Interviews for engineering jobs

[Dissipate]

I graduated college about a month and a half ago with a B.A. in math-computer science from University of California San Diego. I took about a month off and have been looking for jobs for the past 2 weeks, so I just started interviewing.

My first interview was a phone interview. Interview was going OK, they started asking me about some Java basics. Then all of a sudden the guy starts asking me about hands on clocks and what angle is formed, how many times in 12 hours the hands touch each other blah blah blah. I'm like wtf? I knew that companies asked these kinds of questions but I certainly wasn't expecting it during a phone interview.

I pretty much bombed that part of the interview since I was really nervous to begin with, causing serious mental blockage, so the guy said "We will be in touch" at the end of the interview, so I know they won't be calling me back. The guys did not sound friendly at all to begin with and then they just left me feeling like an idiot, even though I set curves in upper division math classes and survived two courses of compilers with good grades etc. :roll:

Anyways, my question is: do the majority of companies hiring for engineering jobs (in my case software engineering) ask these kinds of questions, and if so do they ask them just for entry level positions or for jobs all the way up the ladder?

 

[JasonE4]

I had 5 or so interviews for software development positions before I accepted an offer and was never asked any brain teaser type questions. Most of the questions were about basic programming concepts, personality, and situational type stuff.

 

[KillerCharlie]

I had 12 internship interviews and 6 full-time interviews. I never had a single technical question. They were all situational questions. However, I'm an aerospace engineer - CS might be different.

 

[Dissipate]

Originally posted by: JasonE4
I had 5 or so interviews for software development positions before I accepted an offer and was never asked any brain teaser type questions. Most of the questions were about basic programming concepts, personality, and situational type stuff.

What was the starting salary?

 

[jackace]

I'm not an engineer but all my interviews have 30 min to 2 hour personality tests. Some even have 20-40 minute basic skills tests. They are completely annoying and stupid if you ask me, but I guess they need something to separate the candidates even if it has nothing to do with the job you are applying for.

 

[Nerva]

i think those kind of questions are pretty common for engineering interviews. hell, i have even heard those questions been asked in banking interviews, even more so in consulting interviews.

the best way to prepare them is to get a book on brain teasers. there is a vault guide for investment banking interviews (or was it called finance interviews?), there is a section in the end with a bunch of these brain teasers. just learn them all.

also, i think a lot of the times the interviewer is just looking to see how you go about solving those problems, so make sure you talk out loud your thought process, intelligently and methodically. make sure you dont panic. i recently had an interview on the phone with an equity research firm, and they asked me how many slices of pizza are consumed by college students in this country in a week. obviously you are not expected to provide an exact answer, but it must be reasonable and in the ball park.

good luck.

 

[jiggahertz]

I think they are rather common for CS interviews, I've never had any of them as a EE though.

 

[jmcoreymv]

I had a couple 4-hour interviews for EE design engineering positions out of college and was never once asked a technical question. They both just wanted me to talk about prior projects I've worked on for my thesis and internships/co-ops. It was actually pretty nice not to have to try and think on the spot.

 

[Special K]

nvidia was the only company I interviewed with that asked brain teaser type questions. This was for an EE position though.

 

[sjwaste]

Companies asking you logic questions have likely been burned by booksmart people with top grades who couldn't cut it on the job. School is a lot different than work. Your "exams" don't come once or twice a semester, you might not know when they even come, and you certainly don't have virtually all the time in the world to study for them. Work is about thinking on your feet, being able to locate information quickly, and (one of the most important pieces of advice i can give!) being able to say "I don't know" rather than trying to bs an answer.

Most companies are looking for people who can think quickly, are trustworthy, and can operate with their team without requiring much supervision. I'm not an engineer and I don't interview/hire them, but those are the qualities I look for, along with the ability and desire to keep learning on the fly. Of course, I'm not a jerk that gives logic tests out of the blue either But I did go for a final round interview once and they handed me a test as soon as I got in (good thing I brought my own pencil), and I can understand why they do it.

 

[cKGunslinger]

Originally posted by: sjwaste
Companies asking you logic questions have likely been burned by booksmart people with top grades who couldn't cut it on the job. School is a lot different than work. Your "exams" don't come once or twice a semester, you might not know when they even come, and you certainly don't have virtually all the time in the world to study for them. Work is about thinking on your feet, being able to locate information quickly, and (one of the most important pieces of advice i can give!) being able to say "I don't know" rather than trying to bs an answer.

Most companies are looking for people who can think quickly, are trustworthy, and can operate with their team without requiring much supervision. I'm not an engineer and I don't interview/hire them, but those are the qualities I look for, along with the ability and desire to keep learning on the fly. Of course, I'm not a jerk that gives logic tests out of the blue either But I did go for a final round interview once and they handed me a test as soon as I got in (good thing I brought my own pencil), and I can understand why they do it.

But to take the opposite stance, there are probably quite a few fly-by-night companies that ask "logic" questions because they think that's what engineering companies should do. They have no idea what they are looking for, other than the answer they have listed. :laugh:

 

[slpaulson]

I was asked some brain teaser type questions from Microsoft and Nvidia.
I'm horrible at that kind of crap.

The company I ended up at didn't even interview me, because I interned there the previous summer. It's not as prestigious or high paying as Microsoft or Nvidia, but the fact that I was able to come in and start writing firmware for an upcoming product right away was pretty nice, as opposed to the jobs at Nvidia and Microsoft which seemed like mostly testing type work.

 

[smack Down]

Originally posted by: cKGunslinger

Originally posted by: sjwaste
Companies asking you logic questions have likely been burned by booksmart people with top grades who couldn't cut it on the job. School is a lot different than work. Your "exams" don't come once or twice a semester, you might not know when they even come, and you certainly don't have virtually all the time in the world to study for them. Work is about thinking on your feet, being able to locate information quickly, and (one of the most important pieces of advice i can give!) being able to say "I don't know" rather than trying to bs an answer.

Most companies are looking for people who can think quickly, are trustworthy, and can operate with their team without requiring much supervision. I'm not an engineer and I don't interview/hire them, but those are the qualities I look for, along with the ability and desire to keep learning on the fly. Of course, I'm not a jerk that gives logic tests out of the blue either But I did go for a final round interview once and they handed me a test as soon as I got in (good thing I brought my own pencil), and I can understand why they do it.

But to take the opposite stance, there are probably quite a few fly-by-night companies that ask "logic" questions because they think that's what engineering companies should do. They have no idea what they are looking for, other than the answer they have listed. :laugh:

That is my experience it is the new company that has no clue when it comes to hiring so they come up with the logic test type questions.

 

[lyssword]

the answer is 12, they touch 12 times

 

[MrDudeMan]

They ask those types of questions to separate people who can make good grades from those who can actually apply it. Sorry, but if you bombed those two questions that is kinda sad. It doesn't matter how well you did in class if you can't think on your feet. I've been asked a few brain teasers during interviews and the point is obvious, to put pressure on you. If you can't handle that kind of pressure, how are you going to handle real pressure on the job? It sounds cliché, but it's true.

Also, another tid-bit, you should have been interviewing or setting up interviews a long time ago. It's fine to take time off after school, but you can't just expect to have your pick of the litter with seemingly little ambition. This is another good reason to do internships. They expect you to fumble since you haven't done it before, but when you are interviewing for full-time positions, they expect you to have your shit together.

 

[Gibson486]

Some do, some don't. I have found tha the companie sthat do have issues with cocky employees.

 

[MrDudeMan]

Originally posted by: Gibson486
Some do, some don't. I have found tha the companie sthat do have issues with cocky employees.

That hasn't been my experience, but I can definitely believe that.

 

[OneOfTheseDays]

Every single company I worked for asked these type of logic questions. HP had a whole part of their interview dedicated to them. They don't expect you to get them right, they are looking at your thought process and seeing how you work these things out.

 

[Parasitic]

Genentech loves to ask the question "how does one separate sugar and salt in a glass of water".

 

[Gibson486]

Originally posted by: MrDudeMan

Originally posted by: Gibson486
Some do, some don't. I have found tha the companie sthat do have issues with cocky employees.

That hasn't been my experience, but I can definitely believe that.

Definately....


and #1 on that list is Analog Devices.

I had one guy just ask me brain tesers through out the whole interview. 30 minutes of brain teasers. WTF? Then another guy started asking me Linear Systems questions....I did not even take the class yet. I told him that and he just replied, "Oh, well, you should still know how to do a Fourier Transform". Then another guy asked me how to theoretically make an oscillator. I said to use an inverter and tie the output back to the input. He said I was wrong b/c the timing of an inverter will not let me do that so I needed at least three inverters to do it (that got me so pissed off). This was a for a frimware position too....infact, the only programming question I was asked was "give me 15 ways to make an infinite loop". I only came up with 6, then my brain died.

 

[Gibson486]

Originally posted by: Parasitic
Genentech loves to ask the question "how does one separate sugar and salt in a glass of water".

so, how does one do that?

 

[FP]

I have been asked brain teaser questions in interviews and also asked them when interviewing candidates.

I use them to see how the applicant thinks through problems. You would be surprised how often someone immediately says "I don't know" instead of thinking out loud and trying to figure it out.

Usually the candidates who talk through their answers will end up asking questions which will lead to hints and ultimately the final answer.

 

[dud]

I once applied at a semiconductor manufacturer. I walked into their front office, signed in and was promptly handed a ... get this ... 20 page test! The thing looked like the EE final exam from hell. I looked it over for a few seconds and decided that no job was worth that crap so I handed it back and walked.

I am so glad I did ...

 

[Gibson486]

Originally posted by: dud
I once applied at a semiconductor manufacturer. I walked into their front office, signed in and was promptly handed a ... get this ... 20 page test! The thing looked like the EE final exam from hell. I looked it over for a few seconds and decided that no job was worth that crap so I handed it back and walked.

I am so glad I did ...

hehehehe....

I wonder how long it would take to finish.....I probably would have done the same thing you have done.

 

[ed21x]

your response, whether if correct or not, is just as important. you should be thinking your way through regardless to demonstrate that you have analytical thinking abilities rather than just the ability to study out of a textbook/write predetermined scripts in a CS class.