Welcome to Part 2 of How To Get onto An Engineering Graduate Scheme. If you haven’t read Part 1 – read it here. In Part 2, we will cover both telephone and video interviews, which are central parts of the engineering graduate scheme recruitment process. We’ll start with telephone interviews first.
Process You Will Face To Get Onto An Engineering Graduate Scheme
Telephone Interviews For An Engineering Graduate Scheme
Telephone interviews should be prepared for like, any other interview, apart from having to dress smartly! A telephone interview will usually last for approximately half an hour. They are a popular method of interviewing candidates because they are easy to hold and save costs. You will likely have a telephone interview as part of your journey towards a graduate scheme.
Research the company! When researching the organisation, make sure you note essential information such as founded date, what they do, global presence, competitors etc. However, everyone who has an interview will be researching the company, therefore find information that will make you stand out.
A key aspect of research is the companies code of ethics and company culture. These two aspects can be, intertwined into your answers which will impress the interviewer. Writing down the information, you researched on a piece of paper you can use in the interview is extremely useful. It is a great practice to refer to these notes in your interview, however, don’t make it sound like you are reading straight from them.
The interviewer will have a copy of your CV in front of them, so make sure you have one too! It is worth annotating your CV and highlighting the skills you have developed in your previous roles/experiences.
Video Interview For An Engineering Graduate Scheme
Video interviews are more challenging than telephone interviews for several reasons. Having a camera on yourself and see that on the screen an be very off-putting. Additionally, you need to ensure that you are looking at the camera during your answers to replicate eye contact in a regular interview.
One thing I found useful was recording myself on my webcam and reviewing the video. Recording yourself gives you an insight into how your answers come across. When conducting your video interview, please consider your background. The person reviewing the interview videos later won’t find it appealing seeing a messy bedroom.
Body language is vitally important during video interviews it gives off subliminal messages like confidence. Make sure you are sitting upright and try to minimise fidgeting.
Additionally, try to have a smile on your face during the interview. A smile will make you appear more open, warm and confident. Smiling will affect your answers and delivery positively. Unfortunately, you are time-limited for video interviews so the skill of giving clear concise answers is vitally important for video interviews.
What Questions Will You Face?
Research questions online to get an idea of common interview questions. Glassdoor is a great website to use for research. Students and graduates who have had previous interviews with the company will sometimes post the questions they faced.
From my personal experience, the questions you find on the internet for that company are accurate. This allows you to prepare the answers before the interview allowing you to develop a well-rounded answer.
Most of the questions at this stage are on the company and competency-based questions. Competency-based questions ask you to provide an example of when you have used the skill in question. Therefore, it is important to list several scenarios you have experienced, e.g. group project and the skills you have used because of it.
When answering competency-based questions, it is good to practise to analyse the scenario. Tell the interviewer what you learnt from the experience, what you would do differently moving forward and how you can apply this to the role you have applied for.
This method ticks many boxes for the interviewer. The STAR methods is an easy to remember technique for each question:
S – Situation – What was the situation?
T – Task – What was the goal? Why was the task required? What did you want to achieve? What was your responsibility?
A – Action – What actions did you take to achieve the goal? and why?
R – Result – What was the result of your actions? Did you achieve the goal? Why?
Try and remember to add what lessons you learnt and how you would approach the situation next time.
Overview
Key tips:
1. Research the company
2. Research potential questions on sites such as Glassdoor
3. For competency based questions include: what you learnt from the scenario, what you would differently moving forward and how you can apply this to the role you are applying for. Use the STAR format.
4. Use notes – don’t rely on them too much.
I hope this post has given you insight and tips to help pass interviews you will face during the graduate scheme recruitment process.
Let me know your thoughts! Let a comment bellow.
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