I applied in July 2024 and within 5 days I was contacted by the recruiter for an initial phone screening. The recruiter clearly did not read my email, in which I gave them a list of 5 different times that would work for me, in their time zone. Instead, the recruiter sent me a meeting invitation for some random day/time that was not part of my availability. I emailed back to clarify, and they sent me a second meeting invite, also for a second day/time were I was not available. Not wanting to botch the opportunity, I accepted it anyway, and moved my schedule around to accommodate it.
During the interview one of my standard questions is to find out what the hiring manager is looking for. The recruiter got very cagey and said "hmm, how can I describe this without giving too much away..." I found this unacceptable since I have always worked with recruiters who were upfront and honest, and I did not appreciate having critical information concealed or withheld. Then the recruiter started describing a skill set in an unrelated field -- fundraising -- that was not in the job description whatsoever! I was very surprised, but I tried to be flexible and thought up examples of how my professional experience could assist with that. I always do exhaustive prep work before applying, and I had also done a lot of prep work for this interview, so I re-reviewed the job posting again -- and there was zero mention of fundraising. The recruiter stated that the hring manager was looking for someone who does well in front of customers and can really manage the process. I read the job description very closely, and other than a brief mention about being able to do grant writing – “able to contribute and write successful proposals in response to funding opportunity announcements” I did not see any mention of fundraising in the job description. So I was surprised when the recruiter focused on this as a primary need during the first interview.
I sent the recruiter a thank-you message immediately after our discussion, but I was met with radio silence for TWO MONTHS. I heard nothing back, so I assumed they went with a different candidate. Out of the blue I got an interview request, 8 weeks after the initial screening interview.
NREL expected me to furnish all my professional references ahead of the presentation/panel interview, which I felt like was putting the cart before the horse. Why make my references jump through all these hoops if I haven't even gotten a chance to speak with their panel and hiring manager? I was highly dismayed when they put my references through a ridiculous amount of work -- some of them followed up with me and explained that NREL was asking them to essentially write essays. I felt like this was premature to the point of being offensive, and certainly not a good use of my references' time.
Not only that, but they also required me to prepare a 30 minute presentation and spend half a day in virtual interviews. It seemed like there had been a lot of internal reorganization and confusion - one of their division managers mentioned that he has 52 direct reports! They all bragged about their pedigrees from prestigious alma maters and one bragged that they left industry to come to NREL because they used to travel to Aspen and Vail for skiing.
Although I explained to them that I planned to move if I were offered a position, they acted shocked when I explained that I was not currently a local candidate. They asked in a very weird, confrontational manner if I "expected" to be full remote, and acted like that was somehow unreasonable? The whole interview was very bizarre. I did not hear back from them and instead got 2 other offers from other agencies that paid 30-45% more than what this position would have offered.