Huntington Ingalls was present at a career fair in May/June 2012. The recruiter indicating that for a new engineer they would have a lot of interest. She took my resume, & told me to apply online.
After Applying I was contacted through email & phone by a HR hiring rep, she went through a few questions with me, all just check box requirements; “did you get your engineering degree from an ABET accredited school?”, “Would you pass drug screening?”, “Are you a U.S. Citizen, anything that would prevent you from getting a security clearance?” Those sort of things. I think my GPA was discussed.
I was scheduled for an interview day in Newport News & they setup a hotel & provided info about how I would be reimbursed for travel miles in my vehicle. I drove up the night before my interviews & reported 7:30 or 8am the next morning. It was a bit of a hurry up & wait situation. I spent a good bit of time in a waiting room before meeting with the recruiter. The waiting room people looking for all levels of work, lots of general tradesman. I did chat with others engineers.
I met with my recruiter; she went over my resume & transcripts. Over all I don’t feel she was interested in details as much as she was trying to make sure I met a series of check boxes. She informed me of my interview schedule for the day. I had only applied for one or two positions I would be meeting with 4 or 5 different supervisors for different jobs. I returned to the waiting room where I would be picked up by my first potential supervisor. & throughout the day I was always picked up from where I was by the next supervisor to interview me & shuttled to their building for the interview. The time in the car with them was used to chat. The interviews themselves took a broad range. Each of the supervisors had a very different style & area they focused.
My first supervisor was more skills oriented & asked about my abilities & comfort level with a range of electrical engineering topics. He later pulled out a relatively simply schematics & asked me some simple trouble shooting questions. The system on the schematics were not challenging & the questions mainly about first impression trouble shooting techniques. (If the unit doesn’t power on I would first check this fuse, if the fuse is good I would see if the fan in the circuit came on…)
The second interview for the day was a more group setting, but mainly for time. 2 or 3 of the supervisors in the room where looking for a hire, so they simple all joined in on the interview in a conference room. It was a slightly more intimidating environment as they each chimed in throughout. The questions asked were awful, the primary questioner admitted to having found them online. They were more abstract, personality, level of honesty. I don’t remember any of the questions specifically, they weren’t crazy, more annoying to have to think about quickly on your feet & form a well-rounded answer on the spot.
I only remember one other interview of the day, but there may have been one I’ve forgotten. This interview took place inside of the shipyard itself, opposed to outlying buildings. This interview as the most laid back, he seemed to have really been impressed/satisfied by my resume. He said he only had one questions for me; “How are you at public speaking, are you confident/capable?” Beyond that he was very casual & we just chatted about the type of work.
All of the supervisors I interviewed with were open & shared what their group does. It took me some time with the company to get a better grasp of what it all meant & how all of their pieces fit together, something I don’t think I fully understood from my interview day.
After my interviews I returned to the HR building & met again with my representative, she asked how my day went & what my interest was in each of the departments I interviewed with. She asked for an ordered list of my interest in each of them, which was hard without having a day or two to process all that I had taken in. She informed me that it is typically a week before I would hear back about an offer.
It was probably between noon & 1pm when I left for the day, so the entire process was about 5 hours. I was called within the next 2 days to be informed that one of the supervisors had made an offer. I asked about the others & HR got back to me the next day to tell me all the supervisors were interested in hiring me. There is no salary or benefits compete between departments so it was purely just an interest & quality of life (working inside the yard is a parking nightmare, outlying buildings have less parking issues.)
After “tentatively” accepting an offer I was brought back for another day to do some paperwork & get a physical/drug test. I also used that day to explore the area & shop for housing.
I started work in late August, probably 75 days start to finish.