Formula 1 Design Job Interview

[jayjay]

Hi
I have got an interview with a Formula 1 team, does anyone know what type of questions I might get asked? Anyone know from experience? Its for the Design side of the company(not the aerodynamics)

JJ

[Belatti]

The first question would be:

Do you know what the hell does those Brawn cars have?

Now seriously, I dont know what they will ask you but I do know what interviewers have asked me in the past, for different kind of jobs. What have you been doing? How do you see yourself here? What do you expect? blablabla... my secret is: you have to ask to them more than they ask to you

That proves you are a curious mind, you are interested in the job and at least you try to get information from people for your needs.

GOOD LUCK!

[Ten30]

Do not, under any circumstances, walk in with a folder with a Brawn logo on it and tell them you can help them out!

(seriously though, Good Luck )

[nudger]

agree with belatti about engaging with the interviewer.
the fact you have got an interview with them shows that they are quite happy with your experiance and qualifications. what they want from an interview is to assess your personality, whether you will fit in with the culture.
Play up your engineering interest, play down any racing interest.

design engineers love talking about cad...i assume youd have experiance of the system the company uses...catia or whatever it may be...id bet a few quid that would come up in conversation.

[jayjay]

my secret is: you have to ask to them more than they ask to you

That proves you are a curious mind, you are interested in the job and at least you try to get information from people for your needs.

GOOD LUCK!

Thanks everyone for the advice

@Belatti - I could ask them technical questions, but they might backfire, because thrs nothing that I know a lot about the car, thers always going to be improvement...

anyways one of the guys whos interviewing me is the head of design so i think I deffintly won't get the job haha

I am quite confident with my previous work experience but at the same time im nervous because I only know mostly aerodynamics of the car

[Conceptual]

It will probably be standard corporate behavioral interviewing.

What the interviewer is looking for is something called STAR.

S/T situation or task
A action taken
R result

I suggest to just be perfectly honest, VERY specific, and ask questions at the end when they offer to answer them.

Specifics are what make STAR's. When asked "Tell me a time when you...", don't reply with "Well, one time, there was this guy, and he...." To be a STAR it needs to be "Three months ago, George from the design department gave me the task of designing a new..."

I have alot of schooling for behavioral interviewing, and most corporations use the same 12 questions. I actually got overlooked by an interviewer for a job because after he decided to be a bit derrogatory to me, I started reading off the questions that he was about to ask me before he did.

At that point, he didn't believe any of the complete STARs that I had given him...

[tahadar]

Hey,

I recently had a successful interview for an engineering placement, so maybe i can help. Most important thing is to be confident. If you feel you don't really know too much aside from aerodynamics, then maybe you can read up some articles on the mechanical side of things from the internet or by using publications like Racecar Engineering (excellent mag if you have even a slight interest in motorsports engineering). Maybe not so applicable for an F1 team, but it usually helps if you know everything there is to know about the company, the position and what your day-to-day role will be. If you an idea of exactly what you'll be doing, then you can taylor your answers in a way that will make the interviewer think that you are perfect for the job.

You can expect a 50/50 split between a technical interview (describe the steps for making a particular composite part?) and a 'competency' interview, which Conceptual explained really well.

I hope that helps. Best of luck!

[spanner]

A friend of mine had an interview for a racing team and he got the job over a lot of other candidates. It was his passion as well as his qualifications that got him the job. Best of luck for the interview!

[mep]

Congratulation.
I just want to ask you how you got this great chance.
What have you studied and what kind of experience and qualifications do you have?