Interviews are a necessary gateway from job opportunity to new hire, and are fundamental across all business sectors. Seldom will you find a professional who has managed to land a job without those crucial hours of manufactured interaction. But what is the right way to spend the time you have allocated with your potential new team member? Read on for our recommended engineering interview questions.

 

Why interview?

As a hiring manager your objective is to hire excellent top talent who can get the job done as well as fit into your team. Ultimately, interviews are guided conversations. You somehow need to make sure the person you’re speaking to can do the job and fit in well with your existing team. It’s not an easy task, but we believe in making it as simple and streamlined as possible.

 

Preparing for the interview

Before you even line up your candidates for interview, the CVs that come through will help narrow your search. When reviewing a candidate’s CV, make sure to read in this order:

  • Experience: Similar roles or roles that will provide the experience a candidate would require as a base to build upon.
  • Qualifications and Training: Relevant training courses and qualifications the candidate has received and when (ensuring they have graduated/received the qualification).
  • Skills: Check if they have listed the skills you’ve highlighted in the job description, and if they have used the same or similar technology to what your company uses. If they’ve missed any off these are questions to take to interview.
  • Personal statement/Cover letter: Get to know the candidate and what they’re looking for in a new role. The ideal candidate will align with your company values and progression opportunities.

If you’re working with us to recruit, we’ll do all this preparation work for you. At Synergi, we make hiring simple. It’s our job to narrow down the search for you and line up excellent candidates, so you can focus on finding the right person for the role.

 

The interview

As a hiring manager, we understand you are time poor, and your candidate likely will be too. By the interview stage, you’ve reviewed the candidate’s CV and have it as a reference point. You have the responsibilities of your role to fulfil as well as select your newest team member.

Our three top tips:

  • Ask questions the CV cannot answer. The CV holds a lot of information in it already and you have it to reference. The interview is your opportunity to get to know the person.
  • Ask open questions to get the candidate talking i.e. “Who” “Where” “What” “How” “When” “Why”.
  • Keep your interviews time effective. Use your second interview to give the candidate a site tour and give them the opportunity to ask questions. Effective two-way communication is the best way to a maximise both parties’ time, and get an understanding of whether they’re the right fit.

 

Our cheat sheet: Engineering interview questions

The goal of the interview is to better understand the person you’re speaking to. Ideally, you will be hiring this person and welcoming them into your team. Certain questions will help you understand their technical ability, and others will be to understand their personality and growth potential. This combination is set to accurately assess their fit for your vacant role.

Role specific questions: These will ensure the candidate is suitable for the role.

  • Why do you want to work in this role, and at our company?
  • Can you please provide an example of how you’ve used [data interpretation] skills in your current role?
  • What are you most looking forward to working on in this role?

 

Technical questions: To ensure a baseline technical understanding relevant to your role.

  • Can you give an example of an engineering project you’ve worked on where you faced a challenge. What challenge did you face, and how did you overcome it?
  • What are the principal factors you take into consideration when analysing the success of your engineering project?
  • How do you stay up to date with the latest compliance regulations?

 

Behavioural questions: These will ensure a cultural fit with your existing team, as well as evaluating their soft skills and their suitability to your company.

  • How do you adapt when projects don’t go to plan? Can you provide an example.
  • How do you prioritise when you have multiple important projects ongoing simultaneously?
  • How would you approach mentoring a junior engineer who’s struggling with a project?

 

Future progression questions: It’s important to understand how the candidate wishes to progress and if your company can offer those.

  • Where do you see yourself in three to five years?
  • What engineering innovations are you most excited about?
  • Which engineers are you inspired by?

 

How often should you review your interview procedure?

Interview procedures should be reviewed regularly, at least every two years. The best advice we can give is keep it simple. Key questions to ask yourself when reviewing:

  • What is the objective of this interview?
  • What are the measures to success for a candidate?
  • How can I set up the interview to get the best from the interviewee?
  • Are there any new regulations the company needs to compliant with?

If you’re looking for new engineering candidates in the UK, here at Synergi Recruitment, we have a large pipeline of both active & passive candidates by region on our system. We hope our engineering interview questions helped you. Hiring a candidate that isn’t the right fit can be very costly. That’s why we spend the time getting to know our candidates individually, and work to connect them to the perfect opportunity that suits their skills and experience. If you’re in urgent need of an engineer, we can support with temp to perm cover too.

Get in touch with us to advertise your vacancy: hello@synergirecruitment.com