Woot! I have an interview scheduled for next week regarding a summer internship at a corporation. They scheduled a 1.5 hour time slot for the interview. I already had to submit my resume, and fill out an application on the web which took 30 minutes. What is the kind of stuff they're going to ask? What is the right answer to the question 'Why is your GPA so low'?

 

You challenged yourself throughout college by taking advanced and upper-level courses which explains the mediocre GPA.

 

congrats!

 

Im going to go out on a limb, and probably against everyone else's advice...

If they offer you the job, and dont pay you, tell them to piss off. I hate nothing more than a$$wad corporations exploiting people, by having them work for free. Too bad idiots are fighting for the people in china making $1 a week for churning out Nike sneaks, but the poor guy working in the mailroom gets paid NOTHING for 40 hours a week of work. No matter what ANYONE tells you, unpaid internships are UNECESSARY to get ahead in ANY field, and are IMHO, for suckers. Dont take it if its unpaid. I personally refuse to have ANYONE work for me without getting paid. I can understand low pay, as new employees generally dont know anything about anything, but working for free? No thanks. You're better than that. Get a job/internship that pays.

 

if you are getting an interview they have rejected 10x the amount of resumes before selecting yours, congratulations!

they want to know how you fit into their organization? they should be asking them selves do i want to work with this person. do your work well alone or in a team? how you handle multiple tasks? How do you handle difficult people? do you arrive at work ready to go? you are generally always organized.
be prepared to answer what is you best job. personal best, personal failure.

they will want to know how you are going to get to work, is it a long drive.

your technical abilities. does the person match the resume.
re read the "job requirements"

what classes you liked? what do you plan after graduation?

organize questions for them that you really want to know.

they should not ask personal questions

over dress for the interview a little and arrive just a little early.
have 3 references, inform the peeps they will need to reference you

 

totally agree...

& congrats to you.

here's my .02: research the position. Human Resource always asks retarded behavioral questions like, why you want this job, why should we hire you instead of her/him, where do you see yourself 5 years from now, etc (google.com is your friend). prepare for those. the tougher portion of an interview is when you get to people who are in the position or work around it. they'll ask you questions that pertain to the job so you better know what you're interviewing for.

 

Wow NFR I totally agree with you, but the bad side is to any market that becomes flooded with job seekers, the corporatoins will love the chance to lowball anyone they can.

 

Note it's an "internship" position. Most likely the company has the upper hand in this case. If I were you, I would be thankful that I was given the opportunity to work and LEARN my craft and get paid for it. A good performance may land you a permanent position, should you choose to stay with the company with more salary.

 

[QUOTE=Gymkata,Jan 31 2007, 01:00 AM] Note it's an "internship" position.

 

Much of the time, you're probably right, but in some cases, companies end up getting some decent work out of engineering interns. I've had internships where I did as much as the staff engineers, and yet they paid me less than half the salary. It seems to me, the larger the corporation, the less real work they have their interns do. Smaller places don't look at the internship as only a learning experience for college students and as a sort of long-term interview, but actually need somebody to do something in their office/plant.

But I've also had internships where I could literally sleep in the bathroom stall and no one cared, because I had nothing to actually work on.