I applied through an employee referral. I interviewed at American Express
Interview
I had a 15-minute phone-screening interview on a Wednesday, followed by a 1-hour technical phone interview the following Friday. My comments pertain to the technical interview.
The technical interview was broken into 3 parts:
1.) Technical statistical questions (e.g., assumptions of the analysis, strengths and weaknesses of various estimation procedures, how it treats various types of variables)
2.) Hypothesis Testing (this was all self-explanatory)
3.) Applied Questions. They prefaced this question by telling you that they just want to know how you think and that there may not be a right answer. Some of these were along the lines of statistical brain teasers.
They end the interview by giving you the opportunity to ask them questions.
Interview questions [1]
Question 1
Which of these pieces of information would be most useful in estimating the number of people who work in a 30 story building.
1.) The number of cars in the parking lot
2.) The number of people eating lunch in the cafeteria
3.) The number of people on the 11th floor
I had no idea how to answer this one. They all seem inadequate. Several of the other questions had more obvious red herrings, so gave a justification for ruling out #3, then focused on the pros and cons of the other 2.
I think they just want to know how you work through this kind of problem. (But who knows?)