Association of Public Health Laboratories Interview Questions & Reviews

Interviewed Jan 2012 in Silver Spring, MD (took 4 weeks)

Overall I found this interview process slow moving and of limited productivity for everyone involved. But, I guess I learned form it so it was not a total loss.

I applied online and attempted to find a contact in this company who could also deliver my resume and cover letter to the hiring manager. I was super excited about this organizations and the job. All my research showed this is a fine organization and extremely reputable. One I would be proud to work for and use all my talents to help accomplish their goals and objectives.

I finally did receive a call from HR and had a very easy phone screen. Nothing difficult was asked, however the HR person was not able to answer any of my questions. Even the most basic. I also notice the job description could have been more descriptive about defining "their products". I finally was told the "products" are securing participants for events and educational conferences.

This phone screen was followed by being invited in for a panel interview. Upon hindsight, I find this extremely odd that the hiring manager did not want to at least spend the time to have a phone conversation first with me, esp given the HR Screen was so minimum.

I went into the interview excited, but found this format extremely difficult when answering their questions because of the different levels of personnel in the room. The audience included my manager-to-be, two of my would-be direct reports and an HR development person. The HR screener did not feel it necessary to even meet me.

I would have much preferred a one-on-one with my would-be manager before this grilling so 1) I could gauge if I really wanted to work for this person and 2) she could privately tell me what she really needed out of this position. Obviously the conversation was difficult and leading with the panel interview put the candidate in a very blind situation. I went with it the best I could. Word to the wise, if faced with this in the future I advise answering the question to the particular person who asked it and don;t worry about others in the room may think. It was not their questions. Also, be quick and say as little as possible. I felt there was some other agenda than trying to get to know me and assess the cultural fit as one usually is doing by the time you are meeting this number and various levels of interviewers.

After three follow up attempts by me to both the HR screener and my Manager-to-be, I received an appropriately worded "passing" email from the HR screener, who by the way did not ever attempt to receive the signed paperwork from me.

Right around this time I saw a much lower level position being advertised inthe Membership Department, so I am wondering if they downgraded the job that I was interviewing for.

Overall my impression is that due to the odd lack of normal interviewing protocol, there could be could lead to not-the-normal HR practices overall so maybe this is not the great organization that I thought it was. NEXT.