Hello! My name is Stefanie Leite and I am a Research Assistant for Advanced Empirical Solutions and an Independent Evaluation Consultant. As program evaluators, we seem to find ourselves in the role of interviewer more often than not. However, job seeking transfers our role to interviewee. While it may take a different set of skills, I daresay that as evaluators, we make the best interviewees! This is because we tend to be sympathetic toward interviewers (having been in their shoes), and hyper-sensitive to answering questions in ways that provide the exact bits of information that the interviewers seek.
Hot Tip: For the purpose of this blog, I’d like to share with you some interview questions I have come across as an interviewee for jobs in the evaluation field, with the intention of helping those of you out there who are job seekers to prepare.
- What computer skills do you have and how have you applied them in research and evaluation?
- What steps do you take to ensure the integrity of the data?
- What experience do you have in quantitative/qualitative data analysis?
- Describe a problem you encountered in analyzing data and how you handled it.
- Describe your experience in [project management/developing data collection instruments/report writing/presenting results and recommendations to stakeholders].
- [The interviewer reads a case study of a program.] How would you evaluate this program?
- Describe an accomplishment that you are especially proud of.
- Describe a mistake you made. How did you handle it? What did you learn from it?
- What is the most challenging aspect of program evaluation for you? What is the most rewarding aspect?
- Describe your ideal work environment.
- Describe your ideal supervisor.
- Describe your experience working in a team. What do you like most about working in a team? What do you like least?
- Why are you interested in working for us?
- In what ways would this position contribute to your long-term career goals?
- In what capacities would you like to grow professionally?
One more thing—at the end of the interview, the interviewer always asks, “Do you have any questions for me?” An excellent strategy is to refer to your own list of questions that you prepared prior to the interview.
Read Resource: These two books by Tony Beshara have been indispensible in helping me prepare for job interviews: The Job Search Solution (2006), and Acing the Interview (2008).
Best wishes to you all in securing the job of your dreams!
This contribution is from the aea365 Daily Tips blog, by and for evaluators, from the American Evaluation Association. Please consider contributing – send a note of interest to aea365@eval.org.
As a fellow recruiter I agree that most of the questions for hiring must be about their experiences. Most of the things you learn in college cannot be applied in the corporate world. Experiences are important since there are a lot of instances that could occur while working but not taught during college. Experiencing a lot of difference scenarios and learning different skills would be a huge help in getting a job!