Georgia-Pacific Corporation Reliability Engineer Interview

Interview Details – The interview process consisted of an application online, a phone screen, and an on-site interview. All interview expenses were covered by the company.

The phone screen was fairly basic, with a few general questions related to my experience and some situations. There were technical questions relating to general principles, but nothing requiring computation. The phone screen included two employees in the area hiring for the posted position. This call lasted about 45 minutes.

The on-site interview was one of the best I have ever experienced. The company was very prepared to interview and extended me the same courtesy by providing detailed directions, covering all travel expenses, and providing a detailed itinerary of the interview including the names and titles of those interviewing me (about 6 different interviewers). I was provided with instructions to the nature of the behavior-based interview and sample questions. This made it easy to prepare for the interview and cater my expected responses to highlight specific experiences that I thought would best relate to the person interviewing me. It also helped me focus my research on the company and ask intelligent questions of the right people. This was not an easy interview however. The interviewers were all well prepared and asked for examples and follow-up questions to many items. The interview lasted almost a full 8 hours (including lunch, which was not a grueling interview time).

This was a very positive experience for me and I was very impressed with G-P and their interview process.

Reason for Declining – While very generous, the offer extended was less than I make now. The base offer was slightly more than my current base salary, but there was nothing well-defined for bonus/at-risk pay. While I understand that portion of remuneration is important to the company and a common practice with MBM, the lack of definition meant I could only speculate this portion of income, and even a best case scenario left me walking away from considerable money to take the offer with G-P. While cost of living, taxes, and housing prices make real differences to employees, these are not valid considerations within the structure of MBM, so I wasn't surprised that cost of living adjustments were not considered either.

Additionally, the relocation package offered was again generous, but did not reduce the risk for the employee by offering a home buy-out, stop-loss, or other provision to ensure sale of the old house. I cannot imagine a situation where someone would accept moving in the current economy for "competitive" pay if they are on the hook for their old mortgage AND rent or mortgage in the new location. No company wants to accept the liability of a house that won't sell either, but that leaves companies without the needed tools to recruit the best candidates.