Union of Concerned Scientists Interview Questions
& Process

This process took ages and they barely communicated with me. It took weeks between interviews, and I got no updates in between. The interviews themselves were good and revealing, with a lot of different questions asked, but the whole process was just really bad. It was tough to take, especially for an organization that says it's working to be anti-racist, and then takes 5 months to send a rejection. And then just a generic rejection at the end. Sucks.

It was a two interview process for a program assistant position with their Center for Science and Democracy team. The first interview they do over a system called HireVue, where you record your answer to prompted questions over a Skype-like interface, but you can record at any time, no appointment needed. I was a little camera shy, but they didn't seem to care much about being camera ready per se, they were very good about weighing your answers independent of that, which was great. The second interview was in person, I interviewed with the three person team I would work with. Everyone was very nice, but they went into some tough questions I felt kind of unready for quickly. I didn't get the job, I felt like I may have let my guard down too quickly because of their friendliness.

About 2-3 weeks after I applied, I was contacted for the initial interview. It was done using an online video system where we had two weeks to complete it whenever we wanted. We had 10 questions and unlimited prep time for each, but once we started recording, there were time limits for the answers (3-5 min). It was good because I had enough time to get ready for the questions, as some were pretty technical. But it was also really awkward answering questions without any feedback, unlike a normal phone or in-person interview where you can gauge the tone. The interviewers took over two months to get back to me, longer than expected, because of the holidays. They didn't email us until after the position was filled.

Applied for the role and heard back weeks later for an interview. The interview itself was okay difficulty-wise, but I could tell I wasn't connecting with the interviewer, and I felt less enthusiastic about the role overall. Nothing was overtly wrong, but as an interviewer, I wasn't really sold on working there, the job, or the work's end goals. This might just be a genuine 'fit' issue for me. I didn't hear back for over a month (I think if I was moving forward, I'd hear back in a week or two), but by then, I figured I wasn't moving on and lost interest. If they were interested, I would've gone just to learn more about the org, team, etc., but as I said, I wasn't really excited. I asked for feedback, noting I understood if nothing could be shared, and never heard back. This isn't unusual, but considering how often ghosting is mentioned in reviews, it's not surprising.