Post by CerebralPrimate on Jun 6, 2012 18:44:16 GMT
Just thought I'd share my thoughts on coming to Houston & interviewing. Maybe it will help someone out there...
First off, I was met at the airport by an extremely nice driver in a sharp suit and was driven in a very nice, new, black Cadillac XTS to the hotel. It felt like getting the royal treatment.
The next morning, a different driver took 3 of us to the office. It was myself and a couple from Canada in a Cadillac Escalade (the long one) this time. It took only 10 minutes or so. You are issued a temp badge, then brought to a presentation room. There's water, soda, coffee & snacks and everyone is extremely pleasant. The recruiter met us, as well as the travel coordinator. I think they just wanted to say o after emailing back and forth. Great folks.
The orientation starts and they pull people out for interviews when it's time. There were 5 of us there to interview, 3 of the guys had their wives with them. I was first up, so I missed the travel & housing part. That was fine with me as I'd rather go first anyway. I was able to ask questions later, so I was fine.
I had prepared thoroughly for all of the common questions. However, there were literally no questions outside of the exact job... no "tell us about yourself", "why should we hire you?" or "do you work well under pressure?"... it went straight to the "have you ever actually constructed cost proposals in accordance with engineering plans for projects valued over $10M?" and "Do you have experience in working with both field level project management as well as HQ level decision makers?" and some other esoteric financial ysis questions I wont bother typing here. Obviously I'm a cost yst .
Those questions are paraphrased and just examples of the types of questions there were. Not saying anyone out there should prepare somehow for those exact questions... they're for example purposes only.
Point is, after a 'this is Mr X, this is Mr Y and I am Mr Z' and the subsequent handshakes, the whole interview was extremely job focused. They didnt care if I'm a team player, or how I handle office conflicts, etc... it was all "have you ever done this? Have you ever done that? Give us an example of how you did this kind of ysis in the past."
Not saying you shouldnt be prepared if you have an upcoming interview. But my experience (and my recruiter later confirmed that most people say this to her) was that the interview was 100% technical. There really weren't even any open ended questions. Mostly just yes/no questions and recital of what you've done. So that's really you're only opportunity to make yourself shine... say yes and then use the chance to talk about how you did something well, or were the one to spearhead doing that very type of ysis, whatever. You may not be given obvious chances to shine like "tell us about yourself", so you may have to think on your feet and create those opportunities.
Anyway, just thought I'd share. I interviewed with 3 men, 2 Saudi and one westerner. All seemed extremely polite and very professional. It was a serious interview, but I was never made to feel uncomfortable. Just very technical in nature... almost as if they wanted to answer "can this guy do the job?" and didnt care much about "what kind of guy is this?".
Hope this helps someone out there...
First off, I was met at the airport by an extremely nice driver in a sharp suit and was driven in a very nice, new, black Cadillac XTS to the hotel. It felt like getting the royal treatment.
The next morning, a different driver took 3 of us to the office. It was myself and a couple from Canada in a Cadillac Escalade (the long one) this time. It took only 10 minutes or so. You are issued a temp badge, then brought to a presentation room. There's water, soda, coffee & snacks and everyone is extremely pleasant. The recruiter met us, as well as the travel coordinator. I think they just wanted to say o after emailing back and forth. Great folks.
The orientation starts and they pull people out for interviews when it's time. There were 5 of us there to interview, 3 of the guys had their wives with them. I was first up, so I missed the travel & housing part. That was fine with me as I'd rather go first anyway. I was able to ask questions later, so I was fine.
I had prepared thoroughly for all of the common questions. However, there were literally no questions outside of the exact job... no "tell us about yourself", "why should we hire you?" or "do you work well under pressure?"... it went straight to the "have you ever actually constructed cost proposals in accordance with engineering plans for projects valued over $10M?" and "Do you have experience in working with both field level project management as well as HQ level decision makers?" and some other esoteric financial ysis questions I wont bother typing here. Obviously I'm a cost yst .
Those questions are paraphrased and just examples of the types of questions there were. Not saying anyone out there should prepare somehow for those exact questions... they're for example purposes only.
Point is, after a 'this is Mr X, this is Mr Y and I am Mr Z' and the subsequent handshakes, the whole interview was extremely job focused. They didnt care if I'm a team player, or how I handle office conflicts, etc... it was all "have you ever done this? Have you ever done that? Give us an example of how you did this kind of ysis in the past."
Not saying you shouldnt be prepared if you have an upcoming interview. But my experience (and my recruiter later confirmed that most people say this to her) was that the interview was 100% technical. There really weren't even any open ended questions. Mostly just yes/no questions and recital of what you've done. So that's really you're only opportunity to make yourself shine... say yes and then use the chance to talk about how you did something well, or were the one to spearhead doing that very type of ysis, whatever. You may not be given obvious chances to shine like "tell us about yourself", so you may have to think on your feet and create those opportunities.
Anyway, just thought I'd share. I interviewed with 3 men, 2 Saudi and one westerner. All seemed extremely polite and very professional. It was a serious interview, but I was never made to feel uncomfortable. Just very technical in nature... almost as if they wanted to answer "can this guy do the job?" and didnt care much about "what kind of guy is this?".
Hope this helps someone out there...