YipitData Research Associate Interview Questions
& Process

The interview process was pretty smooth. It took about two months from the initial recruiter chat to getting the final decision. Overall, the interviews were fine, though there was one that felt a bit more intense, but that person isn't with the company anymore. The case studies they gave weren't super tough, but they did need careful work. Since they usually gave me at least a week to finish them, I could use my weekends to get them done.

The whole recruitment process I experienced is as below. First, a quite straightforward case study that won’t take long. It gives a high-level picture of what part of the daily work may look like. In less than a week, I received a next round invitation for a 30~40 min talk with a team leader. A great opportunity to learn more about the company and the role. Later I received an invitation for the next round – a take-home case study. The topic is a listed co, and tasks are quite interesting. You’ll have one week’s time, and I personally spent over 10 hours on the analysis and some other time for formatting and visualization. After around half a month, I received an invitation for the final round – zoom meetings with other team members, including management & team members from the data team, research team, sales team, etc. Overall, the steps were clearly outlined at the start of the communication, and you will have a very clear expectation of the timeline since the beginning. Every single team member I met was super friendly, which surprised me (especially when compared to companies I was interviewed before, including “MB” of the MBB and two of the bulge brackets). The HR team was also very helpful and responsive.

I applied for a Research Associate role and was initially asked to complete an analysis assignment, which I passed. After passing the assignment, I received an interview invitation. However, just before the interview, they changed their mind and stated they could only consider me for a Research Specialist role, which is junior to the Research Associate position. Despite my three years of experience at a finance firm and relevant previous experience, I requested the hiring manager reconsider me for the Research Associate role, but HR immediately rejected my request. They could have informed me about this limitation before I spent time on the assignment, but they didn't. I'm disappointed that after receiving an interview invitation, they changed their decision without even meeting me. This company shows no respect to candidates.