I was contacted by a recruiter for one of two roles I'd applied for. I was emailed some screening questions and after sending back my responses, an interview was arranged. I felt that my degree and experience more closely fitted the other role I'd applied to, but after passing the screening questions I decided it would be worth attending. I arrived an hour ahead of the scheduled interview, but there was nobody at reception to let me in and I had to follow an employee in (which I now realise is a no-no, but at the time I just wanted out of the rain). The interview consisted of competency based questions (which I think went well), but the written technical assessment was too difficult as the questions required knowledge I'd not had to use recently or that was outside the scope of my degree (45 minutes, ten questions, varying marks awarded per question including calculations and critique of a given experimental set up; much more in depth than the screening questions). I was then given a tour of the lab. I was frustrated that I hadn't been given the opportunity to interview for the role where the work was more closely related to my degree and disappointed that I received no contact at all from Merck following the interview.

They contacted me for a phone interview after I submitted my application through Merck website. The interview was scheduled through email, and I chose the date. They asked only few questions.