I applied online. The process took 4 weeks. I interviewed at Public Defender Service For The District Of Columbia (Washington, DC) in Feb 2016
Interview
Applied online through their website which included standard application materials (Resume, Cover Letter) as well as an essay response to a hypothetical client case. Received an email a couple weeks later inviting me to an interview. I scheduled an interview in person at the DC office. Interview was a mix of typical behavioral questions followed by "what would you do?" hypotheticals about investigations. My interviewer was nice but gave almost no feedback to my answers and instead maintained a straight face and typed notes in her computer. I found out later that this is standard practice, almost 100% of the people I was hired with walked out of the interview assuming they weren't getting the job because of their interviewer's attitude.
The hypothetical questions are anything but standard. Going in, you should definitely have a general idea about the legal process and the role of public defenders in DC. Know the basics of attorney client privilege as interns are also bound by it and some questions are related to it.
About two weeks after the interview I received an email with my acceptance.
Interview questions [1]
Question 1
You have a client who is accused of raping a 10 year old boy. While you are interviewing him in the jail he admits to you he raped the boy and doesn't feel bad about it. What do you do?
I interviewed at Public Defender Service For The District Of Columbia
Interview
Difficult hypothetical questions
Be prepared for scenarios
Make sure you are dedicated to public defense and are passionate about abolition
Good opportunities for professional development
Think through different investigative scenarios
I applied online. The process took 2 months. I interviewed at Public Defender Service For The District Of Columbia (Washington, DC) in Apr 2021
Interview
Submit application. Then you're contacted for an interview with 2 investigators/attorneys. After the interview, they ask you to complete a writing sample. Contacted for the next interview round about a week later- this time the interview was with the Deputy Director of PDS and another senior investigator, after this round they also asked you to complete a writing sample
Interview questions [1]
Question 1
Hypotheticals- i,e- what if you were trying to talk to a witness and they ran away, didn't let you inside house
I interviewed at Public Defender Service For The District Of Columbia
Interview
About a month submitting my application, I was invited to Skype interview. The interview was very tough and meant to put you on the spot, with many situation/role play questions. Also necessary to have a good understanding of the mission of PDS
Public Defender Service For The District Of Columbia interviews FAQs
Investigator applicants have rated the interview process at Public Defender Service For The District Of Columbia with 3.8 out of 5 (where 5 is the highest level of difficulty) and assessed their interview experience as 100% positive. To compare, the company-average is 78.3% positive. This is according to Glassdoor user ratings.
Candidates applying for Investigator roles take an average of 28 days to get hired, when considering 9 user submitted interviews for this role. To compare, the hiring process at Public Defender Service For The District Of Columbia overall takes an average of 31 days.
Common stages of the interview process at Public Defender Service For The District Of Columbia as a Investigator according to 9 Glassdoor interviews include:
One on one interview: 26%
Drug test: 22%
Presentation: 15%
Phone interview: 11%
IQ intelligence test: 7%
Background check: 7%
Skills test: 4%
Other: 4%
Group panel interview: 4%
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