First Solar Engineering Interview Questions & Reviews

Interviewed Dec 2010 in Santa Clara, CA (took a day)

First Solar has the most disciplined interviewing process that I have encountered. All employees that interview attend mandatory interviewing training. When an interview is performed, all members of the interview are assigned a topic to focus on certain aspects of the company's core values - ex: "Results Matter", "Continuous Improvement", or "Overall Fit". Interviewers are also given a standard template of questions to help guide them in probing the candidate's experiences and reactions in given situations.

The most difficult part of the interview process is the "Structured Interview" where the candidate's prospective hiring manager delves deeply into the candidate's past work history, asking about their accomplishments, the things that they would do better, the things that their past managers and co-workers would say about them, and their reason for leaving each position.

At the end of the process, this same team meets and evaluates each candidate to determine which one to hire.