Manufacturing & Production Interview Questions & Answers

At the assessment day there was a group exercise, a role play (negotiation), an interview and an in tray exercise. The interview had 12 competency questions, based on 4 of JLR's core values.

It started at 8 and finished at half 3.

The interview questions were a long the lines of "Tell me about a time when..." so it's good to have a few examples of these things.

Tell me about a time that you've made a bad decision.
What are the main challenges facing JLR?
As a purchaser, who will be your customers?

The application form wanted no information about myself, just grades, previous jobs etc so they choose people for the assessment day purely on the online tests. Make sure you practise a few times beforehand.

Have some good questions to ask at the end of the interview, my interviewer really opened up when he was answering mine and looked as though he was enjoying it.

The group exercise was to choose the best car to produce for a new market abroad.

For the role play I was given 30mins to prepare my negotiations from a booklet, and then had 30mins to negotiate then had to write a report for my manager about the meeting.

The in tray exercise was similar to ones online.

The interview was 3 stages, first round was with a member of HR and I sat a test. Second interview was more in-depth about the role and was carried out by 2 Customer Service supervisors. Final interview was with the Customer Service and sales manager. All stages where friendly and casual, all the staff were lovely, making the process more pleasant. All lasted roughly 30-40 minutes. I even got lost on my first attempt of finding the office and rang up and got help!

Where would you like to be in 5 years.

Research the company and look at media coverage! Don't apply for roles you aren't really interested in!

Luckily an assessment centre wasn't required for this role, as I find them intimidating and uncomfortable.

The first interview was a telephone interview with a recruitment consultancy firm on behalf of British American Tobacco and lasted 30 minutes exactly. I was asked mainly competency questions and one question about why I wanted to work for British American Tobacco. At this stage they didn't ask specific questions relating to the industry or the role.

What would your friends and family think of you working for a tobacco company?

Other than the example already used in your application form, describe a time when you failed at something. What happened and why did you fail?

Understand the position of British American Tobacco within the wider tobacco industry. Be aware of the cigarette brands they market as well as the brands of competitor firms.

The assessment centre was very friendly. I was given a tour of the office and introduced to staff in the department where I was applying to.
I then had a panel interview with three members of staff that lasted about an hour; and was then given 30 minutes to prepare a presentation on health warnings on alcoholic products.
I then had a 1-on-1 interview with the recruiting manager which was very informal and lasted about 45 minutes before spending 30 minutes delivering the presentation I prepared early.
The assessment centre lasted half a day. I was told that they would contact me within 14 days with a decision. I still hadn't heard anything after a month so called them and I was informed I was unsuccessful via email shortly after my telephone call ended. I later found out the position I applied for was filled internally. They also did not cover travel expenses.

After the initial phone interview, it was a full day assesment comprising of one to one interview, presentation to senior management and group and psychometric testing.

I found the group exercises to be tedius and uninteresting lasting between half an hour to an hour, each person takes it upon thereself to act as `the leader` which means that theres shouting and a short power struggle, rude people generally do better in these exercises in my experiance. The smaller the groups, the more effective the group exercises are, anything over 3/4 people in a group will render the exercise pointless for a number of people who have no interest in shouting, arguing and generally being rude in an interview process.

One to one was very good, this lasted 20 minutes and was a good chance to show your personality and explain why you want the job along with what you want from it, along with giving you the chance to ask valid questions about what the employee wants from you in the next year and beyond.

The presentation was a solid backup to the one to one interview, lasting 5 minutes before being asked questions on it requring quick thinking and confidnent speaking. It was a good way to show confidence, something that the group exercises aim to do, but fail due to the struggle to speak and to be seen as a good commmunicator.

What do you want from this job, what are your goals.

I said my goals were to make money, but this was a poor motviation to have as eventually money would not be enough and my work motivation would drop with it.

Do your research, you can stand out and blow away your competition by asking questions about specific things that the other graduates had not found or research instantly putting yourself ahead of them in the interview process.

If you sit at a table, sit where you are the main focus, at the front or head of the table are the key places where people will see your face and recognise you when you speak.

Be confident and genuine, dont try to sound too smart or you can make yourself look an idiot. Be down to earth and speak to the interviewer how they are speaking to you. Adapt to each persons interview technique, if they speak fast and get to the point, then follow suit, dont mumble on. If they like having a conversation and chat then follow suit and open up.

Find out who are the senior members and decision makers as soon as you can and focus your attention on catching there eye and approval, things can be a lot easier making friends with people high up.

There was 8 of us and we were split into 2/3/4s quite often which was good as smaller groups give each member the chance to shine and have a degree of input. We had a limited amount of time to talk about the group project before being required to answer the questions in a individual testing environement. The task was quite hard and it added to the tention of doing it, I didnt think it was a great task to set due to the degree of difficulty that it was set at.