn't know about it. After I sent a thank you, John told me to call twice but never picked up or responded about the position status. Three weeks later, I had a 75-minute in-person interview with David James, which went well. Then, I did a 1-hour online test for job fit, but never heard back. A month later, I had a third in-person interview: 1 hour with one department head, then 20 minutes with another, and finally 10 minutes with John, who asked me the same questions from the first interview and didn't remember my answers. He told me there wasn't a position but to call back next week or before I accepted another job. It was an awful, time-consuming, and inconsiderate process with no real outcome.

It was a two part interview process. First I had a phone screen, then I had an in-person interview with an executive. The in-person was pretty long, maybe one to two hours, and they asked a lot of questions quickly. I thought it went well but I didn't get the job in the end.