My interview process with IRI

Hello everyone,

Since I joined IRI as a Strategic Analyst, I got several questions from you about the interview process. In this article I will try to share my experience. You can also find a lot of resources online (in particular, the Glassdoor portal) and if you contact recruiters, I am sure, they will also be able to help. Again, this post only covers my interview experience – I hope you find it helpful.

1. Position: Strategic Analyst
2. Location of the interviews: I did all the interviews via phone and Teams as we were already in the Pandemic period
3. Time allocated to the interview process: Total of four weeks

However, I met the recruiter in February 2020 during the UChicago career fair and got my offer in June. I would say my process was a bit long due to my visa - but the HR always helped and kept in contact to work around the situation.

Details of the interview process:

1st round (20 to 30 minutes)

HR screen: This interview was straight forward with questions about myself, my motivation to join the team, my projects at school, and my previous work experiences. At the time, I highlighted a school project I was working on with data from IRI and I believe this put me in a good position.

2nd round (back to back interviews):

Interview with a Consult (30 minutes): This interview was more focused on my projects and work experience in marketing. The person who interviewed me was working mostly in Marketing-Mix Modeling (MMM). When she/he saw I had worked in the field for four years, he directed most of her/his questions to my previous work experiences and MMM. 

Interview with an Analyst (30 minutes): I was interviewed by someone who had attended the same master as me at the University of Chicago. This made me feel very comfortable. We talked about a few of my projects, my work as President of the Analytics Club at university, and some of my previous roles where I had showed leadership and public-speaking skills.

3rd round (back to back interviews):

Case Study (60 minutes): The main goal of the case is to understand how we think, how quick we process information, and how we deliver information.

Even though I had interviewed with McKinsey and BCG in the past, I was very nervous for the case part. I was a bit insecure but overall, I believe I delivered something good. I think the most important part is to have structured ideas, be able to analyze data in different formats, and crush numbers.

Interview with a Consultant (30 minutes): The conversion was good after the case. It was mostly a behavior interview with some questions about my projects at school and how I was using IRI data. 

Interview with a Director (30 minutes): This conversation was a lot about teamwork, managing people as well as my school projects. 

I was initially a bit afraid of this interview and tried to prepare for technical questions as much as possible. For this interview, I worked on a personal CPG project to be more aligned with IRI's work, I checked my interview guide (available here), and I reviewed the most common SQL queries. I believe having a CPG project that I did over the weekend before my interview really showed how engaged I was in working in the industry and more than anything, how much I wanted to join IRI.

Interview with a Principal (30 minutes): The last interview! The questions were mostly about my work experience and my master’s degree. There were also a few questions about my motivations to join the team. I was quite tired towards the end but the Commercial Lead, as everyone else, was very nice. 

Extra tip: I always check the LinkedIn profile of the people who interview me. I think it helps me to structure my thoughts and how to address my speech – I usually look for things in common and try to bring them to the interview.

I would say the hardest thing is to keep thee same energy and enthusiasm in every interview. Doing a back to back interview can be quite intense so please eat something before and make sure to drink water all along.

Best of luck and I hope you find this helpful.

Daniela

The photos used are illustration of the different interviews. All process was online or via phone. This article focus on my own experience. Photo by ???? Claudio Schwarz | @purzlbaum & by Creators Collective on Unsplash