A recruiting agency in NY contacted me about this opportunity at Bridgewater Associates. Since I live out of state, I had two phone interviews with the hiring manager. The first day I had to present (via video chat)the solution to a problem that they sent me previously. That part went very well since I have good public speaking skills. The second interview was a phone interview with the hiring manager and two other members of the team I was supposed to be working with. There were no questions about my technical skills even though it was a technical position (Sr. Data Analyst). They were asking me questions about why picked the colleges I went to and why I chose the previous jobs that I had. In the end they were cornerning me, telling me that my interest in academia might distract my work performance since I mentioned that sometime in the near future I might go back to school to get a PhD. When I mentioned that I worked full time while getting my masters full time, they said working at a commercial bank and working at Bridgewater are very different. I told them that I am pretty confident that if I were to pursue a PhD while working full time, that should not affect my work performance.They were downright disrespectful and in the end, I was asked to choose between my dream of getting a PhD and working at Bridgewater. Needless to say, I told them even thought Bridgewater is an excellent company to work at, I would rather choose my dream since there are plenty of good companies to work for whereas I have only one life to go after my dream.