Urban Institute Research Interview Questions
& Process

I applied online for an RA position at the Health Policy Center in March 2019. About a month later, an HR person contacted me to see if I could chat with some team members. The day before the interview, I found out it would be a three-hour session with two Senior Policy Researchers, two Research Analysts, and two current Research Assistants. It seemed pretty intimidating, but the interview was actually quite relaxed, and I met some great people. I talked to each person for about 30 minutes. They were keen to know about my background in statistical analysis, demographic methods, and the datasets I'd used. They asked me why I picked a particular dataset, which variables I focused on, and the data collection process for it. The questions were pretty similar for each person I spoke with. Everyone was really friendly and happy to share their experiences working at the Urban Institute. Make sure you're prepared to discuss your research background in detail. I got asked for references two days after the interview, and then got offered the job the day after my references were submitted.

Applied online, got contacted about three weeks later for more role-specific info. After another few weeks, had a 30-minute phone interview that was pretty standard difficulty, mostly role-specific questions with some behavioral ones. A month post-phone interview, invited for an in-person. Had to submit my transcript and a writing sample beforehand. Then, had four 30-minute interviews with different departments. Questions weren't super hard, though one interview wasn't great because the interviewers were young and unskilled. Thought the interviews went well and was eager to hear back. Three weeks passed with no word, even after emailing HR for an update. Never got a response. The whole thing took over three months and a lot of hours for applications and interviews. Felt I deserved at least a courtesy email, especially after reaching out to HR. Found the hiring process really slow and unprofessional. Won't apply to Urban Institute again, even after my master's. There are more respectful research orgs out there.

I applied online in January and after about two months, a project manager from Income and Benefits reached out to me to do an empirical exercise, which was the first step. I had four hours to analyze actual data from the STAR experiment. I had to do two things: #1. conduct descriptive analysis to check for randomization and #2. run a couple regressions. The test and instructions were clear, and I worked hard. A few days later, I got a phone interview offer from an HR person. We discussed my employment verification (STEM OPT for international students) and my motivation for wanting to work at Urban Institute. They also mentioned the salary of 35k a year, which I was okay with. They asked about my availability for the next interview round with a panel. Four months passed without a response, so I sent a follow-up email after two weeks. It's really unprofessional to ask candidates to spend four hours on a test and not even send a simple reply.