Gillig Corporation Interview Questions & Reviews

Interviewed Mar 2008 in Hayward, CA (took 3 weeks)

I responded to an ad at an online job site. First was a brief (10 minute) phone interview with the VP of HR. She scheduled a time to meet in person. I don't remember when she called me, but I went for an in-person interview about 10 days after I replied to the ad. I met with her for maybe 30 minutes, and she read off the official description of the position's tasks and asked some pretty typical questions. No real off-the-wall or hard ones. I seem to remember the hardest was "have you ever had a bad boss?"

Then she sent me to meet with the person who would be my supervisor. He hardly asked any real questions, mostly he just set me up to describe the various positions I'd had in the past and the types of things that I had done there. Very easy, and he seemed very interested in what I had to say. He described the work involved, and -- I hate to say this because I don't want to paint the company with a broad brush -- but he accidently let slip something that made it sound like he had anti-semitic beliefs. I ignored it as best I could as it was obviously an embarrassment on his part. Total time with him was 60 to 90 minutes.

A few days later, I got a call from the VP or HR, asking for 3 work references. I think they needed to be former managers. She called all of them, so don't give out any that aren't going to be favorable.

A few days after that, I had an in-person interview with the SVP (the boss of the last person that I interviewed with). This person no longer works at Gillig, so this interview would be irrelevant to any current prospects. Few questions were especially hard, but some of them were things that I think you're not really supposed to ask, like "do you take a lot of sick time?"

About a week later, they called me to offer me the job. When I went in to sign it, they did a hair snip drug test and a physical at a local hospital. The physical is the same one used for the plant employees, so it is ridiculously thorough. Hearing, vision, many x-rays, EKG, diabetes test, lung function. I learned a few things that I didn't know about myself.

No mention of the work hours by anyone, and I didn't even think to ask. This was a big oversight by them, and by me. If they had brought it up, I probably would have told them I wasn't interested. Definitely the one guy's slip had left me a bit conflicted, but I decided to give them the benefit of the doubt.