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I'm a mechanical engineer by training and still occasionally do some entry level hiring in it. My favorite question in recent years has been posing an advanced
by scrooched_moose 7y ago
I'm a mechanical engineer by training and still occasionally do some entry level hiring in it.
My favorite question in recent years has been posing an advanced project - not unreasonably difficult, but one I know they won't have covered in school. Make it clear I don't expect them to have the answer, but have them talk through their approach to this project with me. "How would you get started?" "What would you need to know?" "What resources would you use?", etc.
For us it's been a great filter - both a gauge of their current knowledge and ability to tackle an unknown.
- cushychicken 7y agoI'm an electrical engineer, and I have a similar question that I ask my entry level candidates - "How would you measure the voltage coming out of a wall socket?" It's familiar enough to be accessible, but technically just far enough out of their reach that they don't know exactly how to do it. We talk about approaches, tools they could use, some potential problems or issues they'd need to overcome. If they get flustered about where to start, I laugh, and say "Don't worry - I don't know the right answer. I'm actually afraid of AC mains electricity." Never fails to calm them down, because, well, it's kind of funny to hear an electrical engineer admit that they're afraid of electricity! It's a question that I've gotten a lot of mileage on.
- perl4ever 7y agoIs a religious certainty you need a true RMS meter a plus or minus?
- _AzMoo 7y agoCouldn't you just jam a multimeter into it?
- cushychicken 7y agoYou could! My immediate followons to that would be: - How would you jam a multimeter into the socket safely? - What information will the multimeter not tell you about the AC voltage signal?