Phone screen with HR Generalist: The HR representative admitted upfront that she had no experience with hiring Financial professionals and her prepared questions reflected this. She didn't understand the key functions performed in Finance and Accounting and was unfamiliar with the differences between (for example) a budget vs. a forecast. By not really understanding what a business planning function does she was unable to ask questions that got at a candidates depth of experience and the level of difficulty of what they had accomplished. Some of her questions were just unusual. For example, do you have more than 10 years of experience (please see my resume) or describe the personnel evaluation system you've been most successful using in the past. Also, she didn't ask important questions upfront...what is your expected comp...the make sure that expectations were aligned before diving into her prepared questions. Harvard is very silo based by school, so even though you apply through a common database (ASPIRE) the recruiters don't check to see where else you've interviewed or with whom you've met. In my case, the HR rep. was surprised to hear that I had interviewed with the university's CFO, Controller, and others recently as part of another search. Strong candidates who advanced in earlier searches and may have been finalists need to start over from scratch. It's very inefficient. Harvard is upfront that their searches take a long time and typically involve multiple visits with many interested parties. This is typical of a not for profit. However, it places them at a disadvantage when hiring individuals who are also interviewing for opportunities with commercial companies. In my case I had accepted another offer although was yet to start when invited to this screening call (I had applied online several weeks earlier). The HR rep actually reduced my interest in the position and I declined to proceed further during the call.