Was looking for a technical, PhD-level position in the Pacific Northwest, and came across a job posting on Craigslist for a job in Portland, OR. Applied by supplying my resume via e-mail, and received a request for a phone interview within two weeks. Had the phone interview with the company's CTO -- she was very cordial, and wanted to know more about my specific scientific background. She also informed me more about the specifics of the job position that they were trying to fill, and some details about the company. They were a small outfit -- a start-up with roughly a dozen employees. They had only been in business for about a year, and were being funded through a venture capitalist fund. After about a 40-minute conversation, she invited me to come out for an in-person interview.
Within two weeks, I arrived onsite for my interview. The location was in Portland -- just south of downtown and a little hard to find, but I got there eventually. They were sharing a location with several other small companies, and at first I wasn't sure if I was in the right place, but the CTO eventually came out to greet me. The day-long interview started with ~30 min. presentation by me on my background, skills, and experience to a small audience of about 6 employees, including the CTO and CEO. Over the course of the day, I received a tour of the facilities -- two small lab spaces (one shared) and offices -- and was overcome by the compactness of the whole operation. I received an overview of the company's objectives -- mainly that they were researching novel LED phosphor materials and methods of dispersion for the application of white-light, solid-state lighting. I had 1-on1 interviews with both the CTO and CEO and several group interviews with some of the technical staff. I felt that these interviews went reasonably well, but one of the overall themes of these discussions was that they were trying to probe my knowledge of specific chemical processes and analysis. However, since they were reluctant to give me many details of the materials and processes that they were using, I found it difficult to highlight specific areas of my expertise that they might find useful.
Several weeks after the interview, I still hadn't heard back from the company, so I sent a probing e-mail. Got a rather curt reply saying that I was not a good fit for the position. So it goes, I suppose. Still, it would have been nice to have gotten a phone call rather than a solicited e-mail response. There was no offer to recompensate me for my travel expenses to the interview, either. In this case, just gas/mileage, but still...
