BMW of North America Engineering Operations Management Development Program Interview Questions & Reviews

Interviewed Jul 2011 in Spartanburg, SC (took a day)

Phone interview
1) How has school prepared you for this job, or what skills have you learned?
2) If you had to write a proposal for $100,000 and present it to the finance committee how would you persuade them knowing that they dont care about the process? (They are looking for key words like ROI or margin) They then will ask you what the pay back period would be for the that amount of money.
3) Salary Range expected?

Then you will be brought on for an onsite interview.
1) Tour
2) Videos about the company
3) Brief benefits interview
4) Food
5) 3 Sessions of Panel interviews and Simulations

There is nor order in which the following will occur.

Panel Interview
- 3 people interview you 1 HR & 2 Engineers
Questions were the following
1) If you speak german they will ask you what you like to do in you free time.
2) How would you direct 30 people underyou knowing your brand new and they have been there 10 plus years?
3) Tell me of a time of when you had to give someone negative feedback and how they reacted.

Simulation # 1
You enter a room with 3 individuals and a table with a circuit board and instructions on how to create it. you have 12 minutes to complete the circuit (light builb). You will be given a picture of the circuit and the instructions. The instructions are not easy to follow so from my experience I would write your own instructions line by line and not try to memorize the picture or mess with the boards much. The instructions are cryptic so make sure you understand them you can ask the panel any questions during the first 12 minutes. After 12 minutes a role playing exercise starts were you have to explain how the boards needs to built to someone. Just make sure you understand the instructions ane write your own, the pre written instructions are ment to confuse you.

Simulation #2
You enter a room with 3 evaluators again except this time you will be running a meeting for a project. You get 10 minutes to prepare before the meetings start so write down your deliverable and the people you are meeting with. You will be given pen paper highlighter and paper clip. After the 10 minutes an actor (BMW employee will walk in) and you start the meeting. It is to see how you will deal with the situation imo.

I wish some one would have written this before I went, it sure would have helped.