I applied through a staffing agency. The process took 1 week. I interviewed at Freshfields (London, England) in Oct 2013
Interview
Three separate interviews - HR, direct line managers and head of department. All were fairly quick. Nothing too testing; I felt they were on my side. I gave them a file of my previous work. There was also a written test.
Interview questions [1]
Question 1
Standard fare: strengths/weaknesses, past experience, etc. Very competence-based. You need evidence of what you've done.
About 4 rounds of interviews
No left wing questions - pretty straight forward
Definitely an AmLaw firm feel - but kind people
NYC moving to a new location downtown in the financial district
Business Development applicants have rated the interview process at Freshfields with 3 out of 5 (where 5 is the highest level of difficulty) and assessed their interview experience as 100% positive. To compare, the company-average is 62.8% positive. This is according to Glassdoor user ratings.
Here are the most commonly searched roles for interview reports -