Applied through a staffing agency for a position in the Economics research department. Waited more than 45 minutes after the scheduled time for the first interviewer to arrive. Extremely unprofessional arrangement throughout, but this is only the tip of the iceberg.
One of the interviewers was from Arts and Sports, an obvious mismatch from my department of application. She neither explained nor apologized for the substantial delay, and went out to chat with her colleague when I was answering one of her questions.
The other interviewer, one from the Economics and Finance team, barged into the room much later. Both interviewers appeared to not have read my resume prior to the interview, and the interviewer from Arts and Sports even had the audacity to look at her phone while I was responding.
Despite claiming digital finance to be a major research focus, the interviewer from Economics and Finance demonstrated little to no understanding of the topic when I inquired his opinion on the subject. He also claimed that econometrics is not applicable to policy research, and was thus stumped when I inquired about his organization's methods of projecting housing supply -- a topic covered by one of the organization's published reports.
The interviewers' demeanour, and the overall interview arrangement, speaks volumes about the firm's culture, competence and hiring practices. After the interview, it is thus no surprise that this think tank is struggling, and that seems to have little to do with macro factors.
