Westinghouse Principal Engineer Interview Questions & Reviews

Interviewed Jan 2010 (took 1+ week)

I had two interviews - a phone interview and an in-person group interview. The phone interview, with the hiring manager and one of his employees, was typical and went well. The face-to-face interview was with a recruiter, the hiring manager, and the other person from the team. That was not a very good experience. After leaving the lobby, the recruiter got lost trying to find the conference room. We were wandering around and the recruiter had to ask an employee for help. We finally got there about 10 minutes late; not sure if that negatively affected my candidacy in the mind of the hiring manager. It was odd having the recruiter be part of the group interview. Normally HR does the initial phone screening, the hiring manager (and others if desired) will do the actual interviewing, and then HR will come back into the picture for the offer/negotiations. I don't believe the recruiter had anything constructive to offer in the interview. If that is standard practice for Westinghouse, then that's poor process and a shame. The recruiter also goofed and was acting as if they had already spoken to me on the phone, when in fact it was a different recruiter that I dealt with. Also, it did not appear that the three interviewers had prepared at all. They were openly talking amongst themselves in front of me throughout the interview on how they should approach it, what questions to ask, etc. Very unprofessional. The question and answer itself went okay, however. Ultimately, I did not get offered the job. To top it off, several weeks later I still have not been reimbursed for my interview expenses. From what I saw, I was not impressed with the office environment - just a bunch of bland cubes. From my experience and from reading other posts, it seems Westinghouse is going downhill, and being bandied about by foreign owners is not helping. Their fortunes may change in the future due to the prospects of nuclear power, but the company is just a shadow of its once-great self.