I applied through an employee referral. The process took 3 months. I interviewed at Advarra in May 2021
Interview
I applied and noted that I was referred by a current employee. It took about 3 months to hear back from them. The HR specialist called me and did a preliminary interview. We spoke about salary and benefits and from their, I was scheduled for an interview with 3 IRB Meeting Managers via RingCentral. The last interview was with the 2 IRB Directors via RingCentral. Everyone was nice and welcoming. And they are a great company to go to if you want to gain experience in research (IRB side) as they love to train and promote from within.
Only advise I would give is to have a referral if possible (as I think that increases your chance to be interviewed). So start connecting with their HR specialists and workers through LinkedIn. For the interviews, come well prepared. This is mainly looking through the job description and noting anytime you had an experience related to that task (STAR method). The HR specialist inadvertently helped me prepare for the type of questions I would be asked as he could tell I was nervous when we spoke. But after that conversation and preparing more, the last 2 interviews were a breeze. They even told me that out of all the candidates in that interview pool , I was the best one they interviewed!
Interview questions [1]
Question 1
Typical interview questions focused on the job description. I had 6 years of clinical research experience so I pulled from that when I answered. Since I did not have IRB experience, they mentioned I would be starting off as a year 1-2. Because there was no room to negotiate for a higher salary and I was offered another job with a higher salary, I rescinded my acceptance.
I applied online. The process took 2 weeks. I interviewed at Advarra
Interview
I had a quick call with the recruiter, and maybe less than a week later got a request to interview. They provided a single 2 hour time slot, giving me only 3 days notice. When I said that that time wouldn't work for me they told me that was the only available time and said that the job may no longer be available if I didn't take the single interview slot, so I agreed. I had to scramble to get out of a meeting early and take time off last minute at my current place of employment to make this work, and the recruiter expressed zero empathy for the inconvenience.
The virtual face-to-face interview experience was a waste of time. I had multiple back-to-back shorter meetings where the interviewers asked many of the same behavioral questions. This could have been done more efficiently in a larger panel format, and I was resentful for having moved my schedule around in such an inconvenient and stressful way for this.
I was given the offer a few days after the interview, and the offer was insultingly low and far below market rate. I tried to negotiate, but the recruiter refused to budge even by a single dollar. It is obvious that they care very little about attracting and retaining actual talent, and more about getting desperate job seekers in the door as quickly as possible. They struggle with employee retention, and it's obvious why this is the case. I declined the offer.
Interview questions [1]
Question 1
Tell us about a time you had a disagreement with a client/customer and how did you handle it?