GSK GlaxoSmithKline Interview Questions & Answers

There were different stages before the final offer gets made. Initial online application, included several 250 word answers to questions about me, my skills, cover letter and their relation to the healthcare industry. Then I had to complete two aptitude tests online. Once that was through, I had to attend a telephone interview, but I was abroad at the time so it was conducted via Skype. It was really nice of them to accommodate this need. I was invited to an assessment day.
It was a two day assessment centre. This by far the most grueling assessment centre I have been to and was completely knackered by the end of it. Every one was really nice and helpful and they really go the extra mile to woo you.

The most difficult questions in the interview revolved around thinking about previous situations in which I thought I had been successful and I was asked to consider what I would have done differently to have been even more successful. For instance if I had been asked to think of an example where you led a team to complete a task, the follow up question would be what could you have done differently to complete the task more efficiently?

Use STAR technique to answer the questions. It's a big deal. So research it online and make sure you've got some solid examples from your own experiences to refer to.

This will help with the trickier competency based questions that they throw at you.

So the assessment centre had following stages:

A Group exercise - Given a scenario, we had to come up with a solution while assessors observed,. After abut 20 minutes, we had to present and this is when they asked really stupid, smart, difficult questions. Those who didn't answer any questions were specifically spotted, probably not a good thing.

Role Play - I was given a situation and I was told that I was going to lead the team and there was a problem which I had to solve as the leader of the team. I got given 15 minutes to prepare and another 15 to ask what I needed to solve that problem.

Presentation - In formation as given beforehand and had to present my information relating to the brief that was given on the day to two assessors. This was followed by a 10 minutes Q&A session where I had to answer questions about my chosen subject and why I made the decisions you did.

Interview - Same as telephone interview, competency based questions and the motivation to work for the company.

The interview is computerised, which means that you will see a question on your screen for up to one minute preparation time and then have a certain period of time to give your answer. After the preparation time has passed, your camera and microfon start recording and you can see a countdown informing about how much time you have left to answer the question. At the end of the time, you get to see the next question and so on.

Questions were mostly competency based, however one skill based. The last question gives you the opportunity to add anyting you like, for example add something to one of the questions you might have forgotten at that point or would like to add.

The questions are not difficult, but long. They give you lots of guidance about what they would like to hear, which makes sense as there is no interviewer who could ask you follow-up questions.

While it sounds stressful to only have a limited amount of time to answer the question, it was sufficient. Do not stress yourself about it too much as you can rely on knowing that HR knows what they are doing.

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This is one of the most difficult telephone interviews that I have had. However this was my second time in 3 years having a telephone interview with them. The first was for an industrial placement, whilst this was for a graduate programme. From this I can confidently tell you that they do not change the questions.

First off there is the application form as normal. They took over 2 months to get back to me until the telephone interview, but thats only because I continually emailed them asking for updates. Therefore keep emailing them until they get back to you, because sometimes they can be a bit slow.

The telephone interview starts off as normal with the interviewer explaining the process and asking basic information to confirm it's you. Then the competency questions begin. There were 3 competency questions in total:

- Tell me about your greatest challenge.
- Tell me about a time you worked with someone difficult.
- Tell me about something innovative you have done.

This was then followed by a set of 10 true or false technical questions. Below are what I managed to write down:

- If the pipe diameter is halved the flowrate doubles
- U^2 is directly proportional to delta P
- If the velocity of a substance is doubled its thermal conductivity doubles
- Flooding can be reduced by lowering the gas velocity
- Something to do with minimum bubbling point
- On a VLE curve, the curve for the azeotrope lies below the equilibrium curve

Following this there were 2 more technical questions:
- Describe the procedure for a risk assessment
- GSK has been manufacturing a tablet and it is showing signs that the dissolution rate may be decreasing. What are the possible reasons that this is occuring and what actions would you take to rectify the situation.

The most difficult question I found to be was the final question regarding the dissolution rate:
- GSK has been manufacturing a tablet and it is showing signs that the dissolution rate may be decreasing. What are the possible reasons that this is occuring and what actions would you take to rectify the situation.

Remember to use the STAR approach. If you do not know the answer to a technical question, tell them you don't know rather than making something up.

Didn't make it through to the assessment centre, although I was placed on their waiting list for it.