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Summary. Project engineer candidates should brush up their technical skills that are related to the role such as project scheduling and cost estimating. Interviewers should create tailored questions relating to the position to help find your ideal candidate.
Engineering projects come with a big budget, strict objectives, and a lot of responsibility for the leaders in charge. This briefly describes the role of a project engineer.
The significance of a project’s engineer's job is enormous when there’s a deadline to be met. When scouting potential candidates to fill the position of project engineer, a hiring manager must ask focused questions to uncover their skills and experience that’s relevant to the job.
Key Takeaways:
Candidates should research the company to get an understanding of of the company's mission statement and values.
Interviewers should review the candidates resume and application to have an understanding of their experience and qualifications.
As the Candidate:
Research the company. Research the company and who will be conducting your interview. You should have an understanding of the company's mission statement and current projects to get an idea of their values and goals. You should also review the job description and note the specific skills and qualifications the employer is seeking.
Brust up on technical skills. Review technical concepts and procedures related to the project engineer role, such as project scheduling, cost estimating, risk management, and project documentation.
Get refreshed on your skills and qualifications. Review your past work history to come up with examples of your work. Think of examples from your work experience that highlight your technical expertise, leadership, and problem-solving skills. Be prepared to explain how you achieved your accomplishments and what you learned from challenges and setbacks.
As the Interviewer:
Create your questions. Create a list of questions that are tailored to the position you are trying to fill. The questions should be a mix of situational, behavioral, and technical questions that assess the candidates skills, experience, and problem-solving abilities.
Review the candidates resume. Before the start of the interview, be sure that you review the candidates resume and application to have an understanding of their experience and qualifications and to come up with questions relating to them specifically.
Prepare for technical discussions. Since the role requires technical expertise, prepare for technical discussions with the candidate. This could review engineering drawings, project schedules, or other technical documentations that may be relevant to the position.
Below are the top 15 project engineer interview questions with example answers.
Tell me about yourself This is a common interview question that is typically an icebreaker question. It allows the interviewer to get a better understanding of who you are and what your qualifications are. You should highlight your experiences and qualifications in your answer.
Example Answer:
"I am a highly motivated and experienced project manager with eight years of experience of managing complex engineering projects. During my career, I have been responsible for managing project scope, budgets, schedules, and delivering projects on time and within budget.
I have a background in software and tools and I'm adept at using them to manage project schedules and workflows. I am a passionate engineer and I am always looking for opportunities to learn and grow in my role. I'm excited about my opportunity to bring my skills and experience to this position and company."
Walk me through your resume. After arriving at an interview for a project engineer position, you’ll sit down and introduce yourself to the hiring manager. The interviewer will take a deep breath before initiating the conversation with a question like “walk me through your resume”.
While this line of questioning may seem redundant since the hiring manager has already gone through your resume, it’s not.
They want to hear about a candidate’s professional experiences directly from the source. It’s a good way to open a deeper discussion. Try to give more details than exactly what’s written in your resume.
Example Answer:
“As my resume states, the majority of my 12-year career has been spent working on mechanical engineering projects. While I’ve worked on a lot of notable projects in that time, there are two that I think are the great accomplishments of my professional life.
In my first couple of years working as a project engineer, I was part of a team that designed a power generator prototype with a more effective breaker system. This project was extremely rewarding because it was my first leadership opportunity.
Another happened about a year ago when I led a project that created an automated drilling machine that could be used for manufacturing. I’d like to continue working on progressive projects like these in my next role.”
What is your favorite thing about being a project engineer? Understanding a candidate’s passion for their career demonstrates frankly how interested they’ll be in the position if they’re hired. It also indicates a candidate’s personality type.
Example Answer:
“My favorite thing about being a project engineer is that I’m constantly challenged by my work. While many people would be frustrated by the difficulty of engineering projects, I find it extremely motivating. Plus, I never find myself bored when I’m working.”
What professional training do you have? Being hired for an influential project manager position requires that a candidate has some qualifications. This could include educational requirements, years of experience, or certifications.
Example Answer:
“I graduated with a Master’s in Civil Engineering and have worked in the field for a little over seven years now. I also have an EIT certification.
Why do you want to work for our company? When a company is hiring for an open project engineer position, they want to be sure that an applicant is invested in working for them.
A hiring manager asks this question to figure out how much a candidate knows about the company they’re hoping to work for. A strong answer will reference the organization’s working environment, values, or history.
Example Answer:
“I’ve been familiar with the engineering work of QRC Aviation for a long time. Your organization is always on the edge of groundbreaking designs that assist in a variety of industrial industries.
It seems like a working environment that encourages outside-the-box thinking and collaboration, which is exactly what I’m looking for in my next professional opportunity.”
What role does a project engineer play? This question assesses how familiar a candidate is with the typical responsibilities of a project engineer in their own words.
It displays their level of understanding for the position, which is an important baseline to set at the beginning of an interview for a project engineer position.
Example Answer:
“A project engineer’s role involves a lot of planning. We’re responsible for managing the project’s budget, staff, and the entire schedule from start to finish.
This is a crucial position because every other member of the team looks towards the project engineer for guidance to complete their tasks successfully. It requires a lot of communication and delegation.”
Tell me about a time you worked on an engineering project that didn’t go as planned. As an experienced project engineer, there have probably been a few past hiccups in your career that required extra attention.
A hiring manager asks about these times to evaluate how you might handle difficult scenarios while working as a project engineer for their company. While projects don’t always go as planned, a project engineer must tackle the changes productively.
Example Answer:
“One time, I worked as the lead for a chemical engineering project in charge of a 20 person team. The project was supposed to take around six months to be completed in its entirety. It was the first time I’d managed an engineering team of this magnitude, and I was finding it difficult to organize plans.
After the first month, it seemed that we were running two months behind. I decided to take the time to figure out how to be in charge of 20 engineers at once before moving forward with my individual project responsibilities. This tactic worked, and we were able to finish the project right under the wire.”
What new engineering skills have you developed this year? Engineering is a field that’s constantly evolving by nature.
Professionals involved in the industry under any job title must be prepared to continually learn new skills related to the field. When answering this question, a candidate should outline the ways that they actively keep their engineering knowledge up to date.
Example Answer:
“One of the new engineering skills that I’ve improved upon this year has been furthering my comprehension of programming languages, specifically C++.
While I’m proficient with Python and Java, I thought my skills in C++ needed a little extra attention. I study on my own during the weekends. Additionally, I try to attend engineering conferences regularly to keep my skills and use of tools current.”
In your opinion, what is the key to developing a successful team? A project engineer acts as a leader and organizer of the team. They need to be familiar with leadership and coordination skills.
To figure out if a candidate has what it takes in this department, the hiring manager asks qualifying questions like this one which measures their familiarity with running a team.
Example Answer:
“In my opinion, the key to developing a successful team is building communication and trust among its members. While these aspects might take a little while to become solidified, they’re the backbone of a team working well together on an engineering project.”
What is a long-term objective that you met in your last position? One of the biggest responsibilities of a project engineer is being able to meet objectives. Hiring managers usually ask a few telling questions, like this one, to determine a candidate’s experience with accomplishing goals at work.
When responding, a candidate should give a comprehensive picture of the situation that occurred, their objective, how they handled it, and the eventual result. This is aptly named the STAR method of responding to interview questions.
Example Answer:
“In my last position, I was working on a geotechnical engineering project that involved structuring a massive tunnel. My main objective was to create a detailed deadlines calendar to keep the project on track and monitor it over its two-year lifespan.
It was a huge responsibility that I took very seriously, and by the end, the project was completed under budget and ahead of schedule. It was very successful.”
How do you start planning a new project? There’s a process that goes into the planning that an engineering project requires. A project engineer needs to be prepared with steps to take on this aspect of the job. During an interview, candidates will likely be asked about their approach to this planning process.
Example Answer:
“When I’m taking on a new project, I try to put its trajectory into perspective. I think the best way for a project engineer to approach a new job is by gathering all the information available and organizing it. I like to map out my next six months to a year when working on big projects as the first step of my planning process.”
Where do you see yourself in five years? While a candidate is in the market for this position right now, their objectives in five years could be totally different.
A hiring company wants to understand a candidate’s goals for the future. To gain insight on where an applicant’s career might be headed five years down the line, they’ll ask this common interview question.
Example Answer:
“In five years, I see my life being quite similar to how it is now. I’m at a comfortable place in my career and I want to continue my work as a project engineer well into the future. Since this project is demanding upwards of a decade's commitment, I would hope that in five years I’m still working on my duties with your company.”
How do you ensure accuracy across a project? Since a project engineer is in charge of monitoring a project’s organization, they’ll often receive questions about maintaining accuracy throughout a job during an interview. The hiring manager is looking for concrete tactics to strengthen a project’s precision.
Example Answer:
“I believe that the foundation of a well-done engineering project is meticulous record-keeping. After all, there’s no point in the work we do unless there’s an accurate and organized record of it. I mainly utilize AviationPro for detailed record keeping.”
Are you the type of person who makes gut decisions or evaluates the facts first? Every job title has a personality type that suits it well, and this is true of being a project engineer as well.
A recruiter asks questions like this to illuminate whether a candidate has personality attributes that will support their success as a project manager. This question, in particular, demonstrates how a candidate makes decisions, which is crucial for a project engineer role.
Example Answer:
“I’m the type of person who prefers to stop and evaluate a decision before committing to it. While gut feelings are a good indicator that I should start evaluating the choice, I won’t make a decision without some thought first.”
How do you communicate highly technical concepts to stakeholders? A project engineer spends a lot of time working with other people in their field, but many of the stakeholders that they communicate with won’t have this same background.
This means that project engineers need to have methods of clearly presenting confusing technical topics to other people.
Example Answer:
“It’s imperative that stakeholders have a vivid idea of the technical tasks that are taking place. I try to communicate these things by using tools like PowerPoint to present this information in the most digestible way possible. I often explain concepts to my family first to measure how understandable my description is.”
How would you effectively compress a project’s time schedule? A big task that a project engineer must accomplish on every job is adhering to a designated time schedule.
When a project is running behind schedule, it’s up to the project engineer to figure out a way to fix the situation. This is another question that shows a candidate's familiarity with taking on typical requirements of the job.
Example Answer:
“If I needed to compress a project’s time schedule because we were running late, I would likely use the crashing method. This acceleration technique uses schedule optimization to make use of available time floats without increasing the costs. When I’ve relied on the method in the past, it’s worked very well.”
Can you describe your experience with project scheduling software, and how do you use it to manage project timelines?
Have you ever had to implement a change order request mid-project? How did you handle it and ensure it was properly documented and communicated to all relevant parties?
Can you provide an example of a project you led that required close coordination with contractors or subcontractors? How did you ensure project goals were met while maintaining positive relationships with external teams?
How do you ensure that project deliverables meet the technical specifications and quality standards set by the project scope and design documents?
Can you describe a time when a project faced a technical challenge or roadblock? How did you identify the issue and work to overcome it?
Have you ever managed a project with a limited budget or resources? How did you ensure that the project was completed on time and on budget?
Can you describe your experience with safety regulations and how you ensure that safety is a top priority throughout the project lifecycle?
How do you ensure that project documentation is complete and accurate, and how do you communicate project progress to stakeholders and team members?
Can you provide an example of a project where you had to incorporate feedback from multiple stakeholders with conflicting priorities? How did you manage these competing demands while still achieving project goals?
Can you describe your experience with risk management and how you identify and mitigate project risks throughout the project lifecycle?