The recruitment process started for me with an advertisement that I saw in March, which had an April or May deadline. I first heard via email that they were interested in my application about a month after I applied. I was given a skills test (a couple of untimed essays to review according to SMARTHINKING's form) to complete and send back by a deadline. Did that and a few weeks later, I received a positive response, and then received an additional skills test (if I recall correctly) and was asked for permission to check references etc. Then I was scheduled for paid training, which took several weeks. After successfully completing the training, I officially became an employee in September. So, it was a long process from beginning to end, but with lots of down-time in between steps. It was a friendly process.