employer wants me to write 30 essays before they’ll even consider my application

by Alison Green on January 14, 2025

A reader writes:

I’ve done my fair share of job interviews, but not in the past five years or so. In early August, I applied for a manager-level role at a local nonprofit that fits exactly within my professional experience and personal interests. Almost four months after the application deadline, I finally got an email back, telling me that instead of doing a traditional first-round interview, they were asking all candidates to fill out a questionnaire.

The questionnaire is about 40 questions, 30 of which require paragraph-level responses and span the usual “describe an experience that illustrates how you adapted to feedback” to my experience in specific tools/frameworks to “what [my] initial priorities and strategies” would be if hired. I included my copy of just the long-answer questions below. I estimate this would take at least three hours to do if it was a verbal interview, and potentially 10 hours to type out. And … they gave us a week to complete it.

Based on the wording of the email, I suspect they haven’t winnowed down their application pool at all yet, so I may be dismissed out of hand for not yet completing my degree. To me, this feels extremely inappropriate and borderline egregious – and not to their benefit, either! Surely it is more work to review pages and pages of responses rather than the resume and cover letter candidates submitted already, and many strong candidates will have already gotten a job or won’t think it’s worthwhile to invest all this time in an application without ever even talking to an interviewer.

Should I bother replying to ask whether my application meets their basic requirements? Should I not invest too much time in the survey, and assume I will be one of the few who even reply at all? I love the work of this nonprofit and have several friends-of-friends who work there already, and I’m baffled by what feels like a clear misstep from an organization that prioritizes equity and accessibility.

The questionnaire:

Please answer each question thoughtfully, as your responses will help us learn more about your experience and suitability for the role. This will serve as the first round of our interview process. Selected candidates will receive an email invitation for a second-round interview following our review of the responses.

1. What specifically interests you about working at ___? Can you share what attracts you to ___’s mission and values?
2. What do you know about ___’s work and why are you excited about the possibility of joining our team?
3. If you were hired, what are your initial priorities and strategies for strengthening our evaluation and learning capacity?
4. Can you describe your experience designing and implementing comprehensive evaluation plans, including data collection, analysis, and reporting?
5. What evaluation frameworks or theories have you applied in your work? How have they influenced your approach to designing and conducting evaluations?
6. Can you discuss a specific evaluation project where you used a particular framework or theory to inform your methodology?
7. What data collection methods are you proficient in (e.g., surveys, interviews, focus groups, observations)? How do you ensure data quality and reliability?
8. Have you conducted asset-based community development assessments or similar evaluations? If so, please describe your experience and the impact of your work.
9. How do you incorporate asset-based approaches into your evaluation practice to highlight community strengths and resources?
10. If so, could you provide an example of how you have used this approach in your work?
11. Can you describe your experience as a Principal Investigator or lead on a federally funded research grant, such as NSF or NEA?
12. Have you been involved in the development and submission of proposals for other major funding agencies, such as NIH, DOE, or private foundations?
13. What specific challenges and opportunities did you encounter in securing and managing these grants?
14. Can you discuss your experience in managing budgets and financial reporting for federally funded projects? How did you balance the demands of grant writing, research, and project management responsibilities?
15. What strategies do you use to stay updated on current funding opportunities and trends in your field?
16. What specific MERL tools and techniques are you familiar with?
17. How would you approach training staff on the principles and practices of monitoring, evaluation, research, and learning (MERL)?
18. How would you ensure that staff are using MERL to inform program decisions and improve outcomes?
19. Can you share an experience that exemplifies your ability to take initiative?
20. Can you share an experience that demonstrates your ability to collaborate effectively?
21. Can you describe an experience that illustrates how you adapted to feedback?
22. Can you give an example of an experience where you asked insightful questions to achieve better outcomes?
23. Can you share an experience of how you’ve worked effectively in fluctuating or chaotic situations?
24. Can you provide examples of how you have incorporated principles of inclusivity and intersectionality into your evaluation designs and data collection methods?
25. How do you ensure that your evaluations are culturally responsive and address the unique needs and experiences of diverse populations? What strategies do you use to identify and mitigate potential biases in your research and evaluation practices?
26. Have you managed anyone previously? What is your leadership style?
27. Can you describe a challenging experience you’ve had with a previous supervisor? What made working with them difficult for you?
28. Can you share an experience with a previous supervisor who brought out the best in you? What qualities made them an effective leader in your eyes?
29. What is your superpower?
30. What questions do you have going forward?

This is so ridiculous that it’s practically offensive.

Frankly, most of these questions on their own would be inappropriate to assign as a writing project before the employer had done any screening of the applicant pool. (I’d exclude questions 1 and 2 from that, since those would be fine to ask people to address in their cover letters. Although those are basically the same question and, as if they weren’t already abusing your time enough, they apparently want you to answer it twice.)

It is not reasonable to ask people to invest this much time in an application process before the organization has done any screening of its own (so that people know their candidacy at least has some promise) and before candidates have had a chance to ask their own questions to determine if the job even makes sense for them to pursue.

And this is indeed a huge amount of time to ask for. This would be an unusually long list of questions even for an in-person interview! To expect people to spend time writing out answers to all of them — something that takes most people far longer than answering questions out loud in a conversation — no.

I’m sure the organization believes this will save time on their side — since they can review people’s answers on their own schedule rather than having to set aside time to talk with people — but it’s incredibly disrespectful of their applicants’’ time.

Moreover, it’s setting them up to lose their strongest candidates, since people with other options are really unlikely to bother putting in the time to do this.

It’s also a really bad sign about how the organization is managed overall. I’d bet money that if you talk to those friends-of-friends who work there, you’ll hear horror stories that have nothing to do with hiring.

As for what you should do … I’d respond that you’re not able to spend the multiple hours it would take to complete the questionnaire, especially without having a chance to ask your own questions yet to determine if the job is even a match. You could add, “This is surprising choice from an organization that prioritizes equity and accessibility.”

That will probably take you out of the running, and that is an outcome I’d be comfortable with.

You might also talk to the friends-of-friends who work there and ask what’s up with this; you might hear something interesting (like maybe that it’s a new system they’re trying out and no one else is playing along either), but more importantly they should take your feedback back to whoever decided to hire this way.

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{ 387 comments }

{ 387 comments… read them below or add one }

  1. EBStarr*

    On the bright side, they’ll be suitably punished for this by having to wade through the mountains of AI gabble that I’m sure they’ll receive, since no one unwilling to use ChatGPT is likely to invest the time here …

    Reply ↓
    1. Caramel & Cheddar*

      Seriously! And even if they got real answers from actual applicants, that’s still dozens or even hundreds of questions to wade through. Sure, they can skim faster than someone might deliver these answers verbally, but even skimming feels like such a huge waste of time. I suppose if they want to waste their own time, that’s up to them.

      Reply ↓
      1. sofar*

        I was like “who wants to spend all this time reviewing?” I’m betting some higher-up thinks it’s a good idea expects the actual hiring manager to read all these. And I bet the hiring manager ignores the essays and skims the resumes.

        Reply ↓
        1. Wendy Darling*

          I was a TA briefly and having to review that many short-answer question responses sounds unspeakable. They did NOT think through how much time this was going to take them to read.

          Reply ↓
          1. Moogle13*

            I’m guessing this org doesn’t have their own HR and pulled these questions out of their @$$. They will be lucky to have even one candidate apply and the chances of even one candidate successfully answering all questions are low to none. Ridiculous. And you would need so much context to answer some of these questions, like #3.

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        2. HonorBox*

          I started zoning out just reading all of the questions. I can’t imagine being able to stay focused when reading the responses. Even if someone was particularly invested in answering and said some incredibly insightful things, there’s an almost 0% chance those answers would stand out if they were the fourteenth or fifteenth set of answers someone reviewed.

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          1. Elio*

            For real. My brain had a loading error with this. I would literally pay money to not have to answer these questions.

            Reply ↓
        3. ferrina*

          This.

          This really has all the hallmarks of a higher-up who is reinventing wheels, then doesn’t understand why no one likes their square wheels.

          Reply ↓
          2. JB*

            A higher-up who isn’t try to roll on the square wheels they are championing. If anyone should be reading all the responses it’s the person who implemented such a hiring strategy so they can experience first hand the administration behind practicing it.

            Reply ↓
            1. eeeek*

              This is why, on the last search I participated in, I insisted that before we assigned the “real world task” to applicants (in the second round!), each member of the search committee had to complete the task. We rejected tasks that we ourselves would/could not complete. That helped us settle on one that was “real world”…but not something only a superhuman, sociopath, or sycophant would complete.

              Reply ↓
          1. Sparkle Motion*

            I wonder if this is an attempt to stack the deck in favor of an in-house applicant. “We already know Terry, so s/he doesn’t need to fill out the questionnaire.” Never mind that few others will reply.

            If I replied to a questionnaire like that, I’d probably do one main summary, plus a sentence for the remaining questions with a lot of cross-references back to said main summary. “For more information, see answer to Q1.”

            Reply ↓
      2. Observer*

        I suppose if they want to waste their own time, that’s up to them.

        True. But it does not say much good about their management skills or expectations on time management.

        Reply ↓
      3. HotSauce*

        Even if they only received 10 applications that would still take A LOT of time to read through everything. What an asinine process.

        Reply ↓
    2. Sara without an H*

      Ooo, I hadn’t thought of that! And I’ll bet the hiring organization hasn’t thought of it, either.

      Reply ↓
        1. Six for the truth over solace in lies*

          That’s my guess, because who wants to read these all as a first step? I’d bet they’re piping it into an LLM and then asking it questions about the data. LLMs mean that people suddenly want more data rather than less because the LLM makes better analyses with a larger corpus, and you don’t have to dedicate human time until you’ve had the machine help you winnow down to a smaller subset.

          Plus, if they’re doing that, over time they feed it further information (on performance, for instance) so they can use it to ask questions like “what commonalities did our top performers show in their pre-interview answers? Please prioritize those when filtering applicants.”

          People think of generative AI when they think of AI, because that’s how most people use the free tools (like ChatGPT) and because of the debate over AI art. But commercial AI leans heavily into collection analysis, and that’s exactly what you’d do with dozens or hundreds of applications of hundreds or thousands of words each.

          Reply ↓
            1. Six for the truth over solace in lies*

              I tell people about it because a lot of people are not aware that AI collection analysis is already here, and inexpensive, and pretty high quality. It’s not as good as a great human employee, but it’s about as good as an average one, so all you need is one or two great employees who can do the final sanity checks, and you can lay off the rest, for a few hundred dollars a month max.

              The genie’s bottle has been opened. We need to be prepared for the fact that this stuff is increasingly cheap and increasingly accurate. It *will* be used for resume screening, and your data *will* be incorporated into the corpus unless otherwise specified, so be prepared.

              Reply ↓
          2. MigraineMonth*

            I can see this happening in a major tech company (Amazon attempted an AI resume screener, though I think that was a decision tree rather than an LLM), but it seems unlikely that a random charity is willing to put in the years of data collection, not to mention the expert tuning, necessary to make this work.

            (Amazon had to ditch its resume screener after discovered realized the training data of past hire/no hire decisions had trained the AI to be biased against any resume that contained the word “women” (e.g. Women’s Basketball, Women In Computing Conference, Women’s College). Oops. Better go back to the traditional, low-tech way of discriminating against female applicants.)

            Reply ↓
            2. Six for the truth over solace in lies*

              You can do this with ChatGPT or OpenAI with the right questions, for free or pretty reasonable cost. Many common business tools (think Adobe or Microsoft Office) offer variants of it included or as an inexpensive add-on.

              I work in AI collection analysis at my job. Small nonprofits and tiny poorly-funded government entities (think City of Smallsville) already have access to this technology. It’s not well-known because making fake Pixar movie posters is much more popular, but we’re already there regarding inexpensive collection analysis AI. I know indie writers, ordinary individual humans, who use it for market research and pay out of pocket. It’s no longer the purview of research universities and Google or Microsoft.

              As far as I know, Microsoft voluntarily ditched the AI assessment tool. I’m not aware of case law that would mean that companies who are less high profile would be in any danger of using it.

              I say this not in favor of it, but because people really need to know how far it’s come and how inexpensive some of it has gotten. We are already at the point where collection analysis is causing significant layoffs. I can say with confidence that it’s being used that way already in places that are not big companies. Government is very interested as soon as certain tools can be made fedramp compliant, and it’s one of the big initiatives *for* fedramp.

              I’m not trying to be alarmist, just realistic. It’s already here and being purchased and used even by small players. And paid services are already way better than ChatGPT would lead you to believe.

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          2. Jezza*

            I was thinking they just searched “Best Interview Questions for Non-Profit Employees”, but asking an AI would make sense too.

            Reply ↓
          3. RC*

            This is very plausible because they’re just all over the place. Or your run of the mill “written by committee,” but it seems a bit odd to me that they’re expecting experience with NSF and NEA grants, but ALSO DOE and NIH? Is there overlap between NEA and NIH, or am I thinking of a different NEA?

            Also, 10 starts with an “if so,” that does not follow from Question 9.

            Reply ↓
        4. Pizza Rat*

          I’d assumed they were. There’s just too many questions not to, unless they’re only evaluating one candidate at a time (which would explain the 4 month delay).

          Reply ↓
        5. Turquoisecow*

          Yeah feed the answers into an AI and ask it to summarize, which of course will be 100% accurate (/sarcasm)

          Reply ↓
    4. Minimal Pear*

      I was thinking that their plan might be to run the answers through some AI thing, and then of course people will be answering with AI-generated text…

      Reply ↓
      3. WillowSunstar*

        Also, I’m sure the AI will tell them which ones are AI-created responses. Maybe they throw all those away and might have 2 or 3 people who actually didn’t use AI. Seems like a poor way to weed out candidates, though.

        Reply ↓
        1. Chickadee*

          AI-detection tools are notoriously inaccurate and biased against non-native speakers. They’re going to end up with a terrible candidate pool if they rely on AI.

          Reply ↓
    5. Katie*

      As someone who has rarely used AI for writing stuff, the only chance I would answer is if I was insanely desperate for a job or if I would use chatgbt. I have a feeling my answers would get rider as it went along.

      Reply ↓
      1. Richard Hershberger*

        I have never used it beyond the casual checking it out stage. I was not impressed. It would be easier to write whatever from scratch rather than editing the AI slop into something decent. I would make an exception here, just to see if I got a positive response.

        Reply ↓
    7. nnn*

      Fanfiction:

      Applicants reply to all the questions using AI.

      The employer then uses AI to evaluate all the answers and ask to choose the best candidate.

      The AI tells them to choose a particular candidate because they have skills A, B, and C.

      But the candidate doesn’t actually have Skill A, the AI just hallucinated that into their answers.

      The candidate never even said they have Skill B, the employer’s AI just hallucinated that into the summary.

      And Skill C isn’t even a real thing that exists.

      Reply ↓
          1. Six for the truth over solace in lies*

            That’s mostly how this kind of collection analysis is used. The last mile is still human verification via a person actually looking at the resume and holding an interview. The AI is the gatekeeper, so you only need as many employees to review it as you need for the final steps, and can lay off the people who were doing the early screening.

            Same is true of other such uses. For every public snafu where bad AI made it to the end, there are hundreds of cases where a person validated the content and the end result looked “normal.” We only see the problems. The rest of the work AI handles remains invisible, but nevertheless makes up a lot of the work.

            Reply ↓
          2. MigraineMonth*

            The type of generative AI we’re using will never be reliable. We cannot make it stop telling lies, because it fundamentally doesn’t know what it’s saying.

            It is just a parrot who has listened to a lot of people stringing together words in a pretty way.

            Reply ↓
            2. Six for the truth over solace in lies*

              Generative isn’t the biggest threat here. Collection analysis is. And collection analysis is already very, very good, especially if you’re using a paid and not free service.

              Collection analysis can’t cut out the final decision maker; they still need to manually review the final set of results. But it can cut out a lot of the intermediate human steps. That much is not only already here, it’s cheap and well-established. That’s the threat, not automated image generation and prose writing. The big research is in reducing the human element in decision making using AI analysis.

              Reply ↓
    8. 3-Foot Tall Inflatable Rainbow Unicorn*

      I think that company asked ChatGPT to write those questions! I’ve detangled governmentalese but can’t make them make any sense.
      – How is a new hire supposed to have the background to have “priorities and strategies for strengthening our evaluation and learning capacity”?

      – Grants, proposals/RFPs, training, project management, and research are *five completely different* skillsets and departments, but they want answers directed to all of them? (And more?)

      – Superpower? Did a child write this?

      I write for a living and I wouldn’t touch this nonsense even if I were about to starve in the streets.

      Reply ↓
        1. JustaTech*

          Yes, which makes the “have you ever managed anyone” question feel really out of place. You already asked them to describe being a Principal Investigator (or other grant runner) which is very much a senior manager position, and then you ask “have you ever supervised anyone”? Obviously yes, so why did you ask, unless you expect the answer to the PI question to be “haven’t done that”.

          Reply ↓
      2. Sarah With an H*

        Unless the organization is literally the Avengers or X-Men, asking about people’s “superpowers” is ridiculous

        Reply ↓
      3. Autumnal*

        Exactly! I only made it to question 3 (the one about strengthening eval/learning capacity) when I stopped reading. What a stupid question. There is no way to answer that effectively without having inside information. This list is all I need to know that I do not want to work for this org.

        Reply ↓
        1. Richard Hershberger*

          My honest answer, assuming setting organizational priorities and strategies is within the purview of the job, (and just how senior is this position?) would be to come in and assess the current priorities and strategies, meeting with those involved to learn both what these are and why, then meeting with them again to discuss how they could be improved.

          This is the only rational course to take. Sadly, I also suspect it is not the answer they are looking for.

          Reply ↓
        1. Slow Gin Lizz*

          I’ve turned into a suspicious person in my middle age, so I believe that the last question is the only one they actually want an answer to, and the correct answer is, “Do you really want me to answer the rest of these questions?”

          Or “Is this a test to see if I’m willing to fall for your trick of trying to get me to type out an answer to all your interview questions before I even have an interview?”

          Or I’m suspicious that someone thought it would be a great idea to let interviewees see the interview questions before they come to the interview and someone else misinterpreted that to mean that the applicants should write out all the answers to the questions before they are interviewed.

          Guarantee that if OP actually answers the questions and makes to an in-person interview, the interview questions will either be exactly the same as these questions or they will be so out-there bananapants on crackers crazy that we can only imagine what they might be.

          OP, please please please answer the questions and do the interview and report back, we all want to know! But for your own sanity, you have my permission to refuse my request and not waste your time.

          Reply ↓
      6. Spaypets*

        I dunno. I kind of love the superpower question. My superpower is my skill at writing one sentence short stories based on a prompt (I’ve won contests). Since I am a communications professional, having that skill is actually helpful.

        It’s a good way to learn something about a candidate.

        Reply ↓
        1. Analytical Tree Hugger*

          No, it’s not.

          If you want to know about relevant talents and skills a candidate brings to a role, then you ask…”What relevant talents and skills do you bring to this role?”

          Superpowers is fine for an icebreaker at a team retreat, not an interview.

          Reply ↓
    9. Sola Lingua Bona Lingua Mortua Est*

      since no one unwilling to use ChatGPT is likely to invest the time here

      #fighting_stupid_with_stupid

      Reply ↓
    11. Three Flowers*

      They’ll almost definitely use ChatGPT to summarize it, so they won’t read the responses at all.

      This company is trash.

      Reply ↓
    12. NobodyHasTimeForThis*

      I’m petty enough that if I caught wind of something like this I would submit dozens of fake applications just so they could be properly punished for this nonsense

      Reply ↓
    13. Archie*

      The questions themselves carry a whiff of AI. Generative AI is a big fan of slightly restating the same information. The first two questions and 24 & 25 really jumped out at me as asking for the exact same information:
      24. Can you provide examples of how you have incorporated principles of inclusivity and intersectionality into your evaluation designs and data collection methods?
      25. How do you ensure that your evaluations are culturally responsive and address the unique needs and experiences of diverse populations? What strategies do you use to identify and mitigate potential biases in your research and evaluation practices?

      Reply ↓
      1. Starbuck*

        Right as someone who works in the non-profit world where we seriously discuss those things – you do not need to ask both of those questions in a row, lol.

        Reply ↓
    14. Artemesia*

      But they won’t. They will expect applicants to do this but then they will screen out 90% of them without reading any of it. It is truly abusive.

      Reply ↓
  2. All het up about it*

    I couldn’t even read the whole list of questions without my eyes crossing. I would have to be SO desperate to even consider doing this. It’s wild.

    Reply ↓
    1. Teapot Connoisseuse*

      I think I lost the will to live/read on a quarter of the way through. EBStarr above makes a good point about people probably ending up using ChatGPT.

      Reply ↓
    2. Tio*

      Same! But even some of the ones that I did read seem more like they want cheat notes than candidates, like this one: “If you were hired, what are your initial priorities and strategies for strengthening our evaluation and learning capacity?”

      Reply ↓
        1. RC*

          I honestly did once answer a question (the list was not nearly as long) with a (constructive!) critique of their application procedure and how it was not promoting equity.

          Yeah, they did not call me back, but it made me feel a little better.

          Reply ↓
          1. Freya*

            It’s not for job applications, but I often write corrections to forms on the forms I have to fill out. Things like adding ‘except as cannot be excluded by law’ to waivers, adding gender options like ‘prefer not to say’ where specifying gender is unnecessary, and telling them that I need a form that is in black and white and not pink and white for Accessibility reasons (that one was for getting access to Accessibility-related help…)

            Reply ↓
      1. ferrina*

        Yeah, I think I made it to question 2, saw that it was the same as question 1 and felt mildly nauseous.
        Then I realized that I would need to scroll down past the initial 12 questions on my screen and it just. kept. going.

        Reply ↓
      2. I Have RBF*

        I read it most of the way through, and my eyes started to glaze over. Most of them are better suited to interactive interview questions, not short essay.

        Reply ↓
    4. Not a Girl Boss*

      My current company 100% believes that it is very important that “we only hire people are really motivated to work here” but I have argued until I’m blue in the face that what we are actually screening for “people who are so desperate they’ll put up with this crap.”

      They have an egregious hiring process, although not nearly as bad as LW. I knew firsthand from several employees what a fantastic place it was to work, and I STILL almost backed out of the running after a three(!!) hour personality test I was only given 1 evening to complete, after the phone screen and before creating a giant presentation for the panel interview.

      Even as a hiring manager, I’ve lost the battle several times over things like not requiring entry level operators to create lengthy PowerPoint presentations (which I’ve argued harms equity since most applicants don’t have computers with PowerPoint at home). Its so bizarre because it truly is an otherwise lovely place to work with reasonable policies. But for whatever reason, the collective company has lost its mind about hiring practices and priorities.

      Reply ↓
      1. All het up about it*

        but I have argued until I’m blue in the face that what we are actually screening for “people who are so desperate they’ll put up with this crap.”

        So true! I was really thinking about this and I think a decade ago when I was unemployed due to an unexpected lay-off, I probably would have filled this out.

        1. Because I was a decade less jaded / had a decade less experience.
        2. Because I REALLY wanted a job so I would lose my newly purchased home.
        3. Because I would have had the time to do complete the questionnaire as I was unemployed and looking for / applying to jobs was my “job” at the time.

        Reply ↓
      2. Starbuck*

        ” (which I’ve argued harms equity since most applicants don’t have computers with PowerPoint at home)”

        This is true and because I loathe microsoft and its transition to a subscription model for its software (ew) I’d like to promote the free and open source LibreOffice suite which has a great powerpoint dupe that I’ve been using for work for a couple years now. It’s got a Word version and Excel version included as well.

        Reply ↓
    5. Ellie*

      I only read the first 5, skimmed the next 5, then skipped straight to the end to see if they got any better.

      I guess if OP still wants this job, they can probably guarantee themselves a good shot at it by actually bothering to answer all of these. I think there’s a decent chance they will be the only candidate to do so.

      Reply ↓
    1. MigraineMonth*

      Yeah, as I was reading the questions:
      1-2: “These don’t seem so bad.”
      2-5: “Okay, getting a bit excessive here. Would they accept 2-word answers?”
      5-8: “Seriously, this is still going?”
      8-12: “Seriously??”
      12-16: “SERIOUSLY?!?”
      16-??: *gives up*

      Reply ↓
        1. Falling Diphthong*

          There could totally be a secret question near the end that says “Now go back to the start of the form, fill in your name and email, and send it in. This is actually a test of whether you read things before diving in.” And I would never find it.

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          1. ferrina*

            I’m with you. I would fail the secret test.
            And they would fail my secret test- don’t waste my time with secret tests.

            This organization would not be a good match for me.

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          2. Lenora Rose*

            My superpower (well, one of them) is skimming a large block of text for key items — especially tricks like that one.

            What would trip me up would be the strong desire to use question 5 to rant about why this sort of questionnaire — with AND without secret questions — filters out the wrong candidates for the wrong reasons.

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      2. Gumby*

        I will admit, I was envisioning sarcastic answers to most of them. A handful of the questions were poorly worded enough that you could give one word answers. “Can you describe…?” “Yes.” (Alternately: “No.”)

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      3. Kendall^2*

        Well, technically, all the questions that start with “Can you…” could be answered with “Yes.” (Or no, if more appropriate.) They didn’t actually ask for applicants to give said examples, even though apparently they thought they did.

        Reply ↓
  4. Boss Scaggs*

    That is absurd – I’ve seen two or three questions like this on an application but 30??

    This is terrible, but what is the tie-in with equity and accessability?

    Reply ↓
    1. Caramel & Cheddar*

      Asking people to answer these thirty questions assumes they a) have time, and b) that their writing skills are good enough that they won’t be penalized for their answers. This can negatively affect, for example, people juggling multiple jobs, people with lots of caregiving responsibilities outside of work, people for whom English isn’t their first language, people with various types of learning or processing disabilities, etc. If you care about equity and accessibility in your workplace, a job application process that effectively forces people to self-select out of the process is usually going to negatively affect your equity/accessibility goals.

      The time suck is the big one for me, as it creates a completely unreasonable burden on the applicant. I won’t say it’s super common yet, but there’s an increasing number of organizations — especially ones that pride themselves on equity and accessibility — that will in fact pay applicants for their interview time or interview-related projects because they know that taking time out to go through the hiring process may negatively impact their income in other areas and they should be compensated for their time.

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      1. Marcus Twain*

        “that their writing skills are good enough that they won’t be penalized for their answers“

        God forbid an employer screen for good writing skills.

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        2. Caramel & Cheddar*

          If the good writing skills are part of the job, sure. But a lot of jobs don’t require good writing skills, and it would be silly to screen out applicants on that basis.

          Reply ↓
        3. dz*

          Not all jobs require good writing skills. And even if that’s what they’re intending to screen for, they won’t get actual information because most people are probably going to use AI to answer these questions. The way to screen for good writing skills is to set up a skills test as part of the interview process. I had to write a 5-paragraph essay in the interviewer’s office as part of my last successful job interview. I believe I was given 20 minutes. Not the 10 hours filling out all of these questions would have taken.

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          1. Marcus Twain*

            “Not all jobs require good writing skills.”

            Some may require better writing skills tha others, I have seen very few white collar jobs where writing is irrelevant.

            Even if you disagree with me on that point, it is clear this particular job involves grant writing and likely the publication of research.

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            1. Analytical Tree Hugger*

              “Not all jobs require good writing skills.”

              …and…

              “Some may require better writing skills tha [sic] others, I have seen very few white collar jobs where writing is irrelevant.”

              These two statements say the same thing, so what’s your point…?

              As someone who has written a lot of grant applications and reports, the Venn diagram of being able to write to promote myself (i.e., in any form of a job application) and being able to write a narrative supporting funding for a program is basically two separate circles. So your argument also fails there.

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        4. 3-Foot Tall Inflatable Rainbow Unicorn*

          Might as well add the burden of good writing skills to this magical employee who is also a researcher, large database user, grant writer, one-person proposal department, project leader, trainer, and superhero.

          Whereas in my working life I’ve been teamed with plenty of people who are excellent researchers, leaders, or trainers who do not, for one reason or another write perfect polished prose.

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          1. LifeisaDream*

            They might as well look for a unicorn if they expect to find all of those skillsets in one person for a local non-profit that may not pay market rates for their employees. I mean if I had all of those I’d be casting my net for bigger and better opportunities.

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        5. Flor*

          I see you stopped reading after the first sentence.

          People whose English isn’t their first language, or who have disabilities like dyslexia, or who studied a science rather than humanities subject at university, etc., may have poor written communication skills, but that doesn’t necessarily factor into their ability to do the actual job. If the job requires writing skills, those can be assessed far more effectively than through long written responses to questions. And if it doesn’t, then privileging candidates with strong skills at responding to written questions leads to discrimination and poor outcomes.

          And, frankly, good writing skills don’t seem to be relevant for many jobs. I’m in software development, and the ability to write an easily read email is a rare skill in this field. But that’s fine, because the important skill is writing good *code*.

          Reply ↓
          3. Marcus Twain*

            “ People whose English isn’t their first language, or who have disabilities like dyslexia, or who studied a science rather than humanities subject at university, etc., may have poor written communication skills, but that doesn’t necessarily factor into their ability to do the actual job.”

            I strongly disagree (with the exception of the learning disability point). Taking a STEM degree does not excuse poor writing – leading through the average technical manual ought to illustrate why. There is a reason why even schools like MIT require freshman composition courses and non-science distribution requirements.

            At Columbia, even engineers must complete the required core curriculum of contemporary civilization, literature humanities, art humanities, and music humanities.

            Reply ↓
            1. Pucci*

              Humanities majors take “baby” science courses while science majors take the same humanities courses the humanities majors do.

              Reply ↓
              1. engineeringTemp*

                Interesting, that’s not what I have seen. At my state school science majors take baby humanities, especially if they are taking them for gen eds.

                Reply ↓
              2. Sparkle Motion*

                Maybe you took the GE version of the humanities classes I took, but it’s doubtful you did the degree version.

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        6. Helewise*

          My spouse is a really good engineer whose chief creative pursuit is making up words that don’t exist in the English language but clearly should. Hobbies also include ranting about how English-language spelling rules are inconsistent and nonsensical. He’s really good at what he does and his writing works for his role, but it’d be a foolish hiring manager who’d evaluate him on writing skill above the core functions of his job.

          Reply ↓
          1. Marcus Twain*

            “My spouse is a really good engineer whose chief creative pursuit is making up words that don’t exist in the English language but clearly should. Hobbies also include ranting about how English-language spelling rules are inconsistent and nonsensical.”

            This is the exactly kind of attitude that writing exercises like this are trying to screen out.

            If your husband is “making up words that don’t exist but should” and, as a result, no one can understand the point he is trying to make, that would be a valid reason to reject his candidacy for a position. (I’m assuming he’s not the next Shakespeare or Joseph Heller in terms of coining phrases.)

            Also, with due respect, I don’t take testimonials from spouses as ironclad evidence of professional competence.

            Reply ↓
            1. engineeringTemp*

              “If your husband is “making up words that don’t exist but should” and, as a result, no one can understand the point he is trying to make, that would be a valid reason to reject his candidacy for a position”

              I think you’re showing your limitations with understanding the needed skills for fields such as engineering, as their husband is, in fact, employed by their retelling. I’ve worked with a few people like this and it is, in fact, fine. We understand when they grasp for a word for that part that in truth doesn’t have a name.

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          2. DJ Abbott*

            He’s right. English is inconsistent and nonsensical. I noticed it in first grade, when I was learning words. (English is my first language). I was told to spell words by sounding them out. Then I came up against the word celebrate, and my teacher was annoyed with me for spelling it “sellabrate”.
            This is why English has to be learned by rote and memorization. There is no other way to make sense of it. This is why I love Spanish, because it’s consistent and spelled phonetically and everything English isn’t. One day I hope to get back to learning it.

            Reply ↓
        7. Observer*

          God forbid an employer screen for good writing skills.

          Except that this application is is almost certainly not really screening for the right skills. It’s like the whole issue with negotiating salary. If you are hiring a salesperson, rewarding someone for being skilled at negotiating makes sense. If you don’t needs sales / negotiating skills, that’s not what you should be rewarding.

          In this case, the kind of writing skills this stuff is screening for has little or nothing to do with what the job is likely to entails.

          Reply ↓
          1. Pita Chips*

            I had an interviewer tell me once that they didn’t negotiate salary because that would be rewarding the good negotiators.

            Reply ↓
            1. Observer*

              Exactly. It’s becoming more common, because there is a lot of evidence of disparate impact of negotiating salary, especially at the lower end.

              Aside from the fact that it’s rewarding a skill that’s generally irrelevant, it also turns out that it disproportionately rewards white men, and penalizes women and POC.

              Reply ↓
        8. Name*

          Yeah, this whole thing is dumb, but not because it might weed out people with poor writing skills. They probably should be screening for that.

          Reply ↓
          1. Marcus Twain*

            If the company is screening for writing here (and there’s not real evidence that is the rationale, to be sure) it should boil the list down to 3-5 questions requiring a short free response, which would be much more reasonable and would accomplish the same goal.

            Reply ↓
            1. MigraineMonth*

              Or better yet, include a role-specific writing assignment as part of the 2nd interview. I’m going to go out on a limb and guess that grant writing is slightly different than writing a paragraph describing your “superpower”.

              Reply ↓
        9. Moira's Rose's Garden*

          There’s writing and then there is “trained in the correct way this specialty does written communication”. Considering how poorly phrased these questions are, as well as the time-suck that 30 of them pose, I think it’s entirely likely you’d be getting answers that wouldn’t be particularly informative regarding either skill set.

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          1. Freya*

            This – I’ve saved my boss and clients a bunch over the years, by being carefully specific with wording and thereby preventing liability from falling on me and my people with regards to payroll and various taxes. To do my job, you’ve got to know how to say “I’m not giving you advice on that because I’m not licenced in that area, but this is the webpage that the tax office says this thing on”, but I don’t need to know how to fill out a grant application (and if I did, I’d source a copy of a successful application and crib liberally from it)

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      2. L.H. Puttgrass*

        I wonder if this is a poorly thought-out attempt to improve equity and accessibility. They can judge answers without seeing people in person, virtually eliminating bias based on age, race, (maybe) gender, and other factors! People can take time to compose their answers—so it’s neurodivergent-friendly! It’ll be so much fairer than in-person interviews!

        Of course, it introduces other biases, and it most of it doesn’t even prevent those biases, so it’s a pretty bad idea. But I could imagine a particularly naive organization thinking that this process is “fairer.”

        Reply ↓
        1. ecnaseener*

          Yep. This is the age-old struggle of competing access needs. I’m sure there are some people who, for disability reasons, genuinely would prefer to answer all of these essay questions rather than have a normal interview. Maybe some of those people are at this org and suggested this format. Maybe some of them are on the hiring team.

          If the sheer volume wasn’t so high, it might even be a good *option* to offer candidates in lieu of an interview.

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      3. Oui oui oui all the way home*

        My company believes strongly in DEI and we pay people very well if they have to do any work, such as writing answers to questions, during the application process. We also give them plenty of time, knowing that many applicants may not have the luxury of free time that they can voluntarily spend on something like a job application.

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    2. Hlao-roo*

      On the topic of equity and accessibility, I found questions 24 and 25 particularly ironic. Pasted below for those who didn’t make it that far into the list of questions:

      24. Can you provide examples of how you have incorporated principles of inclusivity and intersectionality into your evaluation designs and data collection methods?

      25. How do you ensure that your evaluations are culturally responsive and address the unique needs and experiences of diverse populations? What strategies do you use to identify and mitigate potential biases in your research and evaluation practices?

      Clearly the organization did not incorporate “principles of inclusivity and intersectionality” or make sure their questionnaire was “culturally responsive!” (But maybe they thought that written questions and answers would “mitigate potential biases”???)

      Reply ↓
      3. JustaTech*

        A lot of the terms in the questions remind me of when I was taking things like “survey design” courses for my public health degree, where you *do* need to be culturally sensitive about how (and in what order) you ask very personal questions.
        But then they completely forgot to apply Rule 1: the longer it is the fewer people fill it out.

        Honestly this list of questions feels like a survey of three classes I took in grad school: program design, program evaluation, and survey design. But that was 3 whole courses, and no one was asking me to write it up in a week!

        Reply ↓
      4. Not A Raccoon Keeper*

        Lol excellent catch! I didn’t even make it all the way through #2, so kudos for getting that far with enough focus to catch the irony!

        Reply ↓
      5. fhqwhgads*

        I know this isn’t the point but now I’ve noticed 25 is two questions, so it’s even more than 30…although not really since so many in the list are redundant. Hoo what a hot mess.

        Reply ↓
    3. Jellyfish Catcher*

      Another red flag: an email reply took Four Months after she contacted them.

      If you do talk to the friends of friends, remember that they are choosing to work there, you don’t directly know them, so you cannot reliably trust their opinions. They may have already been there long enough to be “assimilated” into the office Borg group think.

      Reply ↓
      1. ferrina*

        The 4 month response time is a yellow flag, not a red flag. Proceed with caution, but it’s possible there is a reasonable (or at least close enough) explanation. Sometimes an organization has an internal policy that they want to wait until X number of applications are submitted, or someone is on vacation/unexpectedly out, or the budget is frozen and they are recontacting candidates once that is sorted out.

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    4. learnedthehardway*

      I strongly suspect that someone took a “Suggested list of potential interview questions” and thought “Let’s ask them ALL!!!!” without considering whether that was reasonable.

      I can’t imagine how many great, good, and even mediocre candidates decided to opt out of the process. Almost anyone would have better options than writing a novel in order to get an interview.

      Reply ↓
        1. ferrina*

          Especially the questions that build on each other. Some of those questions are better as a conversation- I often ask a version of #2, but it’s more so that I can clear up any questions the candidate has about the job.

          A good candidate will also tailor their answers based on an interviewer’s reaction. If an interviewer seems really interested in your project management skills, you highlight that more. If they are reacting more to your attention to detail, you focus on that. You adapt your answer based on what seems most relevant to the interviewer. Very few candidates are single-skill professionals; many have a multitude of skills, and you are just asking them to guess and write down what they think is relevant to you.

          Reply ↓
    5. AFac*

      There is an argument that an in-person interview can limit diversity because interviewers can see certain characteristics of their interviewees that might bias them implicitly, e.g. race/ethnicity, gender, other things like visible tattoos, disability, etc. If you’re only evaluating them on their written answers, then everyone is on a more equal footing. Or so the argument goes.

      Of course, having to write the answers to this many questions creates issues as well. This list feels like the committee did some brainstorming for various interview questions and then never bothered to pare things to a useful/practical number.

      Reply ↓
  5. epicdemiologist*

    That is absolutely mind-boggling. Maybe they’re screening for candidates who are happy to do meaningless make-work for hours on end without compensation. If so, as the computer said in WarGames, “The only way to win is not to play.”

    Reply ↓
  6. Snarkus Aurelius*

    You don’t want to work at a place like this. Trust me. Not only are they trying to get around the interview process, but they’re begging for plagiarized or ChatGPT responses. Do they not realize how easy cheating this system is?! Even if candidates are honest, do you really want to hire someone who triumphed over an inappropriate, unrealistic candidate selection process? Such strategies damn near put Microsoft out of business about ten years ago!

    And I guarantee you, no one will read every answer from every candidate. There’s not enough time in the day for it, and if there is, then that’s a poorly-run organization.

    Reply ↓
    1. Anonym*

      Ok, I really want to know more about how Microsoft screwed this up, but am not having luck searching. Anyone willing to share a link or summary?

      Reply ↓
      1. Snarkus Aurelius*

        There’s a Vanity Fair article from 2012 on Steve Ballmer and how his interviewing and employee relations strategies damn near put the company out of business. Microsoft had the idea for Facebook and the Kindle, but bloated middle management shot down those ideas.

        Anyway…

        Lengthy essay questions. Brain teasers that candidates had to get right like how many gas stations are there in the United States and you can’t Google it or use the Internet at all or ask for help. Aggressive interviewing styles to see what the candidate does. Being late on purpose to see how the candidate responds. (Not all of that is in the VF article. There are plenty of horrible Microsoft, Google, and Apple hiring stories like this.) Then there was rank and yank, which was the worst.

        Now those practices aren’t around anymore, but you still get some idiot who thinks because Microsoft or Apple hired this way, they should too.

        Reply ↓
      1. Snarkus Aurelius*

        It wasn’t just that essay question nonsense, but it was the mentality of putting job candidates through ridiculous games. Lengthy essay questions. How would you determine how much a 747 weighs without a scale? Aggressive interview styles to “test” the candidate. Lengthy interview questions. And eventually rank and yank.

        These screening practices were so bad that the Daily WTF had a regular section dedicated to it.

        Now, Microsoft has some done away with all that nonsense today, but when they were in the thick of it, they ended hiring people who were a bad fit because they passed the unorthodox interview process but weren’t necessarily qualified.

        Reply ↓
          1. Phony Genius*

            I remember someone telling me about this, and how it was meant to be a trick question. It was actually phrased “how would you determine the weight of a fully loaded 747 without a scale?” The correct answer is to check the specifications sheet which will list both the aircraft’s weight and maximum load, then add those two numbers together since it was given that the plane is fully loaded.

            They were trying to see who could pick up on “fully loaded” and know what to do with it. Of course, it screened out many of the best candidates.

            Reply ↓
            1. EmF*

              I mean, what’s it fully loaded WITH? It might well be filled to the brim with low-density packing peanuts – volume restrictions and mass restrictions aren’t always going to match!

              Reply ↓
              2. Salty Caramel*

                Ping-pong balls. I know this because I was once asked in an interview how many ping-pong balls fit in a 747.

                Reply ↓
                1. Analytical Tree Hugger*

                  See, now I’m tempted to keep a set of nonsensical questions to ask interviewers if they ever pull this B.S. on me. I’d ask them during the part of the interview when I got to ask questions, like:

                  *How much wood could a woodchuck chuck if a woodchuck could chuck wood?

                  *How do you get three giraffes in a car? How would you get an elephant into a car?

                  *(INSERT LONG QUESTION ABOUT SWALLOWS HERE)

                  Obviously, burned bridge, so maybe it would be better if I declined to continue the interview after they asked that stupid of a question, something like:

                  “A: How many ping pong balls fit in a 747? And here are a bunch of arbitrary restrictions.

                  “B: Ah, okay, well I can see this company isn’t a good fit for me. Good day.

                  “A: No, this is meant to test how you solve problems.

                  “B: Well, I solve the problem of people wasting my time with nonsense interview questions that have been empirically proven worthless by removing myself from the situation. Good bye.”

                  …hm, now that I write that out, still burned bridges, but at least the latter is less wasted time and energy on my part…

                2. Snarkus Aurelius*

                  Microsoft asked a candidate how he’d build a bike for a blind person. Supposedly, the candidate said, “I’d buy an exercise bike and a fan. A blind person wouldn’t know the difference.” Apparently that wasn’t the answer Microsoft was looking for!

            2. Snarkus Aurelius*

              And then they ended up hiring people who came up with solutions to problems that didn’t exist.

              I’m sure I’m jumping to conclusions here, but I wonder if that’s why Vista sucked so bad because that roll out and those hiring practices coincided.

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  7. Jackie Daytona, Regular Human Bartender*

    I remember when I saw a job posting in my field with a lengthy questionnaire with the included note that the questionnaire would “serve as the first interview.”

    I laughed. I showed it to a couple of other people so they could enjoy a laugh too.

    Then I moved on to continue my job search without considering that employer.

    Reply ↓
    1. Lisa*

      Ugh. This is the attitude of an organization that believes it holds all the power in hiring.

      An interview is a two-way conversation, where you determine if you’re interested in me and I determine if I’m interested in the job. Do I get to send the hiring manager a “lengthy questionnaire” too?

      Reply ↓
  8. Amber Rose*

    That’s a no from me. I’m exhausted just looking at the list, and that’s before I even read the questions. I wouldn’t even want to read the small novel that would result, so I can’t imagine they’re going to do more than briefly skim. It’s a waste of time on both fronts.

    I’m pretty sure if I was sent this I’d just email back with a single question answered: 30. What questions do you have going forward? – Yeah hey, wtf?

    Reply ↓
    1. ferrina*

      Yeah, that’s a no from me as well.

      This is a company that doesn’t know how to prioritize and has unreasonable expectations on people’s time. I don’t want any part of that.

      Reply ↓
    1. Margaret Cavendish*

      That was the thing that got me as well! I mean, the whole thing is ridiculous. But then they want you to describe your superpower on top of all that? Absolutely not, thanks.

      Reply ↓
      1. epicdemiologist*

        I do in fact have a superpower, but since it’s the ability to find cashmere sweaters at thrift stores (my current total is 7), I doubt its relevance to most jobs.

        Reply ↓
        2. HonorBox*

          I once got the “Good Guy Discount” (thanks to This American Life) at JC Penny once when buying clothes that were on clearance. The cashier gave me the 30% coupon that was supposed to be for home goods. That’s my superpower. I’ve only engaged it once.

          Reply ↓
          1. Phony Genius*

            I remember a commercial that did that with this song, but only off by one note. It was decades ago, but it’s still stuck in my head.

            Reply ↓
            1. RC*

              I’m just thinking about Chris Traeger on Parks and Rec singing it with wrong but hilarious lyrics “take me out to the ball game, take me out to the game, i just want to be at the game” etc

              Reply ↓
        6. iglwif*

          My semi-serious theory is that everyone has a superpower, but the bar for superpowers is extremely low (things like knowing the washing machine is about to play its little song just before it does, or cats liking you, or accurately guessing the year a film was released) and most of us don’t really notice ours.

          Reply ↓
          1. nonee*

            I usually know what time it is to the minute, even if I’ve just woken up in the middle of the night. *Incredibly* useless!

            Reply ↓
          2. MigraineMonth*

            I’m reading a fantasy series where maybe one out of a thousand people are “wonder workers” with extremely specific magical powers. One can bring clay to life, but only clay heads that he’s sculpted. Another can tell how someone died if he touches a dead body.

            There’s an in-universe theory that everyone has their own magical power, they’ve just never discovered it. “Maybe your magical power is the ability to make snails dance if you sing to them. No? How do you know? Have you ever *tried* singing to a snail?”

            Reply ↓
        10. Lisa*

          That’s an excellent superpower!

          Mine is knowing another driver is about to do something weird, so I’m on high alert to react before it happens. I’ve had several near-misses that would otherwise have been accidents. Also not job-relevant!

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      3. No Longer Gig-less Data Analyst*

        “My superpower is identifying companies with shitty hiring practices, like this ridiculous questionnaire.”

        Reply ↓
    2. SimonTheGreyWarden*

      I would put the one-word answer ADHD, because I have heard of it referred to as a superpower *so many times* (Dear reader, it is not)

      Reply ↓
      1. Box of Rain*

        OMG THANK YOU. I haaaate this so, so much. I love and adore my therapist, but I had to tell her I don’t love that framing At. All. and it takes me out of the session when she uses it. I understand the sentiment, but it is just one more way of othering neurodivergent folks.

        PS I could say this same exact thing about the term neurospicy, too. There is no cutesy word for a heart attack or a stoke or cancer or even other brain stuff. Just say I have ADHD already. /rant

        Reply ↓
        1. Freya*

          I fully admit that the main reason I use neurospicy is because it reminds me that my neurotype is a flavour and it may not be to everyone’s taste, but that doesn’t make it bad or good, it just is. Like coriander/cilantro, which belongs in many places, but not in my husband’s food. BUT: knowing that the term is not to your taste, if we were speaking IRL, I’d not use it.

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    3. Not Tom, Just Petty*

      Because the list was finalized by committee. Either no single person had higher ranking or the highest ranking person couldn’t make a decision.
      Personally, I just think it’s some arrogant jerks who think they’ve reinvented the wheel.

      Reply ↓
  11. Middle-Aged Wasteland*

    Good grief. I would be sorely tempted to answer the first question truthfully and then fill in the rest with song lyrics, my grandmother’s apple butter recipe, and the labors of Hercules until all the pens in my house ran out of ink.

    Reply ↓
    1. Amber Rose*

      I’ve become an expert in Tamarian from fielding off scam calls, I’d be tempted to go that route tbh.

      Why do you want to work here?

      The beast at Tanagra. Zima at Anzo. Temba, his arms wide.

      Reply ↓
      2. Not Tom, Just Petty*

        Zuzu commented above that is 20 questions, wait no 30 and that was the best comment I’ve read here.
        Until now.
        There are four lights and you win them all.

        Reply ↓
  12. Emotional support capybara (he/him)*

    Yeah, no, that is a whole-ass dissertation. That is LUDICROUS. I’d be tempted to send them paragraphs of erotic Lord of the Rings fanfiction signed with a middle finger emoji.

    Reply ↓
    1. Skippy.*

      Speaking of dissertations, can you imagine someone who has a meaningful answer to this question answering this??

      “11. Can you describe your experience as a Principal Investigator or lead on a federally funded research grant, such as NSF or NEA?”

      The PI’s I’ve met are generally tenure track faculty.

      Reply ↓
      1. engineeringTemp*

        I noticed that as well! I supposed it was a non-profit thing that they too can get big grants, but for a NSF grant I would also think tenure track faculty?

        Reply ↓
      2. adorkable*

        Lots of employees at research non-profit get and apply for this funding. (I’m one of them.)

        This one is actually easy if it’s applicable — since all NSF grants require “results of prior NSF funding” you’d just copy and paste from your latest application.

        Reply ↓
  13. HR Exec Popping In*

    You can’t even ask and answer that many answers in a normal interview. They are asking you to put in the work of several interviews upfront before even talking to someone at the organization to determine if this really is a role/organization you might be interested in. I hope no candidates respond.

    Reply ↓
  14. Caramel & Cheddar*

    I would definitely see if I could talk to the friends-of-friends just to see what’s up. Maybe this is some sort of new fangled hiring process that they haven’t yet fully put through its paces yet, so they haven’t had a wave of applicants deny this nonsense. Maybe it’s some rogue HR person trying to save time, who plans on processing all the answers with ChatGPT to get a “synopsis” on who the best candidate is and go from there. Maybe they’ve been doing this for twenty years and no one has questioned them before. Mostly I’d just die of curiosity as to why this is A Thing, so if I had some inside connections and I’d definitely want to find out more.

    But independent of the above, I feel like unless you’re desperate, this is a job you should nope out of, be really clear about why, and definitely mention the equity/accessibility piece. Although this one seems obvious, people don’t always realise when their process is ridiculous unless someone tells them! At the very least I feel like it would be doing a favour for people who apply to future jobs there, in case this prompts them to ditch the survey.

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  15. Peanut Hamper*

    I would be so tempted to just fill it in with ridiculous nonsense just to see if they actually read any of it. “Oh yes, the year I won the Nobel prize in literature….” or “When I was employed by the Ministry of Silly Walks….”

    I mean, c’mon, I can’t even imagine reading one of these, let alone a dozen or more. This organization is just a mess on the inside, I bet.

    Reply ↓
    1. ferrina*

      Tempting, but obviously don’t do it. That could come back to bite you.

      I’m the hiring manager that reads all the fields. I’ve caught people doing it before. Most were already weak candidates who weren’t going further, but one was an otherwise suitable candidate. I asked him about it in the interview; he was suitably embarrassed so I didn’t count it against him. We did end up going with a different candidate for unrelated reasons.

      Reply ↓
  16. Delta Delta*

    Oh heck no. This is a disaster. I really wonder if they know the questionnaire went out the door looking like this. It sort of reads like it was patched together by multiple people who had questions to ask and that they were all stuck into the document. I suspect there’s at least one person there who didn’t have any idea it was going to look like this and would be aghast.

    Or they did this on purpose knowing nobody would apply. Maybe a little malice from within. If that’s the case, you may not want to work there anyway, for reasons you didn’t know before.

    Reply ↓
      1. Double A*

        There’s also a tendency to think that you can rules-lawyer everything and get a better result. Like, one time there was a bad outcome so instead of chalking it up to humans being humans, or doing an assessment and realizing it’s only a 1% error rate and that’s within acceptable parameters, you create Rules and Systems to address edge cases, which leads to inaccessible and ineffective processes filled with bloat.

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        1. Not Tom, Just Petty*

          Oh, this. Well, one time we missed a candidate because we didn’t screen for “similar degree” so instead of making the degree requirement broader, they make it MORE specific and list every possible degree they can think of.
          Do you have a sociology degree?
          Do you have an anthropology degree?
          Do you have bachelor’s of art in chemistry?
          No. Stop. Just stop!

          Reply ↓
    2. Falling Diphthong*

      I suspect this comes down to “More information is always better! How can we get the maximum information from every job applicant, so we can better choose between them?”

      Reply ↓
    3. Zephy*

      Given that several of the questions seem to be asking the same thing stated in different ways, or seem to be parts of the same question, I would also guess that this was assembled by committee and edited not at all before being implemented.

      Reply ↓
  17. nnn*

    Is it even possible for an external applicant to have initial priorities and strategies for strengthening the organization’s evaluation and learning capacity? Wouldn’t they have to come in and be onboarded and see what the organization is already doing first before they can prioritize and strategize how to strengthen it?

    Reply ↓
    1. Ann O'Nemity*

      Just wait. The next stage of the application process is probably creating a strategic plan and balancing the budget.

      Reply ↓
        1. jez chickena*

          I’ve created strategic marketing plans as an interview exercise. I’ve also had to then deliver them to the management team, who challenge you to see how you react. I don’t like doing it, but I got two offers that way.

          Reply ↓
      2. Momma Bear*

        So…work without pay under the guise of an interview.

        I’d take myself out of consideration for this role. I think this is just the start of a lot of nonsense.

        Reply ↓
        1. ferrina*

          ork without pay under the guise of an interview.

          Yup. I’m a consultant, and this is a project that falls well within my wheelhouse.
          But I also come with a lot of experience and resources, and a respectable pricetag.
          Work for free is never free- you usually get what you pay for.

          Reply ↓
    2. umami*

      Right? Sure, let me tell you what your institutional priorities and strategies should be before I even get there. Just … WAT

      Reply ↓
  20. Ask a Man*

    Even though I have a custom GPT trained on a dozen documents, including job descriptions, multi-page CV, performance evaluations, etc. and could quickly generate accurate responses, my response to the email would be the big middle finger of no response.

    Reply ↓
  21. Boss Scaggs*

    That application is insane, but if I really needed a job badly and the company looked good otherwise I’d at least get in touch with the contacts who work there and ask about the environment

    Reply ↓
  23. FashionablyEvil*

    24. Can you provide examples of how you have incorporated principles of inclusivity and intersectionality into your evaluation designs and data collection methods?

    Hahahahahahahahaha. Absolutely amazing levels of cluelessness right there.

    Reply ↓
    1. Strive to Excel*

      Meh. It’s business-jargoned to heck and back, but it’s not an awful question on general principal. Understanding where an evaluation does and does not risk bias, how to prevent it, and how to identify potential discriminatory impacts are all valuable skills when designing any sort of evaluation, including employee evaluations.

      It’s not a good question for a manager you’re hiring though, because presumably any manager you hire should be using your organization’s internal evaluation structure. If you’re hiring someone to help redesign your internal evaluation structure, that’s not the same as hiring a people manager.

      Reply ↓
      1. Strive to Excel*

        Edit to above – just reread it in context of equality of the questionnaire. This needs to be an object case in how *not* to do it. Also, I clearly need more coffee.

        Reply ↓
      2. Double A*

        It’s not that this is on its face a bad question, it’s that it’s asked on questionnaire that is a huge barrier to equity and is poorly designed.

        Reply ↓
        2. Strive to Excel*

          Oh 100%, it just took me a few minutes to realize that.

          My brain can be a bit too Sheldon sometimes, alas!

          Reply ↓
    3. MERLin’s Beard*

      Ironically this is my area of work and I can see myself borrowing a couple of these questions…during a technical or final round oral interview for mid+ level candidates who would have specialized experience.

      You know, like someone who’s not a sadistic jerk who works exclusively with other sadistic jerks.

      Reply ↓
      1. FashionablyEvil*

        Oh, this is totally my field as well. For the type of work I do/this organization does, these are not terrible questions. It’s just the endless list of them. In essay format. At gate one.

        Reply ↓
    4. WFH4VR*

      This is completely baffling. It is like they picked words at random and tried to make them into a sentence. “Can you provide examples of a rutabaga grown at midnight and a Schroedinger’s cat with green eyes, and how they intersect with the space-time continuum?”

      Reply ↓
      1. Eldritch Elf*

        The only word here that might be new to some people is “intersectionality”. The question makes perfect sense.

        Reply ↓
        1. ferrina*

          It depends on field and seniority. I work in a field where I understood the question immediately, but I know very skilled methodologists who would struggle to understand what they heck that is asking. They simply use different words in their work. If you rephrase it as “How do you tailor your instruments and methodology to capture hard-to-reach populations?”, they would be able to write you a dissertation (and in fact, a couple already have).

          That’s the limits of a stagnant questionnaire like this- you can’t rephrase if the candidate isn’t keyed into the exact terms that you are using.

          Reply ↓
          1. JustaTech*

            Exactly! This is an incredibly technical list of questions that use words that sound like they’re not technical (if it was replaced with say, software words it might be more obvious), but might not be universal across the field/industry.

            Which makes it a *poorly designed evaluation*!

            Reply ↓
        2. Strive to Excel*

          As a person who deals in business jargon, I still think it’s a stupid phrasing – “How do you avoid discrimination and bias in data collection” would cover essentially the same information while being much more legible.

          I consider it a negative spillover from academia.

          Reply ↓
    5. Lenora Rose*

      It’s jargony but the question is valid. That would be directly relevant to some of the roles we’ve hired for, and at least two of our staff – and likely my immediate boss – could answer that beautifully and at length.

      Reply ↓
      1. Spacewoman Spiff*

        The question is valid, but in the context of a 30-question written “interview” that absolutely is not designed to be inclusive…nope.

        Reply ↓
  24. Tau*

    So my industry has a thing where asking candidates to do take-home work requiring significant amounts of time is a normal part of the hiring process (software development – I just yesterday got a link to a coding challenge with a comment saying it should take me around 6-8 hours to do.) I do not want to defend this practice; I want to say that even against that backdrop this is egregiously inappropriate. No tech company that wants to actually attract people would do coding challenges as their first filter! It’s usually some steps into the process, when you know for sure you’re interested and the company knows you’re a strong candidate. Because asking people to invest that sort of significant chunk of time before you even look at their CV is incredibly unreasonable!

    Reply ↓
    1. MigraineMonth*

      I had a company reach out to me and ask me to apply. When I pointed out that I didn’t know PHP *or* have any experience with web applications, they said that’s fine, they wanted me to apply anyway.

      The *application* included a PHP web application coding challenge.

      I declined to apply.

      Reply ↓
        1. MigraineMonth*

          At the time I was pretty desperate. I actually started “How to write in PHP” intro lessons, then I realized there was no way I was going to impress any hiring manager with my “I just learned how to code in this language yesterday” code, and there was no way I was going to succeed at a company that intentionally screened out anyone like me.

          Technical interviews where you have to write code on a whiteboard get a lot of (justified) criticism, but at least they let me write in a language I was familiar with.

          Reply ↓
          1. Kevin Sours*

            I’ll admit that I have done coding exercises on paper (I find whiteboard writing to be needlessly cumbersome). I find people it separates people who have thought about and can follow what the computer is going to do when executing their code from people who can’t. There is a troubling number of the latter out there. The ability to determine if a block of code is going to produce the right result by looking at it is a valuable skill.

            Reply ↓
            1. Kevin Sours*

              I hasten to add that I do not care a whit about syntax error or other penny ante stuff. Or even which particular language (or any particularly language) you care to write in so long as I can understand it. And if you can explain it to me I can understand it.

              Reply ↓
    2. Kevin Sours*

      My company at one time did a skills “quiz” before any technical interviews but it was gear to take 20-30 minutes for anybody remotely qualified. And even then I’m reasonably sure that only happened after a resume screen and a phone screen with the recruiter.

      Reply ↓
  25. Jennifer Strange*

    There is something that tickles me about the “What’s your superpower” question stuck in there. I know they mean things like, “I’ve got a great attention to detail!” or “I’m a great communicator!” but it really sounds like they’re sticking a Buzzfeed Quiz question into there. It just makes it all the more ridiculous.

    Reply ↓
    1. Juicebox Hero*

      “My superpower is clobbering hiring managers who expect me to write out a whole encyclopedia just for a job application with a wet salmon. THWAP!”

      Reply ↓
    3. Six for the truth over solace in lies*

      lol, I just assumed that it was a different sort of stupid question and they actually wanted a superpower-related answer. Questions like that, or “if you were a tree, what tree would you be?” or “what’s your power animal?” or “if you suddenly had a billion dollars, what would you do?” or “if you could only take one book to a desert island, what would it be?” have been popular for decades by hiring managers who swear up and down that they can tell what kind of employee is a Sagittarius willow who loves Inner Excellence.

      Especially if this list was made by an AI eating lists of example questions and spitting out 30 similar ones.

      Reply ↓
  26. Circus Monkey*

    Questions 8-10 seem to be the same question or at least parts on one question. ….And what’s up with question 29? How does that help in a job application?…or is this a comic strip?

    Reply ↓
    1. Annie*

      I came here to say something to this effect. I work in this field and do work where all of these skills and background experiences are relevant to my day-to-day, and *tons* of these questions are asking the same thing in different ways.

      Reply ↓
  27. Tuesday Tacos*

    This is ludicrous. To me it sounds like the end results of this would be that the candidates effectively wrote them an entire training/ procedure manual for the job. Maybe that ia actually what they are after.

    Reply ↓
      1. Tuesday Tacos*

        and non-profits are known to often pay much lower then the outside world, sounds like they are trying hard to take advantage!

        Reply ↓
  28. ZSD*

    I particularly love how question 29 shows they thought they needed to include a “fun” question. So people would enjoy filling this out, presumably.

    Reply ↓
  29. umami*

    Holy hell, I started scrolling through the questions, thinking they were super-reasonable, until I never could STOP scrolling!! Just … no.

    Reply ↓
  30. ijustworkhere*

    I’d send that questionnaire to the Board Chair and let them know if they are having difficulty recruiting good candidates this might be why.

    Reply ↓
    1. Falling Diphthong*

      In its way, it follows smoothly from the “… so four months after the deadline, I finally heard back” set-up.

      Reply ↓
  31. MLH*

    I’d play dumb and write back, “I’m sorry, you seem to have mistakenly sent me a copy of your first, second, AND third round interview questions! Surely that was a mistake?” lol

    Reply ↓
  32. Falling Diphthong*

    Someone please fill out the entire thing as though you were applying for a job at the villainous organization in Hench.

    Reply ↓
    4. Mark This Confidential And Leave It Laying Around*

      Only Villainous Org could have credibly sent this! (They *did* inquire about superpowers.)

      Reply ↓
      1. MigraineMonth*

        I agree that the questionnaire is evil, but OVO always struck me as too efficient to send out this kind of generated-by-committee dreck.

        Reply ↓
  33. Kez*

    I feel very vindicated by the response here, as someone who worked (very briefly, thank goodness) in a nonprofit that had a similarly large portion of the application dedicated to essay questions which spanned a broad range of topics that, when I applied, were already addressed in my cover letter.

    Once there, leadership was constantly asking for folks to pitch in with ideas about how to address the staff shortages that were causing burnout. When I mentioned how onerous this process was, they had the gall to inform me that they had instituted the questions as an equity measure! Apparently they were worried about folks who wouldn’t know to include these things in their cover letters? But when I pointed out that they could make the questions optional with a note that some folks might have already answered the questions in their cover letter, they were confident that this HR-mandated slog was not, in fact, the problem with getting people to apply.

    To add to the nonsense, the area in which they were struggling to retain staff was childcare and direct services. The idea that candidates with these highly-sought-after skills would want to waste time writing essays just to be considered for a low-paying position that would almost certainly be overworking them is still absurd to me.

    Reply ↓
    1. FashionablyEvil*

      But also, I’m hard pressed to believe that writing essays would be a needed skill for either of those positions!

      Reply ↓
    2. Observer*

      they had the gall to inform me that they had instituted the questions as an equity measure!

      Were they being serious? Because if they were, the incompetence here is *staggering*! Not just in terms of equity, although that’s a significant concern but basic understanding of your constituency(ies) and the basic requirements to get the job done.

      Reply ↓
  34. LizB*

    I would be so tempted to answer all the questions that are phrased as yes/no questions with just that, yes or no. No elaboration. Can I share an experience that shows I can collaborate effectively? Yes! I’ll share it if and when you decide to interview me. But good thinking to check ahead of time that I will be able to answer that question at the appropriate stage of the application process.

    Reply ↓
  35. Alton Brown's Evil Twin*

    Here’s what I take from this. This set of questions was generated by a committee. And there are 2 possibilities about why this list is the way it is, both related to the culture of the organization.

    A) it’s hopelessly immersed in consensus decision-making and everybody is afraid of stepping on somebody else’s toes. Nobody is willing to challenge anybody else’s wild ideas or pet peeves.

    B) everybody pushes things off to the last minute, slaps whatever they have together, and doesn’t think critically about what they’ve done. It took FOUR MONTHS to get this questionnaire sent out to applicants!

    Instead of generating a thoughtful list of questions, they just included everything from every committee member and did the bare minimum to assemble it into a coherent whole.

    I mean just look at questions 16-18: all refer to MERL, but that acronym isn’t defined until the second question. That’s technical writing 101, and the fact that somebody on the committee didn’t bother to renumber the questions or move the definition to the first one is really telling.

    Reply ↓
    1. Double A*

      Exactly this. This organization doesn’t value equity and inclusion. This organization values saying they value equity and inclusion, but their most important value is conflict avoidance.

      Reply ↓
    2. MsM*

      I strongly suspect it’s A. Although it could also be C: whoever designed and/or ultimately signed off on this monstrosity is a missing stair, and nobody wants or can figure out how to effectively push back on them in particular.

      Reply ↓
      1. Liz Bender*

        I wonder if it’s D – this is actually the second pass at the applicant pool. LW says they’re worried about being excluded right off the bat because they haven’t finished their degree yet. Perhaps they were originally excluded, which would explain the 4 month wait time. But after the org went through their entire interview process and couldn’t make a successful hire they decided to rehash the same candidates with a different approach (i.e. this ridiculous questionnaire).

        Reply ↓
  36. Wordnerd*

    I’m so annoyed by the overall thing, but also by the unnecessary “Can you”s on many of the questions (rather than “Please share” or something similar) that I think it would be fun to respond to each of those “Can you”s with just “Yes.” and then move on to the next question.

    Reply ↓
    1. Juicebox Hero*

      Makes me want to channel a very pedantic English teacher I had in junior high. “Can I…?” questions were always met with “Yes, you can, but no, you may not.” Also, “Can you…” was always answered with “Yes, I can, but I will not.”

      So I’d write “I can, but I won’t.”

      Reply ↓
      1. JustaTech*

        When my grandparents were courting my grandfather would call up and say “Can I speak to Betty?” and my great-grandfather the newspaper editor would say “yes” and hang up.

        Reply ↓
      2. MigraineMonth*

        Pedantic is my native language. At my house if you asked my dad if he could pass the salt, he’d say “Yes.”

        “Pass the damn salt, Dad.”

        Reply ↓
  37. fluffy*

    A couple of years ago I’d applied to a well-known opensource company who had a very similar essay question screening process (only their list of questions was about twice as long), plus they had a hyperfocus on academic achievement (many of the questions were about what my classmates would have known me for!!!) and really wanted things like high school and college transcripts, never mind that I got my Master’s degree over 20 years ago now.

    I ended up removing myself from consideration, and I do not regret it one bit.

    Reply ↓
  38. CityMouse*

    There is no way they’re reading all those responses so it’s insulting they’ve asked for something they clearly won’t read.

    Reply ↓
  39. Falling Diphthong*

    Is there by any chance a Greek myth angle? This reminds me of Penelope promising to marry a suitor once she finished weaving this shroud, and then arranging for that to take 20 years.

    Do they perhaps pay bonuses only after they have filled this position?

    Reply ↓
    1. MsM*

      “Our ED pricked their finger on a spinning wheel, and only the brave candidate able to navigate the nest of brambles that is this questionnaire can wake them.”

      Reply ↓
    3. MigraineMonth*

      I assumed you were going with Herculean or Sisyphean tasks. I think I’d rather muck out the stables or get crushed by a boulder, thanks.

      Reply ↓
      1. Nightengale*

        When you think about it (and I am embarrassed to say I have been a mythology buff for over 4 decades and this is the first I’ve thought about it) Penelope sort of Sisyphised herself.

        Reply ↓
  40. Insert Pun Here*

    Several of these questions are phrased as “can you describe” or “can you discuss” with no further requests for details, so you can safely answer “yes” to those and move on. That’ll cut the 10 hours down to 6 or 7, I reckon.

    Ask stupid questions, get stupid answers! This org deserves it.

    Reply ↓
  41. Lola Banana*

    I work in communications and in a previous job had a specialization in crisis management. In the first few months of COVID, I was looking to leave that job and applied to a position with a similar portfolio in the same industry (which was heavily affected by COVID). After the screening interview with HR, before I’d talked to anyone substantively, they asked me to review all of their communications materials and write an assessment. The screening was on Thursday, this request came on Friday at 4:00pm, and it was due Monday at noon. I replied that such a review was quite a lot to ask of an applicant, especially with less than 72 hours to complete it, and that I was working 18 hours a day, 7 days a week dealing with COVID at my current job and would not be able to complete it regardless. I offered to review the materials and discuss them in an interview. They told me they could not move forward without the written assessment and that was that.

    And that was FAR less offensive than what OP is being asked to do.

    Run. Run away. Fast.

    Reply ↓
  42. Observer*

    Honestly, unless you are desperate fore *a* job, I would absolutely refuse to even try, and tell them why. This process is bonkers and the exact opposite of equity and the basics of good management. So *something* is wrong. And it’s highly likely that whatever it is, is not minor.

    Reply ↓
  44. Wendy Darling*

    I would be so tempted to respond with that one meme:

    i ain’t reading all that
    i’m happy for u tho
    or sorry that happened

    Even just the list of questions is too long for me to bother with, forget answering them. Also somehow it’s never the jobs that seem great that do this, it’s always the ones I was like, eh might as well apply to this it might be better than it looks.

    Reply ↓
    2. MsM*

      This is just to say
      I am returning
      the questions
      that were in your email

      and which
      you were probably
      hoping
      would be answered

      Forgive me
      they were stupid
      so detailed
      and so long

      Reply ↓
  45. Llellayena*

    I would be tempted say yes or no to any question worded so that could apply (“can you give an example…” yes.) and answer the others with “answer to be provided during the phone or in-person interview.” Or possibly to send a freelancing contract back for the time it would take to complete. This is insane. Do any of these HR people have relatives who are English teachers (or ANY teacher)? Do they realize that reviewing that many written answers of essay length will take more time than a 15-20 min phone screen?

    Reply ↓
  46. Throwaway Account*

    I now want to apply to this job and will volunteer to assemble the ChatGPT responses to the 30 questions for the OP.

    I just had a go at using ChatGPT to answer them and gave no information at all other than, please help me write answers to these questions to prep for a job interview. Write them in a narrative format.

    It left spaces to fill in the blanks for the first two questions and even had a lot to say about my (non-existent) experience designing and implementing comprehensive evaluation plans, including data collection, analysis, and reporting.

    Reply ↓
  47. Reality.Bites*

    In Canada, to be on the Supreme Court you fill out a job application. It may well be less detailed than this one!

    I won’t post a link, but if you search “apply to supreme court of canada” the first hit on Google should be a page titled “Qualifications and Assessment Criteria” – if you’re interested in seeing a job description and other stuff.

    Reply ↓
    1. Canadian Federal Plankton*

      This feels very much like some of the applications I’ve filled out for the Canadian federal public service! (For folks who have never applied, our applications are notoriously long (multiple paragraph-length questions, many of which are redundant but you’ll be screened out if you don’t answer them all fully), as are the timelines for competitions – multiple years are not uncommon.)

      Reply ↓
  49. The Baconing*

    I don’t understand this. In a world where most companies now use some form of AI to prescreen anyway, making candidates fill out something that makes the SATs look like a pop quiz is so confusing to me. What is the AI going to pick up on in the novella they want candidates to write?

    If they’re trying to sidestep an initial phone interview, I think that says a lot about how they operate, and I’m not sure I’d want to work with a company that cuts those kinds of corners. They can’t even be bothered to create thoughtful, useful initial interview questions? Seems like a red flag to me!

    Reply ↓
  50. r..*

    I don’t normally do this, but in this case I’d be very tempted to just copy/paste this to/from a LLM and see what happens.

    Just for the lolz and the memes. I would never consider working for place that thought this to be appropriate, and they thoroughly deserve all the piss-taking they will receive over this. :-)

    Reply ↓
  52. Properlike*

    <>

    Me: “Yes. This application process. My question: WTF are you thinking?”

    I’d also be tempted to go through and answer any question that could be served with a yes/no answer with yes or no.

    Reply ↓
  54. Leo McGarry*

    First red flag is the four month delay in connecting with candidates. While unfortunately not that uncommon, many of your applicants probably either found other work or wrote off the employer completely.

    In scrolling through the questions, I can’t imagine how a majority of those would be classified as “first round” questions. People aren’t going to be equipped to be able to answer “If you were hired, what are your initial priorities and strategies for strengthening our evaluation and learning capacity” in the first interview, unless someone is asking the question and providing some background information. Even then, that’s like asking a Little Leaguer to hit a Randy Johnson fastball.

    While I doubt that many will take the time and put in the thought to answer the questions, I really hope there are 15-20 people who do, only because I really want to envision some poor hiring manager mainlining coffee while trying to stay awake to read 300 pages of responses. And then trying to determine which candidate said what, and which should move on.

    LW, please say something about this. They’re going to chase away good candidates. They’re not going to get people’s actual answers. They’re not going to be able to evaluate properly. And, please ask what questions are being held back for round 2. “What is your plan to ensure an end to hunger and establish world peace within your first 90 days?”

    Please update us and let us know both what you do, and what you find out from the folks you know there.

    Reply ↓
  55. Mark This Confidential And Leave It Laying Around*

    It took them 4 months to send this monstrosity. Imagine how long it will take them to reach out for a real interview.

    Reply ↓
  56. Uhura*

    Amazingly I was able to get through the whole list, but yeah, it is waaaay too much for a first round interview.

    I do have to say I really liked Questions #27 and 28 – 27. Can you describe a challenging experience you’ve had with a previous supervisor? What made working with them difficult for you? and 28. Can you share an experience with a previous supervisor who brought out the best in you? What qualities made them an effective leader in your eyes?

    I think these two questions should stay, and maybe two or three others. I think anything more than 6 questions is too much, regardless of what round interview a person is at.

    Reply ↓
    1. iglwif*

      Quite a few of these questions (including those 2, which I also really like) are perfectly good interview questions on their own. Some are repetitive and a few are deeply weird. But yeah, the main bananapantsery is the sheer length of the list — I would be happy to answer maybe 4-6 in-depth questions in writing, personally, but I’ve never wanted any job enough to answer 30 such questions, either in writing or viva voce.

      (The 4-month interval between sending a resume and hearing back, followed by this assignment with a 1-week turnaround, is also … not a choice I would make as an employer.)

      Reply ↓
    2. Richard Hershberger*

      27: I used to work for a guy who was so notorious in the industry that for years afterwards I used the fact that I lasted three years as a selling point.

      Reply ↓
      1. MigraineMonth*

        Not quite the same, but I have a company on my resume where every time I say they fired me after I worked there for 7 years, the answer is “You made it SEVEN YEARS??”

        Reply ↓
  57. Phony Genius*

    Thomas Edison had a 146-question test to work for him. Most of the questions were about science, with some trivia thrown in. I would rather do that test than answer all of these questions.

    Reply ↓
  58. Former Lab Rat*

    #29: My superpower is to avoid ineffectively run organizations that think this application was a good idea. #30: My question going forward – How much do you pay the clown that came up with this list? [BTW – it’s too much.] Back to #3: strengthen the organization by getting rid of whoever approved this list and find someone who actually knows how to search for good candidates.

    Reply ↓
  60. SometimesCharlotte*

    I am a fan of sending candidates about 3 questions that are scenarios of things they might encounter on the job. I think it helps us as interviewers see if they really have the skills they say they do and it gives candidates some insight into what to expect in the role. But while the scenarios are pulled straight from real life situations, they are never asking for work product nor are they this lengthy. They really need to drill down on what are the most important things for them to know right off – what are the deal breakers vs what can they work with/accept/train for etc – and save the rest for subsequent interviews!

    Reply ↓
    1. iglwif*

      This (or “If you could have just one superpower, what would it be?”) is a fun optional question to include when you’re doing a lighthearted marketing profile of someone. People will give answers like, “I can identify about a hundred commonly used typefaces by sight” and “I always know what time it is” and “dogs like me,” or answers like “I would love to be able to teleport so I could go visit a different continent every weekend” and “I think invisibility would be more useful but flying would be more fun”.

      It’s an absolutely unhinged question to include in a job interview, which is a serious conversation about whether the applicant wants the job and whether you want to hire them to do it.

      Reply ↓
  62. UpstateDownstate*

    In all honestly I stopped readying after Question 13….how effing clueless.

    I’d like to see how long it will take them to read all of the responses from those that do decide to write back, and I imagine Round 2 of the interview process will happen in 2026. HA!!! Best of luck to them and I do hope the OP sends the suggested reply and just that.

    Reply ↓
  63. Annie*

    My answers to some of these questions:
    19. Can you share an experience that exemplifies your ability to take initiative? Yes
    20. Can you share an experience that demonstrates your ability to collaborate effectively? Yes
    21. Can you describe an experience that illustrates how you adapted to feedback? No
    22. Can you give an example of an experience where you asked insightful questions to achieve better outcomes? Yes
    23. Can you share an experience of how you’ve worked effectively in fluctuating or chaotic situations? No
    24. Can you provide examples of how you have incorporated principles of inclusivity and intersectionality into your evaluation designs and data collection methods? Yes

    Asked and answered! Haha.

    Reply ↓
  64. iglwif*

    Wow, this is … bananapants.

    I wonder if someone at this company read about the concept of providing interview questions in advance so candidates have a chance to think back on their experience and make notes (a good accessibility practice), and someone else at the company read about using behavioural interview questions, and a third person is really into using ChatGPT, and somehow those three things got fed into a blender and produced this monstrosity.

    Reply ↓
  65. pally*

    I love how they wait until question 26 to ask if the candidate has managed anyone previously.

    I guess experience is not the most important thing to hire for in a management role.

    Reply ↓
  66. jenni*

    This has AI written all over it (both for the questions and probably where they will through this mountain of text they are about to recieve

    Reply ↓
  67. Hey, I'm wohrkin heah*

    Makes me wonder what would be required if you work there. One of those “count the number of candy corns in the fishbowl” competitions every morning before you can log on? And the annual reviews could probably be shelved in the Library of Congress.

    Reply ↓
  68. LifeisaDream*

    I stopped at Q.5. Unless I was guaranteed an interview I won’t spend my time and energy on answering the questions. I suspect that the person(s) receiving the applications is skimming through the answers and might not even open any after a certain time frame.

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  70. WillowSunstar*

    I don’t even know what MERL is, but I probably wouldn’t apply for that particular job. They should at least spell out the acronyms and not make people google.

    Reply ↓
  71. Bananapants*

    Oh wow I was convinced I’d read this letter before but it turns out I was thinking of “I’m supposed to write 23 mini-essays in 24 hours before an employer will even interview me”. It’s depressing that this is apparently a relatively common practice.

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  73. Lenora Rose*

    Questions 3 through 7 or 8 look like exactly the place to point out why what is effectively a survey requiring multiple hours of time and dedication on the part of the voluntary survey subjects is an incredibly inappropriate and inefficient data collection process, both for those surveyed and the surveyors…

    Assuming, that is, that they actually recognize this is exactly what they’re doing. A remarkably inefficient and ineffective form of data collection that demands too much of voluntary participants.

    Reply ↓
  74. Another Hiring Manager*

    yet another company taking the inter out of interviews.

    The only way to make this go away is for those who can afford it to say, “no way.”

    Reply ↓
    1. Maxouillenet*

      In France, some jobs are only accessible by competitive examination. I recently took an oral exam (the last test before the results) and I was bound to have a few questions in this style, but not that many, and I had already passed two written tests beforehand.

      It’s almost as if an employer had taken all the collections of past papers that are sold on the market for a competitive examination in his field and said to himself “well, in a competitive examination oral you can’t ask all the questions, time is limited, but not here”.

      Reply ↓
  75. Disabled worker*

    As a Disabled person I definitely would not put this much time and effort into an application like this before even being interviewed. I simply do not have the energy for this sort of questionnaire when I’m looking for a job.
    Asking people to spend this much energy on an initial application is counter to actually inclusive hiring, and honestly it makes their claim of caring about inclusivity look rather absurd in the face of this.

    Reply ↓
  76. Pam Schrute-Beesley*

    An organization I know of did a study that found it’s applicant process took, on average, 40 hours for the successful candidate.

    They committed to shortening the process. Did they ever do it though, I don’t know.

    Reply ↓
  77. Inkognyto*

    send back only 1 answer.

    29 – My super power is detecting interview questionnaires that are absurd and sending back a single response.

    Reply ↓
  78. Anyone else?*

    I remember applying for an engineering internship five years ago at a nation-wide manufacturing company, and part of their application process was an IQ-style quiz that asked questions like, “Which one of these squares with black dots is not like the others?”

    Being a good little college student at the time, I swallowed my annoyance and dealt with it because I thought that even if the questions were unusual, there was likely a good reason for them. Now I just look back on it and think how strange it was.

    Reply ↓
    1. Richard Hershberger*

      The one on the far right is unlike the others in that it is the only one on the far right.

      Yes, that is a smartass answer, but it also is a correct one. This is distinct from the desired answer, which is culturally determined.

      Reply ↓
  80. Head Sheep Counter*

    1. What specifically interests you about working at the Evil Empire? Can you share what attracts you to Evil Empire’s mission and values? You’ll see on page 11 of my resume the list of my evil doing statistics. I rank in the top ten in my current organization for villainy and consistently am awarded the fluffy kitty award and $1M. I believe together we would be unstoppable.
    2. What do you know about Evil Empire’s work and why are you excited about the possibility of joining our team? I have long admired the trail of despair your company has wrought and aspire to contribute to future wrecking of people’s souls. My assist in canceling insurance in California leads me to believe I’d be a good fit.
    3. If you were hired, what are your initial priorities and strategies for strengthening our evaluation and learning capacity? Beatings until moral improves
    4. Can you describe your experience designing and implementing comprehensive evaluation plans, including data collection, analysis, and reporting? Minions and cat herding
    5. What evaluation frameworks or theories have you applied in your work? How have they influenced your approach to designing and conducting evaluations? I find the writings of crazed leaders of the past to inspire the framework I put forward. And need flexibility to adapt situational. Will illuminate further upon interview.
    6. Can you discuss a specific evaluation project where you used a particular framework or theory to inform your methodology? See aforementioned insurance cancellation
    7. What data collection methods are you proficient in (e.g., surveys, interviews, focus groups, observations)? How do you ensure data quality and reliability? I find a simple room with a bare lightbulb to really inspire folk to part with their data
    8. Have you conducted asset-based community development assessments or similar evaluations? If so, please describe your experience and the impact of your work. My work in denying insurance claims protected the insurance company’s assets. Further my foray into Banes Capital taught me a number of things about corporate raiding techniques. Happy to discuss in an interview.
    9. How do you incorporate asset-based approaches into your evaluation practice to highlight community strengths and resources? My work in denying insurance claims protected the insurance company’s assets. Further my foray into Banes Capital taught me a number of things about corporate raiding techniques. Happy to discuss in an interview.
    10. If so, could you provide an example of how you have used this approach in your work? Happy to discuss in an interview.

    ok I’ve crapped out… someone else take the next ten

    11. Can you describe your experience as a Principal Investigator or lead on a federally funded research grant, such as NSF or NEA?
    12. Have you been involved in the development and submission of proposals for other major funding agencies, such as NIH, DOE, or private foundations?
    13. What specific challenges and opportunities did you encounter in securing and managing these grants?
    14. Can you discuss your experience in managing budgets and financial reporting for federally funded projects? How did you balance the demands of grant writing, research, and project management responsibilities?
    15. What strategies do you use to stay updated on current funding opportunities and trends in your field?
    16. What specific MERL tools and techniques are you familiar with?
    17. How would you approach training staff on the principles and practices of monitoring, evaluation, research, and learning (MERL)?
    18. How would you ensure that staff are using MERL to inform program decisions and improve outcomes?
    19. Can you share an experience that exemplifies your ability to take initiative?
    20. Can you share an experience that demonstrates your ability to collaborate effectively?
    21. Can you describe an experience that illustrates how you adapted to feedback?
    22. Can you give an example of an experience where you asked insightful questions to achieve better outcomes?
    23. Can you share an experience of how you’ve worked effectively in fluctuating or chaotic situations?
    24. Can you provide examples of how you have incorporated principles of inclusivity and intersectionality into your evaluation designs and data collection methods?
    25. How do you ensure that your evaluations are culturally responsive and address the unique needs and experiences of diverse populations? What strategies do you use to identify and mitigate potential biases in your research and evaluation practices?
    26. Have you managed anyone previously? What is your leadership style?
    27. Can you describe a challenging experience you’ve had with a previous supervisor? What made working with them difficult for you?
    28. Can you share an experience with a previous supervisor who brought out the best in you? What qualities made them an effective leader in your eyes?
    29. What is your superpower?
    30. What questions do you have going forward?

    Reply ↓
  81. Raida*

    Wow, that’s like a full on interview but as a writing assignment!
    Maybe they went through all of their wants and needs, wrote out what they wanted to know for all of them, wanting to be comprehensive.

    Great. Idea. I applaud them for gathering all that info.

    BUT then didn’t do the work to figure out how onerous it would be for applicants, in actually putting it together as a list of questions to be responded to in writing and not an interview.

    If they wanted to cull the applicant list, this whole thing could have been used but very very trimmed down, more y/n options, and oh yeah – sent out six months ago

    Reply ↓
  83. I'll have the blue plate special, please.*

    I feel like these answers will be used by the company if they think it will improve their operations, without hiring the person or giving compensation.

    Reply ↓
  84. Weird Workplace*

    Would it count if I just edited their questions down to a few coherent ones? One bit of my evaluation expertise is knowing you don’t phrase open ended questions as “Can you…”

    Reply ↓
  85. Wanderland*

    this looks similar to the time I wrote in where a association asked me to do the exact same thing. Is this an association?

    Reply ↓
  86. EA*

    Ahhhhh, why am I not surprised this is coming from a nonprofit? I can pretty much guarantee they have no real HR staff!

    In all seriousness, if you’re a strong candidate and still interested, I would reply and say something like, “I’m really interested in your mission and work. [You could even add a short answers to #s 1 and 2 here]. Unfortunately, with my current workload, I’m not able to complete the full 40-question survey, but if there is another way to continue in the process, please let me know.”

    Reply ↓
  87. keyboards all the way*

    LW, you could just…not fill out the application. Toss it and live your life. The company is not going to care about your feedback. Sorry but it’s true. And I’ll be honest, a lot of the questions on that application were pinging my “this is a phishing scam” radar so you’re getting worked up about a fake application/job ad anyway, maybe. Take the mental energy (and time!) you’ve wasted on these jabronis (assuming this is actually a real job opening) and focus it on a better opportunity that doesn’t waste your time.

    Reply ↓
  88. grr*

    I am 90% sure I know which nonprofit this is…or else there’s a lot of really bad ones out there.

    Also this same nonprofit re-asked those questions during my in-person interview. Just to make sure the answers I gave actually came from me! Of course it turned out to be an awful place to work and there were filtering for the truly desperate who would put up with their horrible management. That’s why they so emphasized working with “challenging” supervisors and “chaotic situations”.

    Anyone applying to public policy research non-profits with offices on the east and west coast, be wary.

    Reply ↓
  89. 653-CXK*

    Respond to each of the questions with this response…

    “Thank you for sending me this question. I will be withdrawing my consideration from this job.”

    Reply ↓
  90. CD*

    I’ve withdrawn applications further into the interview process for less than this! Admittedly those instances were a decade ago and for mostly entry-level positions. I had a great screener call and then in-person interview with an organization in a nearby (and reasonably commutable) city. I was a little nervous about the daily commute and on the fence about leaving my job. But the breaking point was getting a homework packet to complete before coming back for a simulation activity/3rd round interview.
    I ended up staying on at my job and I was swiftly promoted to a management role where I did whatever I could to streamline our interview process!

    Reply ↓
  92. nonprofit writer*

    Just curious, is this an education-focused nonprofit in the NYC area? Something like Teach for America? (but I don’t think it was Teach for America? Can’t remember the organization’s name now) Because it reminds me of a job I applied to years ago, and subsequently withdrew from consideration because of this kind of nonsense. I think maybe this stuff came after a phone interview? But it was an insane, insane amount of writing as part of the application process (even for a writing job, which is what I was applying for). I checked with a few mentors to make sure I wasn’t off base and they told me it sounded nuts to them too.

    Reply ↓
  93. Mango Freak*

    Once I got an application form like this and just wrote, “Available for further questions upon interview” in every box.

    No, I never heard from them, but I fully chalked it up as their loss.

    Reply ↓
  94. Is this a Game Show?*

    Pretty ironic that question 25 starts: How do you ensure that your evaluations are culturally responsive and address the unique needs and experiences of diverse populations?

    Who thought a list of 30 questions (really, even more since some of them are multi-part) requiring written answers was culturally responsive and addressed the unique needs and experiences of diverse populations?

    I would either withdraw my candidacy or use that point to push back on this process.

    Reply ↓
  95. Griffin Dore*

    For all the questions that start with “Can you…” I would be tempted to answer as yes/no questions, and give 1-10 word answers to the other questions.

    Reply ↓
  97. Cats Ate My Croissant*

    I am disproportionately irritated by the fact that they used the acronym MERL in q16 and then defined it in q17.

    Aside from that, the corporate-speak reminded me of ‘Bellwether’ by Connie Willis, in which Management (always with a capital M) frequently drag staff into pointless meetings and ask them how to improve things. The protagonist’s friend always writes the same 5 points in various combinations:
    1. Optimize potential.
    2. Facilitate empowerment.
    3. Implement visioning.
    4. Strategize priorities.
    5. Augment core structures.

    Reply ↓
  98. adorkable*

    I work in your exact field, and I have never been asked to do this. I have been asked most of these questions in interviews but this is bananas.

    (Also, there is so much repetition here that I’m skeptical that anyone in this org has any real understanding of evaluation or they’d have been able to cull these questions.)

    I desperately want to know what org this is so I never apply for a job there. Please name and shame!

    If you don’t want to share, if the listing is currently up on AEA, I will try to figure it out for myself.

    Reply ↓
  99. Winters tale*

    “What is your superpower?”

    Phishing/scam. Big time. That question shows up a lot on scam job applications for some reason. I don’t know why.

    Best case scenario: this is a company that doesn’t know how to hire people and that dysfunction spreads to ALL levels of the company, no amount of money is worth it especially if it’s a non profit because they’ll pay you in THE MISSION and PASSION (barf me to death). Junk the application and move on, stop wasting time even thinking about it.

    Worst case scenario: spam spam spam spam (with a side of phishing for your data). Junk the application and move on, stop wasting time even thinking about it. If you did give them any engagement/info, keep an extra close eye on your bank accounts and passwords for a while.

    Reply ↓
  100. Been There Done That*

    oh my goodness!!! I spent 20 years working in the nonprofit arena, the last 15 at the C Level – I probably answered all of these questions in one form or another, but they were in person and only after I was in the final running. I had to giggle at the question – what is your superpower – I don’t know….having the patience to complete these questions? Raising 500% more than the budget requires? This almost sounds like these questions were compiled by a committee. Run…..as fast as you can!!!!!

    Reply ↓
  101. AnonProfit*

    This is exactly how the US federal government handled hiring for *years* until about 15 years ago or so. Applications were pages and pages of essay questions after essay questions that were screened by…circa 2010’s government IT systems. The end result was an entire cottage industry of c0nsultants you could hire to write your answers for you. Their pay structure was typically based on how far into the hiring process you got. There was no realistic way of getting through the process without having your answers ghost-written by someone who had cracked the algorithm and did not particularly care if their client was really qualified.
    This is definitely going to end in AI hiring bots interviewing AI candidate bots like some dystopian Sneetches loop.

    Reply ↓
  102. Llama groomer*

    I recently applied for a job that did something similar, though not this egregious. The HR screening interviewer had about as much enthusiasm as a robot and I could tell she was clearly reading from a script. Which in and of itself is not a bad thing, but when I clearly answered the next question on the list as part of the previous question… like put two and two together. After the phone screening they sent me a list of 10 questions (similar to these), which I answered at least in the phone screening!

    Yeah, it was a no from me. The company I work for is about to implode so I’m really ramping the job search, but I’m not that desperate (yet).

    Reply ↓
  103. Bay*

    My first real hiring process started like this! It was for a non-hierarchical/consensus based co-op and it wasn’t until I read these questions that I was sure this LW encountered a different organization.

    The way it happened in my first workplace was a mix of particular ingredients: a) founders of the co-op all graduated from the same liberal arts college where philosophy and writing were the currency, and bullshit was seriously contemplated b) consensus makes change hard, and the growth of the organization was way ahead of many of its practices and c) we were all paid hourly and the work could involve a lot of physical and unpleasant stuff, so for the group that volunteered to do hiring, it probably was a pleasant change to dig through a millon essays.

    In many ways it was a fine workplace, but man, the hiring process was truly college nerds selecting college nerds.

    Reply ↓
  104. Lanam*

    I think the HR person screwed up here, if they exist in this org. This should never have gone out the door. If HR doesn’t exist in this org, that explains some things. Someone must have done this solo because I cannot imagine multiple normal people thinking this is appropriate.

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  105. WendyinCLE*

    I just had ChatGPT write answers to these quesitons as if I was a 45-year old female astronaut who used to work at SpaceX. I’m actually…pretty impressive.

    Reply ↓
  107. Goddess47*

    Am I the only one who hopes the organization sees this *and* reads the comments *and* understands how bananapants their entire process is?

    Reply ↓
  108. Original Bob*

    Can someone explain what no. 9 even MEANS? I REALLY hope this gets posted on Glassdoor and the company gets roasted.

    Reply ↓

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