The Salvation Army interview questions

Contacted by email first and submitted the initial assessment which took about an hour. I then received a call from the manager for the first phone interview. I then was ask to take the 2nd assessment which took about 5 hours to complete. The assessment consisted of apptitude test, math, vocabulary, personality test, essay and many more. It was very complete. After about 2 months I received a call from another manager for a short interview. After 2 months I interviewed with the first manager face to face with lasted about an hour. I was then asked to participate in a panel interview a month later. The interview lasted for 1 hour with 4 people on the panel. The interviewing lasted for 5 months which was too long. They never returned my calls.

I was contacted via e-mail on 4/24 by the "COO Secretary" and invited for an interview either by phone or in person at 3:00 pm on Friday afternoon 5/4. During the interim, I e-mailed the COO Secretary 2x and requested a phone interview and asked for the name(s) and positions of the person(s) with whom I would be interviewing. I never received a reply, so on the afternoon of the interview, and after making several phone calls, was informed that the COO Secretary no longer worked with the Salvation Army. If I had not taken the initiative to call and to find out who would be interviewing me, the interview would not have happened, and I did not know with whom I would be interviewing until it actually took place, and it consisted of a panel interview with about four people. The process was essentially "bait and switch", showing one job description but then presenting a completely different one prior to the interview. In this case, the position was newly created and would consist of all of the former functions which were managed by the COO who had been in place less than a year. Too, research indicated much turn-over and organizational turmoil. Why would the COO shift all of his critical functions to a new position and then reduce their importance by placing them under the responsibility of a position with a lesser title? Good question, ha? What will he do with his time now? When asked about a mission statement and strategic plans, he informed me that they recently completed a strategic plan but yet there was no integrationg of this new, very important cross functional position with the strategic plan's objectives. No metion of it whatsoever....odd. At any rate, the process was less than forthcoming, sneaky, and actually dishonest. Very disappointing from the Salvation Army. Too, I noticed that approximately 25% of their funds were used to support management, that the average significant donor is age 65 or over but yet they just had their first ever 5k Red Kettle Run. Do 65 year olds participate in 5k's? Sounds like they are missing the target audience. Oh, and now they are co-branding with United Way in this area. Odd, United Way does not have the same mission and position statements as the Salvation Army.... not by a long shot. I offered to help out by approaching the position on a temporary basis as an "internal consultant" and then evaluate how things were going after a few months. The newbie COO did not like that idea at all...too threatening, I guess. The Salvation Army is a great organization, and my family and I will continue to support them, but National Capital Area Command seems to be on the wrong course for now. Good luck to them. This would have been an encore job or career for me anyway, since I'm 57 and have over 30 years experience.