Freddie Mac Technology Analyst Interview Questions & Reviews

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Web: www.freddiemac.com | HQ: McLean, VA

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Updated Mar 16, 2012 – Interview questions and reviews posted anonymously by interview candidates.

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Interview Experience [?] Based on 3 ratings

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3.0

Average Interview

Overall Positive Experience

Interviewed and No Offer

Interviewed Feb 2012 (took 2 weeks)

He mostly asked behavioral questions and was a very nice guy. Really helpful.

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3.0

Average Interview

Overall Neutral Experience

Interviewed and No Offer

Interviewed Nov 2011 in McLean, VA (took 2 weeks)

I applied at my campus and was quickly followed up with an interview. The campus interview had very easy questions (What is SQL, what is an SLA) that anyone applying for the job would know. Also asked three easy behavioral questions. The interviewer was nice, the questions were softballs. Invited to McLean shortly afterwards.

The first night there was a meet and greet on campus. Everyone was thrown into a catered room for 2 hours and we got to talk to other applicants, interviewers, and current people in the rotational program. It was useful to get a little face time with the people who might be interviewing us the next day.

The whole "Freddie Day" thing was a little weird the next day. It's a ~6 hour day of presentations, interviews, and a short tour. So besides all the regular stuff you would expect in an interview like this, there was an awkward presentation about why Freddie Mac wasn't responsible for the mortgage crisis with some data to make FM look like the best of the industry. I'm not saying they're a bad company or caused anything, but you know the point of your discount vacation where you realize you're going to be trapped in a room while someone tries to sell you a timeshare? It felt like that.

There were two 40-minute interviews with two different groups (one full-timer interviewing, one rotational program guy taking notes). The questions are read off a script, so don't expect a natural back and forth. I read that this system felt unfair because the reviewers had different standards. I shrugged this off thinking "How bad could it be?". My two interviews were polar opposites. My first interview went extremely well. It was conversational and relaxed. I was asked some standard team experience questions, some behavioral questions, and simple situations. I had a couple more relatively softball IT questions too. It was mostly related to previous projects I had worked on.

The second interview was garbage. I was put with an older guy with an accent (I'm bad with accents). It was clear he had never looked over the interview questions, he even seemed surprised at what kind of questions they were. This interview was entirely technical and project management based. There were questions about software/system testing, use cases, the different UML diagrams, OOP, databases, XML and risk management. Every time I got a question partially wrong or said I didn't have experience with something led into a short lecture about just how wrong I was. The rotational employee taking notes was silent the whole interview. It's not that the questions were difficult, it's just that I felt like I was constantly being grilled and even correct answers didn't make him happy.

Speaking with the other applicants outside, it was obviously a mixed bag. Some people had interviewers they just couldn't understand, others had completely friendly ones that would push you in the right direction if you were struggling with a question. Probably worth mentioning, we were told the interviews were strictly behavioral and there were probably 80% technical. Also, the group of applicants was incredibly diverse. There were strict computer science and engineering majors to IT, IS, MIS majors and everything in between. Even people did relatively well in the interviews didn't feel the questions really accurately gauged how well you fit the job (But what do we know?).

Following the interviews we got a short tour of the campus. The tour guide was very blunt and told us how it was at FM (mixed bag with managers, current pay freeze, employee apathy), thinking we were newhires and not applicants. He called FM an "OK place to work", which is the feeling I got from most other people I spoke with. Even at a panel earlier, a girl in the rotational program spoke about how she worked 60 weeks and appeared to almost fall asleep as she spoke. This is a person HR chose to sell the company to us! I wouldn't say I had a bad impression of FM, but I didn't get the impression that employees were especially devoted.

This would have been a difficult interview to prepare for considering the breadth of information covered by all areas of all rotations from business continuity planning to security analysis. Only a couple of those areas are actually explored in the interview, which is lucky or unlucky for you depending on what your personal functional expertise is. Know your information systems basics (use cases, SDLC, UML diagrams). Know a little bit about databases (vendors, tuning, schema). Know OOP basics (objects, abstract classes, pointers). Know about software testing tools and methods. Have a PROJECT to talk about. Work experience seemed completely irrelevant unless you had a project from inception to delivery; don't expect to talk much about your sysadmin or technical writing job. Cross your fingers and hope for good interviewers. Failing that, at least enjoy some free food while you're over there.