Interview for co-op/intern position

[duragezic]

So today was the career day at our school and for one, I drank last night then 8am rolls around this morning and I was like "FVCK, I dont wanna go!". But I get up, throw on some clothes that were totally not formal, but hell I'm a student and I didnt have anything nice and formal. Anyway I wasn't sure what to expect, and all there others students are in suits and ties and crap, but I make some copies of my resume and head there.

My first stop was Hitachi, their storage solutions divison or whatever. Anyway, it was pretty cool because she just took a look at my resume and asked me a few things, then said hey I wanna interview you tomorrow. So I got an interview at 9:30 am. I was the third person on their list or so, and there was only maybe 10 slots. It will be for a co-op program I believe.

My only other promising place was a paper products company. They too had a co-op program for Electrical or Computer engineers. SO I got an interview with them at 2:30 tomorrow.

Anyway, I'm not too worried about clothes because the Hitachi lady said herself to not worry about formal clothing, I'll have something decent on, and will look a little more presentable than just getting up and throwing on clothes like I did this morning! I think they all thought i was a CS major or something, heheh.

Anyway, I'm starting my 3rd year in COmputer Engineering, but I may double major as Electrical Engineering.

But if they were to ask technical questions, like what related projects have you worked on or what problems have you solved.. well I don't have much to say or show. I don't wanna just BS stuff unless I can back it up. It's not like I don't do anything outside of school. Hell when I was like 11-14 years old I was learning HTML by just looking at page sources, I made models and levels for games like Quake and stuff, nothing productive or worth mentioning, but I do have a knack for technical things.

So does anyone have any tips or suggestions? Like Hitachi was pretty much about firmware for their storage devices, but obviously as a junior undergrad, I don't know crap about firmware, but compared to my peers, I probably know more than most about computer hardware and software.

I also talked to some folks at IBM, Raytheon, and a few others, but nothing really came outta those. Some "we'll call you" or "i'll forward this resume to one of the managers and let you know", but I doubt those will happen.

 

[EagleKeeper]

Research the company and determine what products/lines that may dovetailwith your background skills.

When you talk to a technical person, bring up those strengths.

Being in college, they do not expect that you will have experience to wow them with, just potential that they can use as a gofer (or lab tech if you have some raw potential)

 

[robothouse77]

they want to see your PROBLEM SOVLING ability. even if you don't know the exact answer to a tech question, they want to see you think out loud (literally, draw on a white board or use pen and paper) to work through the problem

 

[duragezic]

Gotcha. I do have problem solving skills, so I'll definitely at least try to approach a problem in an intelligent manner if they ask me something I don't have any idea about. All the time at school I'm working on a problem (or a program or a lab) and I'll be like WTF?? yet the answer is almost always easy. Basically I think if I have any doubts I should go back to the basics. My circuits teacher was real helpful like that.. you might encounter something that you think you have no idea about, but back to the basics of Ohm's law, KVL/KCL, etc.. and you can probably figure it out.

Anything else someone has to add?


Anyway I think I'm going to tell them that I would like to get into debugging and testing. I know I won't be designing anything but I think debugging b1tchwork is often left to entry-level positions... I know it won't be fun but its worth it if theres a good career involved down the road. What else would an intern do? I want to be objective about working there, but of course all of the company descriptions on their page all are glamorous and whatnot... not exactly the things an intern would do.

 

[Gibson486]

I did firmware.....it's pretty cool stuff if you like programming. It was my first coop and it was not testing and debugging. During your interview, they will not ask you about KVL/KCL (the firmware one). They will ask you stuff like "Here is an array, write a routine to reverse the order." They may even throw in a question like, "tell me the design behind a keyboard".

When they ask you a question, and you need to solve it, think out loud and make sure they see your thought process.

 

[duragezic]

Right I didn't mean that they would ask about that, but that by knowing the basics you can solve a lot of problems. And as far as the array, I could do that easily enough by drawing it out, and a keyboard... ahh well I don't know how those membrane thingys work, but I'm guessing upon a keypress a small voltage goes through and the keyboard port detects this and outputs some representation of the key pressed whether ASCII or whatnot... Is that right?

 

[duragezic]

Ok well I had both today. Sucked that it started raining this morning and my long walk to campus was accompanied by heavy rain thus I was pretty much soaked for my interview with Hitachi. I don't think they cared at all at least... pretty cool people. I think I would have a much better chance at the job had I known C or C++, since I'd be in the firmware division. But my first C++ class won't start until Spring semester. So if nothing else, I think I might have a good chance at starting in the Summer 2006 until the end of 2006, if I don't get any offer for start of 2006 until Summer. This one I definitely am going to follow up on in the winter if I don't hear anything from them. I think I interviewed well, except I felt stupid on one question, cause like you said Gibson, they asked me how I would develop an algorithm for determining prime numbers. So I go off but then realize I was talking about finding odd numbers (2k+1, duh), but then I stopped myself and couldn't come up with anything for primes. So I struck out on that question, but that may not be a big deal.

And so my other interview was at 3:30, er I thought it was.. it was really 2:30, so I'm at home cooking lunch and its 2:30 and I looked at the business card and realize it is indeed at 2:30. I stop everything I'm doing, speed off to campus, finally get a parking spot, then since its in B3 I figure basement. Nope that really means 3rd floor ballroom. FVCK! So I end up there at about 2:45 and I thought I was screwed, but a peer that was to go at 3:00 went at my time, and the interviewer didn't care that we switched times and was understanding. So that interview went pretty well still. It wasn't technical at all, just a lot more questions about teamwork, projects, why I should be hired, etc... If I get hired there it sounded like I'd be more of a candidate for IS/IT support (tho possibly could be EE work), and helpdesk aint any fun, but hey gotta start somewhere. Both of these co-ops pay over THREE TIMES what I could get around here or on campus (a measly $5.50/hr).




Anyway, should I write thank-you emails to these two interviewers? I say emails because I don't have a mailing address for either one of the people.. they are pretty big companies and both are going around visiting a few more colleges, so I think email would be my best bet at getting them a thank you letter promptly. Both said approx 3-6 weeks and they would let me know on the status of a offer. So I guess I'll know soon enough.

 

[HardcoreRobot]

thank you email is better than no thank you at all. yes i think you should write a short one just thanking them for their time and the opportunity to interview