World Bank Group Research Interview Questions
& Process

The process is pretty quick if you are hired as a non-paid intern. Only 1 round of interviews and they got back to me the day after with an offer letter. Pretty smooth process.

I was pretty lucky to get the opportunity to have an interview with the project manager. He firstly asked me about my educational background (I only have a Master's degree in political economy) and then I was told to take a simple test on my ability to run statistic software (eg. spss/ excel/ sas). The office at the specific division is small-- cupical but my friend told me if I'm lucky I can get my own small office like he does. Everyone is very nice and polite there (I guess everyone has a huge respecfulness to each other). The manager then told me it's a short-term project (about one month and half) and he's still hesitant to bring in/ hiring a new person just bacause it's a huge hassle to go through the whole hiring process. (I'm not sure how long and how complex the whole hiring process at the Bank but it's a huge bureaucracy so I can imagine it would take awhile to finish all the paper work). Anyways, I didn't get a rejection the end of the day; however, I didn't get an offer, either. My friend told me the projecy manager (he previous boss) decided to do the project himself, which is probably the easies and no hiring involved.

It starts with a referral from someone familiar with the system (like a professor or past employee). Then, you submit a standard CV, a cover letter, and three reference letters (make sure they're from well-known people). After that, there's a Skype interview with two economists. Next, you have a 2-hour Stata test to complete and send back, focusing on basic data management and statistics. Finally, you sign the contract and sort out visa details.