Job interview at Beumer group. Test program

I had an "interview" for a maintenance tech position back in the early 2000's.

As a 'test' the owner had me look at a down machine to determine the cause and see if my answer 'concurred' with what his guy found. Quickly figured out he didn't have a 'guy' and wanted a free diagnosis. I told him that when I was hired I would fix it, otherwise my consulting fee was $300 per hour.

can you tell us more? how did you figured out it wasn't a test but a real problem?
 
first off it was obvious he didn't have a tech for controls. His only maintenance person was all mechanical and barely knew how to replace a fuse. Then the machine was down for a relatively easy fix any controls tech would have been able to fix quickly. If I remember it was a bad proxy sensor or photoeye.


Plus, he really wanted to know what the problem was, and if 'his guy' already knew he wouldn't have been so impatient, and even if he didn't have a replacement one could have been gotten locally from Grainger's, the local Allen Bradley distributor or the local Fluke distributor - all had them on the shelf.
 
Originally posted by Jeff123spl:

i don't think they are looking just for the end result but a lot more about how you end up there. The method and réflexions to find the solution.
I would rather hire someone with good logic and general skills than someone that learned questions and answers....

That is quite possible. I know when I am involved in interviewing people for controls positions at the company I work for I am not necessarily looking for someone who is the most qualified today. I am really trying to find the qualities that will make a person exceptionally qualified tomorrow. I suspect I'm not the only one clever enough to think that way.

Keith
 
I went for an interview for a mainly plc programmer (other stuff too but mainly to program the machines they made)
During the interview in which they had the company programmer present (He was soon to retire) They gave me a plc program printout of one of their machines that he had done.
It was about 80 pages or more long and for a Toshiba plc that I hadn't done much with.

It was poorly done and with hardly any comments or notes.

They asked me to explain how it worked.

I studied a few pages and mentioned it was badly commented and it would be guesswork on a lot of it.
I came across lines that once activated could never be reset and a lot of code that could be tightened and tidied up.

Each time I mentioned the bad things the programmer shook his head at my interviewer to say I was wrong.

I went through it telling them what each part did and also said I could have no idea what this bit was for as it made no sense. He never offered the reason he had done it like that.

I could tell after a while that the looks the programmer was giving the boss were working as he was nodding back.
I even drew some revisions on the printout to show how it would be better, easier understandable and more compact.
Realising my chances of this job were slipping away through ignorance I told the boss I could do a much better job than the programmer they had.

The boss immediately said OK, interview terminated and they got up and left.
 
That is quite possible. I know when I am involved in interviewing people for controls positions at the company I work for I am not necessarily looking for someone who is the most qualified today. I am really trying to find the qualities that will make a person exceptionally qualified tomorrow. I suspect I'm not the only one clever enough to think that way.

Keith

I have ran into this on the other side of the coin. My past experience has been control systems, but not using much PLCs (using a Linux based DAQ system that accomplished same goal). I do have plc experience though none with AB compactlogix/contrologix/slc500 etc. It can be difficult to convince some people that if you do not know a specific tool kit you are not valuable. Some employers look at what you don't know, regardless of what you do know and can learn.
 

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