PPD is now part of Thermo Fisher Scientific. On December 8, 2021, Thermo Fisher Scientific completed the acquisition of PPD. For up-to-date information, please see the Thermo Fisher Scientific profile..
I applied online. The process took 1 day. I interviewed at PPD (Richmond, VA) in June 2011
Interview
I was first contacted by an HR person. She was extremely nice and asked very general questions about my background, experience, and future goals. She was not very informative about the specifics of the position but said someone that could explain more to me would call and ask a few more questions. That person, who seemed like a lab technician, asked more technical questions just to see if I seemed to know what I was talking about. They offered to fly me out there, rent a car, and pay for hotel for the one day interview. I accepted. When I got to the hotel, there was a welcome package with maps of the town, a pen and some candy. A very nice suggestion. The interview was with two, very young group leaders. They asked very similar questions to the ones I had already been asked on the phone. Very standard questions, where do I see myself in 5 years, beast quality, worst quality, explain certain methods and protocols I am familiar with. The interview started at 9am and lasted until 2pm. I spoke with three different people. All the questions were basically the same with differences in the methods and techniques questions asked.
I applied through an employee referral. I interviewed at PPD
Interview
First there will be an HR interview. Then there will be a 30 minute phone interview with the group leader. The final step is a 3-hour long structured interview. Which mostly focuses on behavioral questions.
Interview questions [1]
Question 1
Describe a situation when you had to work under a lot of stress. What was the outcome?
How do you deal with conflict?
I applied through a recruiter. The process took 4 weeks. I interviewed at PPD (Madison, WI) in Feb 2022
Interview
Started out with phone screen by the recruiter and then another phone interview with a group leader. This was followed by the final interview with 3 other group leaders . Received email a few hours later letting me know I would be getting a job offer.
Interview questions [1]
Question 1
Lots of behavior questions. Didn't get any technical questions although one interviewer did get into depth about purpose of experiments, future directions of project, why I chose to do certain experiments the way I did.
Began with a HR phone screen and then moved to a video interview stage. Because of COVID, this was the final stage. There was no on-site visit because of this.
Interview questions [1]
Question 1
What was a mistake you made and how did you learn from ti?