Difficult questions
I was being interviewed for a Flight Test Engineer job with a large manufacturer of small airliners. Several interviews, one was a one-on-one with a retired astronaut who was head of flight safety.
Sat down, expecting an easy question (most people start off with an easy question). "So, you're in the back of a jet managing a flight trial, when the Test Pilot in the front screws up and endangers the aircraft, how do you handle it?"
After that he went onto the technical questions, which were even worse - I eventually backed myself into the position of saying that the company's safety and trials planning system was full of holes and needed a major redesign. He heard me out silently, thought for a minute, then said "Yep, that's pretty much my opinion as well." Phew!!
Incidentally the answer I gave to the TP question - was not "report it", that is the wrong answer. The right answer - at-least for the flight test world - is far more complex. Starting with determing whether the aircraft is likely to be damaged and from that whether to terminate the sortie or not, the subsequent actions were (in my opinion, and this seemed to go down well) to have a doors-closed talk with the TP (captain!) about it, discuss what has happened, and get to the point of a mutual understanding of what went wrong, and how to stop it happening again. Reporting somebody should only happen after discussions, telling them that you're doing so, and if it's proved impossible to reach an understanding of how to avoid a future transgression. Obviously the picture changes slightly if something has been damaged but the bottom line is (a) nobody deliberately screws up, and (b) reporting somebody, particularly behind their back, will probably destroy any trust or teamwork between you. In the airline world I believe that this is called CRM !
Bad answers
Worst answer I've ever seen, I was interviewing somebody for a job in an airworthiness office.
Me: "Could you tell me how you'd work out the safety limitations of an aeroplane"
Candidate: "I'd ask the designer"
Me: "Okay, but assuming they're asking you for advice, what would you give?"
Candidate: "I'm sorry I don't understand the question"
Me: "Okay, let's start at basics, could you just draw the basic V-N diagram for me on the flipchart behind you".
Candidate (shouts): "I don't know what you're expecting for this kind of salary" Whereupon picks up jacket and leaves interview room.
Good answers
Just bear in mind those of you starting out on your careers, that the majority of these questions don't have defined right answers (although there are plenty of wrong ones). What an interviewer is looking for, by and large, is your ability to reason through the question, and justify your answer.
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Last edited by Genghis the Engineer; 11th Oct 2004 at 10:33.