I enjoyed the process-- It was well organized, structured entire-day event. I went through HR phone screen, phone interview with hiring manager, and then on-site interview in that order. I met with a mixture of people, ranging from junior scientists, to senior and principal level scientists, to vice president of the group and had to give a 45-min presentation on my research work. I am coming in directly from graduate school (PhD), with no postdoc, therefore I am not necessarily a good fit for the Scientist I position (which requires a postdoc). The position I applied for, was very relevant to my field of work, therefore I felt very comfortable talking about it. I didn't want to do an academic postdoc, and therefore this is a good way to get a foot into the door, if the goal is to move into the pharmaceutical industry. People were friendly, engaging, supportive and easy to talk to and accessible. I had a positive vibe after the day and saw myself working with the team.

I was contacted within 1 week of applying and did a HR phone screen. After the phone screen the hiring manager (which is generally the head PI of the group you will be joining as assoc sci) contacted me several days after the HR screen and we did a 30min phone interview. Due to COVID the next step would generally be an onsite full interview day and location tour but now it was a full virtual panel interview that took 6hrs. I essentially met everyone on the team, multiple team leads and the director of the group. As an assoc sci I-II you do not need to present data, that is scientist or senior scientist level. After the panel I received word from the initial HR rep 2 weeks later that I was chosen for the position, this is where they will go over salary and start date if you verbally accept here. I do honestly believe that the difficulty would depend on what kind of group you are joining. This was for a more exploratory preclinical group which does alot of in vivo work, the group was super friendly and did not feel like an intense grilling. Whereas I also applied for a late stage formulation job and everything was intense, the basic phone interview and panel was more technical and intense. But from both groups no one did gotcha or trying questions. The process was really smooth and organized from AstraZeneca.