I applied through university. The process took 6 weeks. I interviewed at Acumen (Burlingame, CA) in Jan 2013
Interview
Initially, I sent in a resume and cover letter and was contacted three weeks later with a "writing test"-- they went me some Medicare data and had me answer a few questions about it (this was actually very time consuming). After I sent this in, about a week later I was contacted for a phone interview. I interviewed with someone who had a PhD in Epidemiology; he was very friendly and the interview was pretty standard, asked about my interests and experience (definitely prepare to answer in-depth questions about your research experience including technical details, I wasn't that prepared for this). A few days later they emailed me and set up an in-person interview. The in-person interview was a 4-hour process including an IQ/basic statistics test (1 hour), and 4 one-on-one interviews with different analysts. The in-person interview questions were pretty standard and a little repetitive. I was a little nervous but thought the interview went well overall; but I was emailed about a week later and was not offered a position. The office in Burlingame was a bit unprofessional, but I actually appreciated this because the environment is casual but they get a lot of good work done.
Interview questions [1]
Question 1
The phone interview went into detail about my technical research experience. In the in-person interview, be prepared to answer questions about the writing/data exercise you did for them.
I applied online. The process took 3 weeks. I interviewed at Acumen
Interview
Worst recruiting of any company I've ever worked with. Completely unresponsive to emails, even after showing initial interest. Forced me to wait more than a month without any indication of my candidacy.
No wonder your talent is so mediocre--who in their right mind would be willing to work for you?