I applied online. The process took 1+ week. I interviewed at AlphaSights (New York, NY) in Oct 2014
Interview
I applied online and was contacted the next day to set up a Google Hangout. Overall it went very well. Questions were straightforward although seemed totally random and irrelevant to me. I live out of the state and was planning on being in New York for a few days anyways so they asked if I could come in the following day for my in-person interview. The interviews took about 4 hours and ranged from very easy to awful. Some of the interviewers were easy to talk to and very engaging. Others looked at me like I was wasting their time and offered no feedback during the course of the interview. The questions were again very random. I don't see how any of the things they asked related to the job. I was told that I would be notified within a week of the final decision. It has been over a month and a half and I still have not received any communication from the company. While I know they are busy, a final, respectful communication that a candidate is no longer being considered is both appropriate and expected. I followed up with the company 2 weeks after my interview and received no response. I'm left with a very sour taste in my mouth regarding AlphaSights- I wouldn't want to work for a company that doesn't care to take 30 seconds to notify their candidates of their decisions.
Interview questions [1]
Question 1
If you could hire someone else for this position, who would it be and why?
If you could change something from your past, what would it be and why?
Why did you go to the college you chose?
I applied through college or university. The process took 2 weeks. I interviewed at AlphaSights (New York, NY)
Interview
Horrible and impersonal. Looking for certain personality traits and only have 30 second to answer first round interview questions. The questions are extreme basic and not related to the position. In addition, your recording your answers and have no redo.
I applied online. The process took 6 weeks. I interviewed at AlphaSights
Interview
They say that they're looking for passion and flexibility, but to be completely honest, it doesn't seem like they really know what they're looking for. It's an unnecessarily long process considering that they keep saying they're growing quickly.
My path:
I attended a recruiting event and I actually enjoyed talking with the recruiters - they seemed to truly enjoy their job. Everyone was told to apply online. After I applied, actually thought I'd been rejected because I didn't hear back from them. But 3+ weeks afterward, I surprisingly received an email to do the video interviews. 2 weeks after that, I was scheduled to do a phone interview.
A red flag I should have listened to early on, however, was that my emails for clarification - and even a phone call to their office - went unanswered. So although I thought my phone interview went well, I wasn't especially surprised that I received a rejection email the next day. They keep emphasizing that they're growing, but I don't see how that's possible if their recruiting process is this slow and unfriendly.
Some tips:
For the video interview, just go through all the questions found here and practice answering to your computer (remember to look into the camera, not the screen; think of the camera as your interviewer's eyes). If you practice, it really isn't as bad as people keep whining about.
For the phone interview, it'll be really short - mine was 15 minutes exactly - with disconnected questions and no follow up. It seemed like they were just running through a list of questions. When I asked if there were any concerns about my application, my interviewer said I checked out fine and should hear back within 2 weeks.
The fact that I wasn't passed through tells me 1) my interviewer really had concerns, which says they aren't keen on being open with their candidates despite their touting a culture of open communication; 2) they're looking for very specific qualifications that they're not communicating to candidates; 3) they don't really know or there's no consistency about what they're looking for in a candidate.
I think AlphaSights is doing great work -- but if this is how they treat their candidates, I'm not so sure it'd be great to actually work there.
Interview questions [1]
Question 1
All general behavior questions and questions found in others' posts