What Happened: From September-December 2023, Mountaintop received 6,194 registrants from 154 countries and 1,871 completed applications, and interviewed over 100 Finalists. During this process, Mountaintop made several errors, both big and small, that inconvenienced applicants or hosts. These include:

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1. Accidentally setting a passcode on a Zoom meeting which delayed the start of an interview;

2. Overlooking sending a final selection notification to one of the Finalists until several weeks after the designated time;

3. Hiring a French interpreter for three Finalists whose language skills were not strong enough, causing communication challenges;

4. Contacting a Finalist living in an insecure environment without first checking whether the communication channel was private;

5. Referring to "Kenya" instead of "Tanzania" in an interview after mixing up selection notes;

6. Sending a candidate another person's application one time due to the candidate sharing a name with another candidate;

7. Overlooking that a candidate had added an AI assistant to take notes of a Zoom interview, including a private conversation with a host after the interview had ended.​​​

 

How Mountaintop Responded: In general, Mountaintop apologized to those who were effected by these mistakes. More specifically:​

 

1. Mountaintop will ensure that passcodes are not used for future Zoom meetings.

2. Mountaintop will manually confirm that all selection notifications have been sent by cross-checking the applicant tracking system with sent emails.

3. Mountaintop does not plan to rehire the French interpreter and plans to only work with interpreters whose native language is the interpreted language (not English) so that they can be effectively tested before interviews.

4. Mountaintop has added instructions in its Finalist Interview Guide for candidates living in insecure environments to inform Mountaintop staff of the safest way to communicate with them.

5. Mountaintop plans to reduce the number of back-to-back interviews for interviewers to ensure that there is more time for interview prep.

6. Mountaintop plans to hire additional staff to avoid mistakes caused by large workloads.

7. Mountaintop has added instructions in its Finalist Interview Guide that forbids recording interviews or using AI assistants.​

 

Mountaintop's Learning and Commitment: Mountaintop has learned that the selection process requires clear communication, thinking through highly specific things that could go wrong, and having the requisite staffing to ensure an intentional, deliberative process for all candidates. Going forward, Mountaintop commits to improving its communication to Fellows and adding additional staff to support the process as budget allows.