First contacted by recruiter at On-ramps, an outside recruitment agency. Very professional and knowledgeable - she had worked with the team to write the job description, so was well-versed on the role. The best recruiter interview I've had so far. We talked for about an hour. At the end of the conversation, she scheduled a time for me to interview with the hiring manager (direct supervisor) the following week. Again, about a one hour interview with the Director. Was sent a hiring exercise the following week and given 5 days to complete it. Then invited to an all-day, in-person interview (6 one-on-one interviews, 50 minutes each with a 10 minute break between and 20 minutes for lunch) in NYC which was re-designed due to Hurricane Sandy and turned into a round robin Skype event using the original schedule. Director and Senior Director still wanted to meet the final two candidates in person, so was invited out again to give a 15 minute sample of my facilitation skills and answer some final questions. Unfortunately, this last interview was scheduled during a three-day training workshop I was running, but all were very understanding (though unable to reschedule) and offered me the opportunity to facilitate my example professional development session via WebEx. So very awkward to facilitate via cell phone and screen share, but I gave it my best and was not surprised when they went with the other candidate. Process lasted about 7 or 8 weeks. I was told they were looking to move very quickly. On-ramps recruiting handled the whole process beautifully and deserves much of the credit for the positive experience I had in the hiring process.

KIPP takes their time during the interview process. It took about a month to hear from them after I submitted my resume. Although I was excited to get the interview, I was extremely disappointed to learn it would be a digital interview without an actual person on the other end. The interview took place through a company called HireVue. I did my due diligence to prepare for the interview - read up on all the tips and tricks of doing a digital interview and also did a good amount of research on KIPP and the role itself. Although the HireVue company promoted the ease of use and convenience of participating in a digital interview, the experience was the opposite. In addition for prepping for the digital experience itself, a significant amount of time needs to be spent in preparing the actual space for the video taped interview (background, mic, lighting, etc.). Aside from this, digital interviews are just unnerving to do. The interviewee is not able to get any sense of whether their answers are being well received, they are not able to ask any clarifying questions to ensure they are providing the information that is most desirable and most importantly they are not able to ask any questions about the organization, the goals for the position or other important questions that help to establish an interviewee's strength and frame of reference. As a nonprofit that focuses on character building, I was pretty surprised that KIPP would decide to utilize such a non-human method for interviewing candidates. I sincerely hope that KIPP discontinues this process for future interviews and instead focuses on getting to know the personality and background of their candidates.