Dennis Crawley wrote:
> Hi all.
> I'll have the last job interview this week, this time with an engineer.
> They make and sale instruments which determine components at molecular and
> atomic level.
> They want me at two areas, networking administration and technical
> services.(U$S 1000, 8hrs, Argentina)
> In that last interview they will give me a PCB board (15"x7")  with this
> question:
> "What would you do, if the problem is here".
> I have a glance of one  of many boards last week, (very short glance), and I
> saw a
> 68000 microprocessor, a lot of buffers like 74C244/5, 4 very populated
> connectors, and 4 or 5 PALs.
> I want to know if this is a normal interview, just because I have a nephew
> who is magician.... Perhaps he can do the job better than I can.
> 
> No diagrams?
> 
> I would appreciate any comment.
> 
> Dennis Crawley
> 
> 

Hi Dennis,

First, good luck on the interview.

I know this question and I can give you an idea of the best way to 
answer it. I ask and have been asked this same type of question more 
times than I can remember and how you answer can be important. I am a 
computer programmer and I specialize in design and architecture and 
software testing. When I ask a question like this I am looking for the 
following things:

1. Thought process - so talk out loud as you think about the 
question/problem.
2. Confidence and grace under pressure - I often hand a programmer a 
circuit board, piece of equipment or something else that is out of that 
persons core area and ask them "how would you test/fix/learn about this?"
3. Attention to detail - Use paper or a white board if you can, jot down 
  ideas and TALK with your interviewer, don't just answer the question. 
My most successful candidates and my most successful interviews have 
always been when I stopped acting like an interviewee and started acting 
like an engineer. This part should probably be under #2.
4. Stand up for yourself - There may be no right or wrong answer. It's 
how professionally you defend your position that counts. Depending on 
the job and candidate I may disagree with the candidate and deliberately 
make a WRONG statement. I want to see if he will call me on it.

Anyway, I'm short on time this morning and have to run but I hope these 
pointers help.

Again, good luck. New jobs are always fun! I just noticed that you 
posted this three days ago so I hope you see this in time to help.

Chris

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