I met some people from the company at a local job fair, and dropped a copy of my resume. A few days later I got a phone call from a recruiter, telling me that they were impressed with my resume and wanted me to answer a pre-interview question.
Answering the question implied getting familiar with their online data analysis solution and, using a demo baseball data-set, assessing the validity of a given statement. First of all, they claimed that no baseball knowledge was required to analyze the data and answer the question, and you could have made your own assumption. However, you still need some basic understanding of the baseball terms in order to make reasonable assumptions that could possibly lead you to find an answer.
Second, the quality of the data-set was, in my opinion, really poor, with no descriptions attached to tables and columns. Anyway, I figured something out, did my assumptions, and found a reasonable answer.
A week or two after submitting my answer, I got a second phone call. They liked my solution and wanted me to go for a day-long on-site interview. I knew it was a small company, so I was surprised that the interview was going to last the whole day (how many people was I supposed to talk to?). Anyway, I showed up at 9.30 on the day of the interview.
By noon, I had already interviewed with three different persons, all acting as they were world renowned technologists and scientists. The interview went pretty well, except for a couple of flaws. First, one of the folks started to ask questions about encryption algorithms (nothing to do with the position or the company altogether),and I wasn't brilliant in my answers although I am familiar with computer security. Second, when asked why I was leaving my current position, I candidly said that after over 4 years in the same position, it was time for me to make the next step in my career. They didn't seem to like that, as if I was going to leave them after a year, once hired.
Well, after meeting the third interviewer, the recruiter came to me and said "you are done for today", and claimed that another person I was supposed to talk to was not in the office. Expecting to be there the whole day, I had my return trip scheduled a 7pm!
