MIT Lincoln Laboratory interview questions

Hiring starts with the Lab's jobs portal which all hiring managers must submit their posts and respond to all submittals. Candidates that are not a fit will likely not get a call back. Once hired candidates must pass a security clearance and conflict of interest check before they can start.

I submitted my resume online at their site. Within about 3 weeks someone from HR emailed me asking about my interview availability, because one group was interested in my resume. She was very efficient, and we had an interview set up within the week, scheduled for two weeks from that day. About one week before the interview, the same HR person emailed me to say that there were now four groups interested in interviewing me, and asked if they could book a hotel room for me to stay two days and interview. She was very conscientious of my travel, and ended up booking the hotel for two nights and paying for a rental car, and my meals. It turned out that only three groups were available over those two days, so I will be going back later this month for the fourth. Day 1: 9am - met with HR person, got security badge. Asked me a little about why I chose my graduate school, when I'll finish, and if I have any other job interviews. Went over benefits 10am - gave a 1 hour seminar on my thesis research. There were about 15 people in attendance, and I got a lot of technical and broad questions, both during and after my presentation 11am - met with 1st group leader and associate group leader 12pm - met with 2 technical staff of 1st group for a lunch interview. They kept asking me questions while I was trying to chew, but were really awesome people in terms of their personality, so it didn't really feel like an interview, just a conversation 1pm - met with 1 technical staff of 1st group 2pm - met with group leader of 2nd group, went over what his division did. This guy was weird 3pm - met with an assistant group leader and another technical staff of 2nd group. These two were weird as well. 4pm - met with 2 more technical staff of 2nd group. These two were obnoxious cheauvanistic jerks, and are the reason I would turn down an offer from this group 4:30pm - debreifed with HR person, he told me where to go the next day Day 2 9am - Showed up at a different building that the HR person told me to go to, and no one had any idea I was coming there. There was a flurry of people confusedly talking to each other and looking for my folder. Finally found the group leader of 3rd group, who was great, and the assistant group leader, who was perhaps the biggest a-hole I have ever met in my life. He was looking at his phone while I was answering his questions, would ask me something and be obviously not listening, and then ask me something that I had just talked about. Had no idea what my name was: he asks while looking at my publication list, "who is this person you co-authored all your papers with?" and I say "....um, that's me." The group leader then took me on a quick tour of the labs, and talked way longer than he was allowed, so everyone else was calling and yelling at him to hurry up and give him the candidate. 10am - met with 2 technical staff from 3rd group, who were awesome. They asked me a random question about my resume that had nothing to do with the job, just something they were curious about that I'd done. 11am - met with 2 more technical staff from 3rd group, one was nice, the other kept saying "I'm not at liberty to discuss that," which he obviously loved that fact. 11:30am - debriefing with HR person, asked me which group I liked the best, talked about the rest of the process. He said it sometimes takes groups a really long time to make a decision. Then, when I got an offer, I'd have 30 days to give a response. out by noon