Applied through an employee referral.

Started with a phone interview with the manager of the area for which I was applying. The phone interview lasted about 30-45 minutes and involved explaining details of my PhD research and describing specific work I performed. Additionally, the manager gave me an idea of the type of position I would be placed in.

At the end of the phone interview, I was invited for an onsite interview to take place during the following month. The onsite interview involved a 1-hour presentation (15 minutes for questions; I only had one easy question) about my PhD research. About 10-12 people showed up for my talk, which I believe was on the high side of expectations. The actual interviews involved ten 45-minute one-on-one interviews with various experienced and inexperienced people from different areas of the group for which I was interviewing. Additionally, 1.5 hours were allotted for lunch with a few of the group members, which was more of an informal discussion about working at Intel and living in the Hillsboro area. Overall, the interview was pretty low-stress, with comfortable discussions with various people explaining my research. The final interview was with the hiring manager, who I think had already decided to hire me and told me as much before I left.

I received an official offer a little less than 2 weeks later. I arranged a phone call to discuss the offer with someone from HR, who explained all of the details. An official email with a PDF copy of the offer came a few hours later. I was given 2 weeks to respond.

In general, if you make it onsite, just know your PhD research and be personable, and you will probably get offered a job.

What was a mistake you made in your professional or personal life that turned out to be positive?