<p>I'm currently a Junior in Mechanical Engineering with a Minor in Project Management
-3.9/4.0 GPA
-Teaching fellow (undergraduate TA) for Materials Engineering
-Internship at NASA this past summer
Above are what I consider my proudest achievements so far in my undergraduate education.</p>
<p>I had my first interview experience for an internship opportunity a few weeks ago. I've had a few more since and I'm becoming more and more depressed about the choices I've made.
The behavioral questions I've had to answer placed a huge emphasis on leadership capability, which I seem to be utterly lacking in.
Today I was given feedback from one of my interviewers and I was told that I need to improve my communication skills and get out there and take on leadership roles. That interview went horribly because I was completely stumped on some questions (Name a time you delegated tasks to others? etc.-- In hindsight I could have made something up, but I'm terrible at lying... my conscience just does not allow me to BS for self-serving purposes) and it looked like I was completely unprepared. I had mostly prepared to discuss points on my resume, and my work interests.
Why is 'leadership capability' so important in engineering, even as an INTERN in engineering? Why isn't it enough that I have passion for solving problems and learning? Do I HAVE to be the the founder of some organization or serve on one??</p>
<p>I decided to spend most of my time on my academics. I'm no bonafide genius and I work very very hard to do well in my classes. I am an artist and a pianist on the side, and I've done graphics for clubs/organizations and served as pianist for a local church. I try to use those to emphasize my well-roundedness and creativity.. but they seem to mean little to the recruiters I've spoken to.</p>
<p>I feel like all the hard work and effort I've put into my GPA is worth nothing... all the sacrificed sleep, missed social opportunities, declining mental health and sanity-- what was it for?? Am I going to be discounted just because I'm not leadership material, not radiating with the confidence to lead others?</p>
<p>Has anyone had similar experiences in interviews? Am I completely screwed in my job search unless I become president of ____ organization/society?</p>
<p>Honestly, leadership is a requirement that is pretty easy to satisfy if you’ve ever actually committed to something. Leadership is a popularity contest for activities that don’t matter, but it’s a meritocracy for ones that do. If you’re dedicated to something worth doing, such as a competitive activity, for a long period of time, you will become a leader.
See, the point of a leadership requirement is not really that you have to become a manager. It’s about personal initiative and the ability to get things done. That’s valuable no matter who you are, no matter what field you are in.
If you put all of your effort into studying and never once did anything else, you’re going to be hard-pressed to justify your actions. If you have anything that could be spun as leadership, take credit for it and justify it. It seriously doesn’t matter what it is as long as you can convince a group of interviewers that it’s meaningful. You don’t have to be a founder or president if that’s not how you roll. That being said, it is going to have to be something more substantial than anything you did in class.
As for your distaste for lying: you have to realize that you have to be able to spin a little to get anywhere. Straight up lying will get you fired if they ever find out. But you will have to take a little more credit for what you do than you might think you deserve. Because if you want to get anywhere in the world of business (that includes getting an engineering job), you sometimes have to tell people exactly what they want to hear.</p>
<p>I thought this is the easiest question to answer… but maybe not. took me forever to write a response. I still can’t put all my reasons into a short paragraph.</p>
<ol>
<li>you are not building a car, a bridge or a software by yourself. you need to talk, and you need to participate. leadership means you take part of the discussion. you want people to understand your idea, and convince others when you are right or learn when you are wrong. leadership here means you want to make progress. you are not here to be a codemonkey (people tell you exactly what to do without asking why).</li>
</ol>
<p>no one wants robot. otherwise, we’d all build robots to make cars…</p>
<ol>
<li>if you always stay quiet, people will assume you don’t want to work. think about student group presentation. someone ends up doing all the work because the rest of the members are either too shy to oppose to dictator (which means the head of the group is a bad leader), or they are not interested in helping (which means they just want to get done with the task and don’t really care about the quality).</li>
</ol>
<p>The latter is what people complain about some government employees… they don’t really care and they get pay at the end of the day anyway…
Do you think you want that kind of job? No. Do you want to deal with that kind of co-workers? No.</p>
<p>So why do you think you are an exception? 3.9? 4.0? No man. People pay very little attention to that. If they see you as a shy person, even if you are a genius, but you can’t discuss or help your co-workers, you are going to make a mess with the company. They don’t want that to happen. They want people with confident, they want people who will step up and correct mistakes and fix problems as soon as possible. </p>
<p>You see why software engineers at Google always go to the white board? Not because CS people likes white board. That’s how we do things. We sit together and work on some design and then go off to coding and come back and discuss. People work happily when the entire is involved.</p>
<p>People can’t trust you if you don’t show your eagerness. You are not a robot.</p>
<p>Answering questions in an interview is a skill and a lot of people do not have that skill and need to “acquire”. You have great credentials and your hard-work ethic will certainly pay off when you start working. So do not get depressed. </p>
<p>Confidence without capability or knowledge doesn’t do any good. I am glad you didn’t lie but remember engineers inherently downplay their capabilities and are modest - so you may want to talk to your classmates or professors about what they think of you and get a more realistic image of yourself and use that in the next interview - kind of like getting psyched up before the football game but not too psyched up to do stupid things or appear arrogant.</p>
<p>Note that companies try to find people who are self motivated and are not easily get discouraged. So sometimes the questions appear tough to find out what you would do under a difficult scenario. They are not always expecting you to answer, they are looking for how you react when asked a tough question. About the question on delegation, you can think of how your group divided the group project and use that an example. That’s delegation. </p>
<p>As NeoDymium said, leadership does not only mean a manager - it also means how you are taking initiative figuring out “what” needs to get done and how that “what” gets done etc. </p>
<p>If you are applying to jobs where you may oversee several people, then you need to get either a few project management classes or mentor a high-school Robotics team or something like that where you can definitely learn “leadership” skills. </p>
<p>I didn’t realize that you have a minor in project management when I posted the above message. Minor in project management could be one of the reason you are getting questions about leadership. Did you already take the project management classes?</p>