I applied through college or university. The process took 1 day. I interviewed at NASA Jet Propulsion Laboratory (Pasadena, CA)
Interview
This applies only to the interview process for a fresh PhD. Interviews are typically one day long. They begin with a presentation of the candidate's work with questions from a technical audience. This is followed by roughly 5 one-on-one interviews. These tend to be opportunities for the candidate to elaborate on the his/her work in graduate school or previous positions as well as a chance to ask questions about work at JPL. For this type of position, questions are not of the "quiz" variety but feelers to familiarize potential colleagues with the candidate.
Interview questions [1]
Question 1
All questions related directly to my PhD thesis. There were no surprises.
I applied in-person. I interviewed at NASA Jet Propulsion Laboratory (Pasadena, CA)
Interview
I spent the day on campus rotating through different groups and speaking with supervisors. It was very conversational and focused on what the groups worked on and what I was interested in. In other words, the interviews were more about establishing a fit rather than testing technical ability. This is possibly due to the fact that I have a PhD and so my technical abilities were already vetted -- I also had to give a 45 min seminar. A few groups weren't hiring but it was still valuable to speak with them.
I applied online. The process took 1 day. I interviewed at NASA Jet Propulsion Laboratory (Pasadena, CA) in Aug 2013
Interview
Applied online. After almost a year, got the first 30 min phone interview with the group supervisor. The onsite interview was scheduled 2 months after that. The interview took one full day, including one interview with the section head, me giving a 45 min seminar presentation, lunch, and 5 other interview meetings with the supervisors with other groups. On most meetings, I was interviewed by two group supervisors. Each meeting lasted about 45min. All people were very friendly.
