I saw the job posted on a job board and applied. Within a few days, I had an email asking to come in for an interview scheduled a month later. It seemed like a great job opportunity, so I happily agreed.
A month later, I went in. I first spoke to the Investments Director, who was a lovely woman. Our conversation started with her telling me I was more than qualified (I have a masters degree, and the job was an internship). We spoke for a while, and questions varied from background/resume to straight-forward technical questions. It went well, and it ended with her saying "I really like you, let me see if anyone else is around to meet you".
A minute later, another member of the Investments team walked in. It started off okay, then the conversation turned to politics. Still, it was questions about politics affecting business, which was fine. But it gradually became a discussion about my personal politics, and not about business, eventually leading to him outright asking me my politics. Clearly, we didn't see eye to eye.
He spent the next 20 minutes bashing my political views. He yelled at me about Obamacare, because his brother was downgraded to an hourly employee so his employer didn't have to pay his healthcare. He aggressively and combatively told me I need to rethink my political views, because apparently I don't understand the "unintended consequences" of them and how they affect others (I'm a liberal, yet my views on Obamacare are wrong because I don't know how other people are affected? That's confusing).
It was extremely unprofessional, and made me uncomfortable. There was no reason to be discussing politics in an interview. What's worse - the William Penn Foundation is a progressive foundation. They're all about environmental conservation, lowering the achievement gap, etc. So the fact that my liberal views were the problem still baffles me. And I couldn't even defend myself - I wanted the job, so I wasn't going to argue with the person interviewing me.
A few weeks later, I got an email that they weren't moving forward with my candidacy. Again, my first interview started with her telling me I was more than qualified, and ended with her saying, and I quote: "I really like you". So the fact that I didn't get the job or another interview can only be attributed to the second interview, where the interviewer argued with me about politics. It was extremely unprofessional, inappropriate, and uncomfortable. It is NOT OK that politics were discussed, never mind that I didn't get the job because of my political views, especially since they match pretty well with the mission of the company.