Applied to this job through my career website. After receiving an e-mail from their director of research, I was asked to complete a small "homework assignment", which consisted of three parts. The first was to read a tourism industry report and summarize it into a one page "newsletter," which could have hypothetically been mailed out to the firms shareholders. The next was to analyze survey data in Microsoft Excel and create a power point highlighting the key findings of the survey. The results were essentially in chart form and then neatly presented in the power point, demographics/name recognition/etc. Finally, they asked you to create a metric for determining which states were most "marketable" based on demographics including population and average income among other things. The interview process itself consisted first of a one on one interview with the director of research in which he asked resume questions and about the methods you used to decide what to include in your powerpoint/newsletter/marketabilitymetric. Also met with the current research analyst, the heads of each division of the office, and finally a large (5 person) panel of employees that would be relying on the RA for administrative support, at this point, it felt like the interview had become tedious, as they asked you the same questions that other members of the staff who were in the room had already inquired about. Overall not a difficult interview, culture seemed very young and hip, but still did not get the job.

Very straightforward questions about perspective on the company, experience, and technical skills. They were easy to schedule with, and everybody I met was pleasant, intelligent, and took the interview seriously. Seemed like a great place to work.