Tips for interviewer 5

[KENAT]

Did a quick search, lots of threads with tips for the job interviewee but not so many for the interviewer so here goes.

I've just been asked to interview a potential senior Mechanical Engineer tomorrow morning (9:30 PST to be precise).

I've reviewed a good few resumes before and I've done a few interviews before but mostly to assess a particular aspect of someones qualification (such as drafting/GD&T etc.) not just a general 'sit with this guy for 1/2 an hour and get a feel for him to see if you think he'd be a good fit'.

So, any suggestions of the questions you'd ask, or other tips?

I'm not particularly interested in any 'trick' question or anything too 'HRish' but am willing to be persuaded otherwise as to their merit.

Cheers,

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[rowingengineer]

Just for the record I want to be the colour red

http://www.nceng.com.au/

"A safe structure will be the one whose weakest link is never overloaded by the greatest force to which the structure is subjected” Petroski 1992

 

[patprimmer]

I think blue looks cool.

Regards
Pat
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[monkeydog]

KENAT knew I was just being a wise guy.
I thought his post was funny.

Just a play off of previous posts on the off-the-wall interview questions.

 

[MintJulep]

Too late now, but one of my favorite interview questions is to hand the candidate a simple pen type tire pressure gage and ask them to provide a sketch of how it works.

This simple question accomplishes several things:

1. It identifies that a disappointingly large percentage of candidates for mechanical engineering positions do not have a grasp of even as simple a fundamental as force equals pressure times area.

2. It identifies the candidate's ability to produce a technical sketch to illustrate a concept.

3. It identifies the candidate's ability to explain how something works.

 

[SNORGY]

MintJulep:

I guess you wouldn't hire me, then. All these years I have been using that very thingy to check my tire pressure, it never occurred to me to draw a sketch about how it works. Of course, now that you mention it, I am just going to have to figure that out.

But really, be careful with questions like that, unless you have a few of them that cover a broad spectrum of what you are looking for. You wouldn't want to be turning away candidates that can do process simulations in their head or design a helicopter rotor assembly from scratch simply because they have never bothered to take apart the guts of a tire gauge to see how it works.

If the candidate has made it to an interview, then that candidate should already be there on the strength of what he or she has been able to demonstrate that he or she knows or has done. Ask the candidate about those things and look for how those skills might fit to what you are looking for. It's easy to find countless things that you know something about that somebody else knows nothing about, but that's not being fair, and it does a disservice to the interview candidate.

On the other hand, I suppose questions like that become fair if they are aimed at trying to assess how well a candidate can think or conjecture or formulate; then you are evaluating a "thought process", not a "knowledge". Then questions like that are in-bounds.

Regards,

SNORGY.

 

[MadMango]

When I answer the "color" question, I always say paisley or plaid. I hate HR questions, but usually answer them with humor.

"Art without engineering is dreaming; Engineering without art is calculating."


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[SomptingGuy]

One of my bosses used to conduct his interviews around a big cut-away drawing of an engine. He'd just start with something like "Describe this picture". Scale of replies

It's an engine
It's a gasoline engine
It's got four cylinders
etc
etc

People who recognised that it had twin balancer shafts were doing well.

Best answer he ever had (and one he hadn't even realised) was that the drawing of the gear mesh between the shafts was wrong - the helical gears wouldn't mesh like that.

I was once given a drawing of a diesel fuel injector and asked to describe what I thought would happen to the needle as the pressure increased. A pretty good practical question about pressure area and force. The extra points came for realising that as soon as the needle had started to lift, the area that the pressure was acting on suddenly increased.



- Steve

 

[SNORGY]

After my *fourth* interview with a potential employer, in a process that even involved a psychological assessment of answers I had provided in a written "Who are you?" type of exam, I was told that they were favouring the other candidate because they judged me to be one who had no sense of humour and who didn't communicate well with people of lower levels of intelligence.

My response:

"I'm here talking to you, aren't I?".

The other candidate got the job. He turned out to be the wrong candidate.

Regards,

SNORGY.

 

[MikeHalloran]

I've been thinking hard about what The Tick said, and it's led me to reconsider.

I used to give an interview that lasted about 40 minutes, and included:
- In-depth questions about subjects the candidate should have understood, based on whatever was claimed in his or her resume. E.g. "What does a moderator do?" for someone who claimed expertise with nuclear reactors. Or "Write a program to do <nested loops> in any computer language you like, and then explain to me how it works" for programmers.

- A bunch of simple but possibly tricky questions stolen from textbooks or other interviewers. E.g. "What parameters do I need to know to predict the deflection of a single beam used as a bridge?", phrased in a folksy way as a story involving alligators in a creek.

The really stressful part of my interview was that I never revealed whether the candidate's answer was correct or not; I just started the next question.

I recommended a relatively small number of candidates, all of whom worked out well. I wrote brief reports to HR, and was occasionally asked to defend them, which I could do because I kept whatever the candidate scratched out, and my own post-interview notes in enough detail to reconstruct a narrative of the interview.


... But after a while, I noticed that HR was only sending me people they clearly didn't want to hire, but didn't have a legally defensible reason to exclude. ... and that some real barrels of hair were just showing up to start work.
That's when I knew the company was doomed, and so was I. What little remains of it is up for sale again.


Now, I think putting the candidate at ease may be a better tactic, so you can get them talking about themselves, and hope to find out to whom they're related. Because of my terrible handwriting and use of symbols and sketches, my notes from those days would probably be incomprehensible anyway, but it may be better to leave nothing for a lawyer to discover.



Mike Halloran
Pembroke Pines, FL, USA

 

[TheTick]

There's another tactic I like, but it's on the other end of the spectrum...

Early in my career, I worked for my father. He was really good at creating prolonged awkward silence (usually while he was pondering what was said to him). This often made people uncomfortable in his presence, so they would talk to fill the voild. Many times, I watched and listened while some of these people accidentally spilled details that they should have kept to themselves.

 

[Ron]

KENAT...you are now qualified to work in HR...ask for a transfer!

 

[SomptingGuy]

So what would the interview to be an HR drone go like?



- Steve

 

[patprimmer]

Do you have any ethics?

Do you have any compassion?

Regards
Pat
See FAQ731-376 for tips on use of eng-tips by professional engineers &

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for site rules

 

[rowingengineer]

If they answered yes to any of those questions normally they wouldn't pass the interview.

http://www.nceng.com.au/

"A safe structure will be the one whose weakest link is never overloaded by the greatest force to which the structure is subjected” Petroski 1992

 

[cry22]

I'll throw in my two cents:

if you are looking for an Enginner to DO the work, make sure the candidate is not doing MBA at night. A sure sign that the guy wants to be a boss in the short term and not be an Engineer.

Another one I like: We all had setbacks in our lives, tell me about one of your setbacks or disagreements with your colleagues/bosses and how did you handle it?

 

[DRWeig]

"One day long ago, my boss stormed into my office, threw my report in my face, called me a stupid S$*!##*@#, and stormed out. How would you have handled that?"



Good on ya,

Goober Dave

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[TheTick]

Star for cry22. Watch for signs of MBA disease. MBA students become useless (perhaps in preparation for their future muddle-management roles).

 

[SNORGY]

It's probably got to do with having a Massive Brain Anyeurism.

Regards,

SNORGY.

 

[telecomguy]

One that I think I craftily (and legitimately) answered was:
Name your least favorite boss...
Name your favorite boss...

My answer was the same for both. Had a rocky start with a boss that caused lots of tension and frustration on both sides due to differing styles and lack of trust on his part (micro-managing). But after time he gained trust in my skills and decision making and then we had the best relationship of any so far.

<tg>

 

[HDS]

Interviewing is only easy when the guy is a perfect fit. You just swap stories about how you have each solved the same problems at different places. The ones that are terrible are also easy to sort out. The hard part is figuring out if someone that is between O.K. and good will work out.

Personally I let HR figure out the personality stuff and concentrate on the technical stuff.

Don't forget to do a little selling and give them time to ask questions. Especially for engineers where investing things is part of the job the types of questions they ask can be the most important thing you find out.