After submitting resume, transcript, a writing sample, etc. the first step is to take a sort of aptitude test that measures abstracting thinking, word association, spatial reasoning, typing speed, etc. It's fairly easy, but it takes about 45 minutes to complete. The next phase is a phone screen. Pretty standard phone interview - nothing too out of the ordinary. The next phase is a sample research market research project - mine was about fracking in the US. I understand that they want to evaluate your research skills, but frankly this part was ridiculous. They allow you to set your own deadline. There were four aspects to the question they asked me, which they ideally said should be limited to 5 pages. I spent a pretty solid chunk of time crafting my sample research project (~12-15 hours), but there was no way that it was coming in at 5 pages or less. I ended up needing 10 pages single spaced to cover all of the requested material. Anyway, after submitting the essay, I was contacted a few days later saying that they'd like to set up a skype interview with three of their Research Directors. I went through 3 back-to-back-back 45 minute interviews and felt like things went pretty well. Thought that I got along well with all 3 and that I did a good job answering their questions. Two weeks later, I get a brief email saying that it had come down to me and another candidate, but that they decided to go with the other candidate since he/she had a little more B2B experience. All in all, I felt like I wasted 6 weeks jumping through hoops. A number of people at my current job had previously worked at Hanover and said that I should be thankful that I didn't end up there so I guess that's a plus. I would say that it's not worth going through the whole process. There are better companies in the DC area that don't waste your time and pay substantially better.