University of Wisconsin-Madison Communications Manager Interview Questions
& Process

First I did answered questions via recorded video, then I was brought in for a virtual interview via zoom. I didn't have any in-person interviews, which I thought was surprising. The recorded video questions let me rerecord my answers as many times as I wanted.

I applied online and after two weeks, I had a phone interview with four university staff and faculty. Two weeks following that, I was invited for an on-campus interview. Before the interview, I got instructions to create a communications strategy presentation for over 15 department members. The entire campus interview took three hours: first an interview with four staff members, then a presentation to the department, and finally an interview with department directors. This whole process was a negative experience for me because it was so long, and they asked candidates to create a whole communications strategy presentation. Creating a custom strategy takes significant time, effort, and skill, which is what I do for a living, and I felt like I was giving away my professional work for free. It's frustrating to put in so much effort, especially when they take my ideas to improve their operations but don't hire me. It took the director three weeks to tell me via email that they had selected someone else. I find it disappointing that candidates are expected to give their best performance in a three-hour interview, only to be rejected three weeks later. It would be much better if a decision could be made within one to two weeks, given the level of effort required from candidates.

It was a really professional and welcoming interview process. Everyone was nice, starting from the emails about the job. Even though I didn't get the job in the end, the manager sent me a personal email afterwards. It's rare to leave without getting an offer and feel okay about it, but WFAA managed to do that.