<p>I'm going to be a freshman next year so I still have a long time.</p>
<p>But are electrical engineering interviews like a usual interview? like tell me about yourself, past experience, etc? or do they ask you engineering problems? or both?</p>
<p>Some past interview questions you've had would be nice...</p>
<p>It’s very rare to be asked technical questions in an interview, though it does happen (more often at lower ranked schools). Your GPA and college reputation vouch for your technical competence. </p>
<p>Most companies use behavioral interviewing with a goal of identifying three or four major competencies. Here’s an example: if an interviewer wants to know how you work in a team setting (let’s say facilitative leadership), you’ll be asked “Tell me a time when you were a member of a team that was off-task. How did you address the situation and get the team back on task? Were you successful?” </p>
<p>You can use any example - a class project, a fraternity event, hanging out with friends, your summer job at McDonald’s, etc. The interviewer just wants to know if you are capable of working in a team. Using an internship or co-op experience is a plus, but not required for co-ops (nor expected). For full-time, it’s very important to use field-specific examples (required in many cases). What you don’t want to do is be completely anti-social and have no answer whatsoever. You’ll get 3 or 4 questions (will followup if you don’t answer things fully) that try to get at various aspects. For example: leadership, teamwork, problem solving, analytical thinking, motivation and self esteem, and communication skills.</p>
<p>That’s what most people do (probably 80% of the time for electrical engineers), but you’ll see other approaches. Other things you might see:</p>
<ul>
<li><p>Some companies will throw off the wall questions at you like “If you were the Minister of Space Travel for the United States, how would you promote Space Travel?” or “What is the benefit of capital punishment?”. They have a book prepared by a psychiatrist that converts your answer to some sort of meaning (e.g. “If he mentioned his mother, he’s a serial killer” (just kidding, but some “translations” are really obscure). These don’t really work well in my opinion, but some companies swear by the technique. It’s impossible to know how you did until after the interview.</p></li>
<li><p>Some companies will give you “exercises”. For example, they’ll place you in a room with 10 other interviewees, give you a group task, then videotape how the group accomplishes that task. These aren’t that common, but do occur in second round interviews, where the company might invite 10 students for a plant visit together (more often for interns)</p></li>
<li><p>Some interviewers give you case study (usually not for technical positions). They give you a situation that the company actually faced and ask you to try to solve the problem in a certain period of time (maybe 30 minutes), then make a presentation to “sell” your solution. These are very common in consulting, but less common in engineering roles. You’ll usually be told to expect a Case Interview before the actual interview. </p></li>
<li><p>Some people give you hypothetical situations (“If you knew that a co-worker was stealing…”, “If your client asked you to do something unethical…”, “If you had a leader that spoke down to team members…”). These are becoming more rare since most people just give the answer that they think the company wants to hear.</p></li>
<li><p>Some people just start talking to you about life, and make a decision based on whether or not they get a “good feeling” from you. This happens often in smaller companies, or when you’re interviewing with someone not in management (it’s in vogue now for second round interviews to include a line-worker or operator as one of the 4 or 5 interviews).</p></li>
</ul>
<p>And finally, remember that you’re always being interviewed. One time, a Fortune 500 Company had me fly to their site the night before the interviews. A few engineers took me and 4 other students to a bar the night before the interview process. People started drinking, the engineers passed out shots, etc. After a while, it turned into a job interview in the middle of the bar. “So, tell me about a time you had to work with a difficult boss? How difficult was he or she and how did you handle it.” One of the guys actually said “I told him to go ---- himself then ----ed his daughter to get even.” Afterward, the 5 of us went back to the hotel and talked about how crazy the night was and what we thought of the company compared to others at which we interviewed. One of the other “students” turned out to be a company employee. </p>
<p>I actually got an offer, but had to turn it down after how they treated us.</p>
<p>thanks for the in depth answer!</p>
<p>We found interviews with small firms to be kind of strange. A lot of times the interviewer would just talk about himself the entire time! Getting a word or question in was difficult. One interviewer noticed that DH put sailing on his resume as an interest, and that’s all he wanted to talk about!</p>