Initial contact was from a hiring manager in an HR position for a brief phone interview. Standard stereotypical interview questions were asked, but I was not given a chance to ask questions myself. She called back the next day to schedule a face-to-face interview with two partners in the firm which happened about a week later. At the interview, one of the first things I noticed was the large size of the space they occupied and how dated and gray everything is. Fluorescent lights were also very prominent fixtures. My interview with the two partners and the HR rep. felt good. They were all very friendly and allowed the interview to flow like a casual conversation while getting in their key questions. Instead of asking me to describe all of the work in my portfolio, they each looked through it while we had our conversation and then asked questions about it later. I was impressed by how easy they were to talk to. They described the structure of their firm as one like an educational studio and did confirm that they throw interns onto large projects right away to get them acclimated, which may or may not be a negative for potential candidates. They were very articulate in their answers to my questions and willing to quickly address my concerns and questions post-interview, over the phone. A few things they stressed: they wanted someone who would be a self-motivated leader, someone who has a personality, someone who is "unspoiled" by other firms habits, and someone who wants to work with their firm for the long-term (not someone who will skip off to another opportunity a couple years down the road). The HR rep. took me on a tour of their space after the interview and brought me back to meet with the two partners before leaving (this took 5-10 minutes). At this point, they offered me the position. They allowed me to take a few days to consider the offer and were very transparent in their responses when I spoke with them about some reservations and questions the next day.

Applied online at the company website, and received an email scheduling a phone call week after, a week after the phone call interview I scheduled a Zoom interview with 2 architecture employees