Trainee Engineer Interview Questions And Answers

Without getting into specifics, tell me how you overcame some of the challenges you faced while working on that project.

Engineers juggle multiple projects. Keeping projects on time and on budget is critical. Your interviewer wants to know that you have good organization skills so that when it gets busy, you’ll be able to manage the work

I think communication is essential to avoid mistakes, and can even help to spot them. During a recent project, I was having trouble understanding the feasibility of a technical drawing I’d been sent to work on. And because email chains can often get messy and confusing, I set up a face-to-face meeting with the team to talk it through. Not only did we manage to get on the same page, we also ended up catching a mistake, potentially saving hundreds of hours of the team’s time.

Here, the employer is determining your level of commitment. If your career is unplanned, they may consider your commitment to long-term positions less stable. Start with your earliest memory of interest in your chosen career, describe how you got from there to where you are today, have you taken part in any research? Any notable events?

Be relaxed and explain that you are looking for a company and role with the right fit, and that you are quite choosy when it comes to finding the ‘right job’. You may then need to answer what you believe the ‘right job’ entails.

Choose three or four characteristics and expand on why you think they’re important. You could also describe how a previous manager of yours displayed these qualities to good effect and how you learned from that example.

If you have group project experience, highlight it now. Focus on your role on a team and how you know how to be a team player. If there are classes with specific knowledge that directly prepared you for this role, you’re in luck, that’s another easy answer to this question.

You probably didn’t make a snap decision to major in your major. You likely chose it because you found it interesting, challenging, or thought it would lead to a promising career. The only key to answering this question is knowing why you chose your major and communicating that reasoning clearly. Be honest, even if your reasoning doesn’t seem interesting. It’s better to be honest to yourself and the employer up front than attempt to tell them what you think they want to hear.

Your answer should include: the way you listened to what the client had to say, confirmed an understanding of their concerns and subsequently took responsibility to resolve the situation by offering a solution, without going into too much detail about the specific complaint.

This is a good opportunity to discuss your methods and approaches to leadership and management. It’s also a good chance to provide an example of a time you really excelled when leading a team.

Discuss which methods you have used to inspire engagement amongst your workers, such as benefits, team spirit and a level of recognition for good work. It’s good to express an understanding of how people work best, and how these methods of encouragement often vary with different personality types.

This is a fairly standard question, that spans across all sectors. What the employer really wants from you is to show how much you know (or how much you’ve researched) about the company. When answering, talk about the reputation of the organisation. Do they have progression opportunities? Training schemes?

Learning about risk management was part of my degree, but I never had to use it until a couple of months ago – when a plot of commercial land my team and I were working on was damaged by large-scale flooding. I had to put my skills into practice fast, and learn as I went along. Eventually, we fixed the problem, and our quick thinking was even able to save the company money.

With this question, your interviewers are trying to assess your emotional stability and how you’ll perform under pressure. They want to be reassured that you’ll be able to resolve tense situations to keep clients happy.

By asking this behavioral interview question, your interviewer is trying to gain an understanding of your approach to problem-solving. You should give her an example that demonstrates your ability to recover when things go wrong.

Workplace safety is paramount in engineering organizations. Your answer to this behavioral interview question needs to assure your interviewer that you have a high level of respect for safe work practices

Draw upon a specific example – one that showcases your strengths as an engineer, such as the ability to think on your feet.

If you don’t have internship experience, feel free to skip this one, as they probably won’t ask it. Otherwise, if your internship experience was directly relevant to the current role you’re applying for (i.e. the same general work), your answer should focus on the specifics of the internship work. Otherwise, it’s wise to focus on any experience you had working on a team, meeting deadlines, and communicating effectively.

Detail any particular skills that you developed whilst at university and describe how you obtained them. Finish up talking about your willingness to learn.

☛ What is your knowledge of basic engineering principles and techniques?
☛ What engineering concepts are you familiar with?
☛ What are the softwares you use?
☛ Describe the engineering design process.
☛ Describe system and requirements analysis.
☛ Describe how to fix a basic LED schematic.
☛ Draw a bending moment diagram for a structure.
☛ Describe how to test a circuit board.
☛ How would you design a tower out of these pieces of spaghetti?
☛ If I represent the City of Sydney wanting to redevelop a landfill site, what questions would you ask of me to formulate your bid for acquiring that work as a designer?
☛ What is your knowledge of the Sydney basin?
☛ How would you help the issue of water scarcity in Australia if funding happens to be limited?

☛ Why did you choose engineering?
☛ Do you do any engineering related activities outside of work?
☛ What motivates you? What makes you stand out?
☛ What subjects did you like at uni and why?
☛ If you retired tomorrow, what would you want to be known for?

☛ Why do you want to join our company?
☛ What do you think we do here? What is the role of an engineer?
☛ Outline the career progression of an engineer.
☛ What do you hope to achieve working for this company?
☛ How can you demonstrate this company’s values?
☛ What significant value adding tasks have you performed before?
☛ What was your favourite and least favourite project you've ever done?
☛ How do you employ problem solving skills in practical situations?
☛ What do you think innovation is? And how would you apply it in the workplace?
☛ Give an example of a time where you demonstrated good attention to detail.
☛ Give an example of an unsafe situation and how you rectified it.

Your interviewer has probably seen at least a handful of candidates with the same qualifications as you. Make sure to sell yourself and mention any special skills you bring to the table.

Your interviewer knows that not every job is perfect. Every job has some sort of undesirable component, but when you’re picking your least favorite activity, try to choose something that is not within the core responsibilities of the job

For most graduates the use of an academic example would be best here unless they have taken relevant work experience and can therefore use a practical example. This question gives you a good opportunity to display your knowledge about engineering and discuss skills that you possess which an employer would value. The ability to problem solve effectively is key to an employer so go into depth on how the overcame initial difficulties.

This is not a question that mid or senior-level applicants ever get asked. Writing and communication in school is very different from that in the professional world and the employer is checking to make sure you know the difference. If you’ve had experience communicating with full-time employees in your internship, let them know. Otherwise, hammer home the point that you know how to write clearly, concisely, and respectfully.