Author: gcapone

Production Worker Interview Questions: Mechanical Ability

In a production environment, the ability to understand how the equipment works is an important skill. Having extensive mechanical experience can speed up training and make an employee more versatile. It can also help an employee work safer and more productively.

In a production environment, the ability to understand how the equipment works is an important skill.  Having extensive mechanical experience can speed up training and make an employee more versatile.  It can also help an employee work safer and more productively.

Every position requires certain technical skills.  In manufacturing, there is wide range of skills that companies may want.  To build a strong team of production workers, a company can’t always require every skill.  For example, a company may be the only one in the area with specific type of machinery.  They will not be able to find new employees who have experience with that machinery.  This makes it essential to hire individual with strong mechanical skills that can be applied to wide range of equipment.

To demonstrate your mechanical skill, you will need to show a long track record of mechanical experience.  Ideally, you have been working with heavy equipment, repairing machinery and improving your mechanical skills for your entire career.  For example, an individual who grew up on a farm and learned to repair the farming equipment from a young age will have an excellent understanding of the basic mechanisms of machinery.  You can’t train a new hire and give them the insight that comes with 10, 20 or 30 years of fixing a wide range of machinery.

In addition to showing the range of experiences, you should give some specifics of the type of mechanical work you have done.  Talking in generalizations will only get you so far.  Describe major repair work, examples of operating complicated machines, or installing equipment.  This will give the interviewer a clear picture of your skill level reinforcing the broad scope of your experience.

Interview Questions:

  • Tell me about your manufacturing experience.
  • Describe your mechanical skills.
  • Do you have any experience setting up and operating equipment?
  • What are you strongest technical skills?
  • Can you read engineering drawings?
  • What types of equipment have you worked on?
  • Do you consider yourself very mechanically inclined? Why?

If you want a job in manufacturing but have no mechanical experience, answering these questions can be tough.  There isn’t an quick fix.  Developing mechanical skills takes years.  You can start by taking some classes at local Vo Tech school or community college.  Find out from the employer you are pursuing what types of classes will best prepare you for their organization.  Few people will go to the effort to do this, and it will set you apart.

Production Worker Interview Questions: Attitude

As a job seeker, you want to show how you will work well on a team and add to the overall performance. To do this, you should prepare to discuss times when your teamwork led to success. Also, prepare to discuss specific situations when you encountered conflicts with co-workers and supervisors. You want to show how the conflict arose and what you did to help resolve it.

One of the worst hires a company can make is a person who does their job well but has an attitude so bad that it destroys the teamwork and morale in a department.  Often an individual like this can hurt the performance of a department so much that they end up being a net drain on the company.  The greatest challenge with a person like this is that their individual performance meets expectations.  It is how they interact with the team that is a problem.

As a manager, dealing with a person like this requires significant time and energy.  It’s easy to handle quantifiable performance problems like attendance.  Subjective performance problems are tougher.  The easiest and best way to manage teamwork, morale and employee attitudes is to hire people who won’t be a problem.  Once hired, it can take a long time to correct the behavior or get rid of the person.

As a job seeker, you want to show how you will work well on a team and add to the overall performance.  To do this, you should prepare to discuss times when your teamwork led to success.  Also, prepare to discuss specific situations when you encountered conflicts with co-workers and supervisors.  You want to show how the conflict arose and what you did to help resolve it.

Interview Questions:

  • Tell me about a time when you didn’t get along with your boss.
  • Tell me about the worst boss you ever had?
  • Tell me about a time when you had a conflict with a co-worker.
  • Tell me about a time when you disagreed with your supervisor.
  • Tell me about a time when you didn’t support a project in your department.
  • Tell me about a co-worker you didn’t get along with.
  • Tell me about a time when your supervisor criticized your work.
  • Tell me about at time when you disagreed with your co-workers.

If you prepare answers to questions like these, you will be able to better show how you will contribute to the team and be an effective team member.  Develop a few stories with examples of conflicts you had at work and show how you resolved those conflicts.  You goal isn’t to avoid discussing conflicts.  Everyone has disagreements and conflicts at some point.  What is important is how you deal with the conflict.  Do you elevate the conflict, cause a disruption in the organization, or do you diffuse the situation?

Production Worker Interview Questions: Reliability

Being reliable is an important attribute for every job seeker to demonstrate. For production workers, this is especially important. Manufacturing firms often have complex operations where every worker is fulfilling an essential role. Workers may only be trained on a few pieces of equipment, making it difficult to find backfills. A single worker who fails to come to work can disrupt an entire department.

Being reliable is an important attribute for every job seeker to demonstrate.  For production workers, this is especially important.  Manufacturing firms often have complex operations where every worker is fulfilling an essential role.  Workers may only be trained on a few pieces of equipment, making it difficult to find backfills.  A single worker who fails to come to work can disrupt an entire department.

The complexity of some manufacturing organizations makes it essential to build a reliable workforce.  Hiring managers will ask job seekers about their attendance in interviews.  They will also ask about attendance in reference checks.  This makes it important to be honest.  You don’t want to say you had perfect attendance in an interview and then have a former employer say something different.

As important as reliability is, you don’t need a history of perfect attendance to get hired.  You need to show that being reliable is important to you.  You also need to show a track record where your reliability was good, meeting or exceeding the expectations of your employers.

Some industries have large season fluctuations.  In these organizations, having a work force that can adapt their schedules to increasing or decreasing hours can be important.  Your reliability will also include your ability to work overtime when needed.  A hiring manager will want to know if you can be counted on to show up when they add an extra shift or extend the hours of a shift.

No one is going to get hired because of their reliability.  This is a topic designed to weed out unreliable people.  Your goal is to show you reliable enough to meet the expectations of the hiring manager.

Interview Questions:

    • Describe your attendance at .
    • How many times did you call in last year?
    • How important is it to you to be on-time?
    • In our busy season, will you be able to work weekends?
    • Can you work any of our shifts, including either second or third shift?
    • During your training, you will need to work on different shifts to get trained. Will this be a problem?
    • When was the last time you were late for work?

 

The questions above are just a sampling of the questions you might see in an interview.  There are hundreds or thousands of questions you may see in an interview.  To prepare effectively, you can’t memorize answers to each.  Be prepared to discuss your reliability and you should be able to adapt to questions in this area.

Production Worker Interview Questions: Work Ethic

In an interview for a production worker, questions about the job seeker’s work ethic are routine. Hiring managers want to hire individuals who are going to take initiative and strive to be successful. They don’t want to hire someone who is going to try to get out of work at every opportunity. In addition to be a drain on the company, individuals with a poor work ethic are more difficult to manage because they must be watched much closer.

In an interview for a production worker, questions about the job seeker’s work ethic are routine.  Hiring managers want to hire individuals who are going to take initiative and strive to be successful.  They don’t want to hire someone who is going to try to get out of work at every opportunity.  In addition to be a drain on the company, individuals with a poor work ethic are more difficult to manage because they must be watched much closer.

Almost every job seeker will claim to be a hard worker in an interview.  Everyone’s work ethic is not the same, though.  What one person considers hard working may be slacking off to another.  This requires you to do more than claim to be hard working in an interview.

To show a hiring manager your work ethic, you need to discuss your past experiences.  In particular, you should describe times when you work autonomously, times when you went above and beyond expectations and times when you took initiative.  If you can give specific examples of these situations in an interview, you will give yourself an edge over your competition.

Typical Questions:

  • Tell me about a time when you worked with little or no contact with your supervisor.
  • Tell me about a time when you finished your scheduled work early. What did you do?
  • Tell me about a time when you exceeded your supervisor’s expectations.
  • Tell me about a time when you took the initiative to do something without being told.
  • How would you describe your work ethic?
  • How did your performance rate compare to others doing the same job?
  • What expectations did you have to meet and what was your performance level?
  • When have you volunteered for a tough assignment you really didn’t want?
  • If you knew you couldn’t get all your work done on time, what would you do?
  • How to do you handle stress?

The questions above are just a sampling of the questions you might see in an interview.  There are hundreds or thousands of questions you may see in an interview.  To prepare effectively, you can’t memorize answers to each.  You need to develop a selection of stories that illustrate your experience, skills and accomplishments.  If you prepare a few stories from your experience that show your work ethic and can answer the questions above, you should be able to adapt to unexpected questions about your work ethic easily.

Preparing for a Production Worker Interview

This year, we have watched the loss of hundreds of thousands of manufacturing jobs. The job market in manufacturing is tough, but it is far from being a lost cause. Manufacturing firms need to maintain certain staffing levels to meet production requirements. For a displaced production worker, particularly individuals who may not have looked for a job in the last twenty or thirty years, preparing to interview can be very difficult.

This year, we have watched the loss of hundreds of thousands of manufacturing jobs.  The job market in manufacturing is tough, but it is far from being a lost cause.  Manufacturing firms need to maintain certain staffing levels to meet production requirements.  For a displaced production worker, particularly individuals who may not have looked for a job in the last twenty or thirty years, preparing to interview can be very difficult.

Interviewing for a job is not a skill everyone naturally possesses.  In fact, most people are not very good at selling their potential in an interview (and a lot of them are downright terrible).  Knowing how hiring managers assess job seekers can help your preparation. 

In manufacturing, a supervisor might manage upwards of 100 production workers.  Even with teams of only a few dozen, managing this many people can be difficult. The supervisor will have a wide range of tasks and responsibilities.  When a single employee has performance problems, it can eat a tremendous amount of the supervisor’s time.

When hiring, a supervisor will look for characteristics which indicate the job seeker will not be a performance problem.  In other words, the supervisor tries to pick out reasons why the job seeker will not succeed, and reject the job seeker for these reasons.  If the supervisor can’t find a reason to reject the job seeker, they are likely to be hired.

What characteristics do supervisors consider?

  • Work Ethic: Supervisors want to build teams of people who work hard and do not need to be pushed to do their job. I’m sure you have worked with people at both ends of the spectrum – individuals who can’t sit still and will find work if they don’t have any, and individuals who sit and wait to be told what to do. The former is easy to manage and the latter can be a huge source of frustration for the supervisor.
  • Reliability: One of the biggest challenges in a production environment is dealing with unexpected absenteeism. Businesses run very lean, often with every scheduled employee performing an essential job. There are no extra workers sitting around in case someone is a no show. This makes reliability a big concern.
  • Attitude: The most productive employee can be a terrible part of a company if they have a bad attitude and destroy the morale on a team. We see this in sports all the time – a superstar whose’s attitude causes a good team to turn into a bad one. The same happens in production environments. Supervisors look for characteristics that show how a job seeker might be disruptive in a team environment.
  • Mechanical Ability: In a production environment, having good mechanical skills can help a new employ get up to speed quickly and make it much easier for the company to train them. Supervisors will look for past experiences that show good mechanical ability.
  • Safety: Supervisors want employees who will make good decisions and safety is a big part of this. There are workers who will do whatever they can to circumvent safety rules. I’ve never understood this. Failing to follow the safety rules can lead to serious injury and will often lead to termination. Despite this, there are people who just won’t follow the rules. They can be very difficult to deal with as a supervisor, and supervisors will try to avoid hiring people like this.

If a person can demonstrate they have a good work ethic, are reliable, have a positive attitude, have good mechanical ability and are concerned about safety, they have a good chance of getting hired. 

No Worries Man

I’ve got a friend working on a Caribbean island on a large construction project. The island is small and there are few jobs available. Residents are routinely walking on to the job site to ask for work. Their typical approach shows what NOT to do in a job search.

I’ve got a friend working on a Caribbean island on a large construction project.  The island is small and there are few jobs available.  Residents are routinely walking on to the job site to ask for work.  Their typical approach shows what NOT to do in a job search.

My friend is part of the project management team (he’s an engineer), but isn’t responsible for hiring construction workers.  Despite this, a lot of potential workers approach him (mainly because he’s in the office a lot and works a ton of hours).  Their approach is direct – they walk up and ask for a job. 

The engineer then asks a few questions to learn about the job seeker.  First on the list is “what are you good at?”  In almost every case, the answer is “No worries man, I do everything.”  This answer is useless.  It gives no information about the job seeker and fails to give any reason why he should be hired. 

The next question the engineer asks will relate to a specific functional area.  For example, “do you have any experience with…” tile installation, drywall, carpentry, hvac repairs, electrical, plumbing, etc.  Generally, he asks about a skill that is currently in demand on the job site.  The answer is almost always the same, something like “No worries man, I’m the best tile installer on the island.”  If the engineer asks about a second area, say “Do you have any electrical experience,” he gets the same answer “No worries man, I’m the best electrician on the island.”

Because everyone claims to be the “best on the island” for every skill, the answers are meaningless.  They do nothing to differentiate the job seeker. 

The next question the engineer asks is for examples of the work they have done, for example, “what types of tile installation projects have you worked on?” You should be able to guess the answer at this stage…  “No worries man, I do it all.” 

At this point, if the engineer is really busy or having a bad day, he will usually throw the guy out.  If he’s feeling generous, he might ask a couple more questions, but they produce the same generic answers.  No matter how many different questions he asks, he’s never been able to get someone to give a specific answer.  They all are “the best on the island and can do it all.”

The core problem with generic answers is they don’t allow a hiring manager to consider the job seeker.  In this engineer’s case, all he wants to know is who to send the potential employee to see.  Is the best place the superintendent for flooring, plumbing, electrical, finish carpentry, etc?   That superintendent will then make the hiring decision.  Unfortunately, if you don’t know what a person is good at, you can’t classify them and consider them for a job.

I expect the workers are worried they will miss an opportunity if they take a stand.  For example, if they say they are good with drywall, they will only have a chance if the company is hiring drywall people.  If the company is hiring in other areas, but not drywall, the worker would be out of luck.  Narrowing your scope to a single job type won’t limit the number of opportunities.  On the contrary, it will do just the opposite and open up opportunities.  There are no jobs for a pure generalist.  Every job requires some level of specialization and certain skills.  If you don’t focus on a niche, you will not be considered for anything. 

This is the result for the workers on the island.  They never get to speak with the superintendent who might hire them. 

An Unimpressive Accomplishment for Your Resume

Your resume needs to show specific accomplishments demonstrating your abilities, experience and potential. You will compete against others who have the same experience and skills. In fact, some of your competition is likely to be higher qualified than you. To land an interview and to get hired, you need to show why you are better. A good accomplishment can to this. A weak, unimpressive accomplishment will not help, and can actually hurt the overall impression of your resume.

Your resume needs to show specific accomplishments demonstrating your abilities, experience and potential.  You will compete against others who have the same experience and skills.  In fact, some of your competition is likely to be higher qualified than you.  To land an interview and to get hired, you need to show why you are better.  A good accomplishment can to this.  A weak, unimpressive accomplishment will not help, and can actually hurt the overall impression of your resume.

The resume I read today came from a training manager for a large corporation.  It lists a number of training programs the candidate had managed.  One of the bullets listed was:

  • Conceptualized and led the design of a leadership and management strategy and curriculum for all support divisions. Implemented and facilitated management training and best practices sessions. Results included a 60% participation rate in manager best practice sessions.

It’s important to understand that numbers stand out on a resume.  A lot of hiring managers will scan a resume, looking for the number and read bullets with quantified results first.  Additionally, for many people, numbers stand out from the rest of the text and will naturally draw their attention, even if they aren’t specifically looking for quantified results.  This makes it much more likely your bullets with numbers will be read before the bullets without.

In this resume example, the bullet might draw extra attention because it lists “60%.”  This figure may have been good, but on a resume, without any context to place this in, it seems very unimpressive.  In fact, some may interpret it as a failure. 

Imagine an executive struggling to cut costs, drive revenues and stay profitable in this economy.  The exec decides he needs to upgrade the skills set of his workforce and needs a top notch trainer to design the training.  His concern is driving specific results – profits – in the short term.  This requires a training who can make an impact quickly and understands how to focus on elements that will make the company more productive right now.

The job seeker designed a management and leadership program for a major company – an organization everyone knows.  This is a good responsibility.  The only result given for the program was a 60% participation rate.  I really can’t assess whether this was good or bad.  If the program was very time consuming, voluntary for managers to participate and not supported well by upper management, a 60% participation rate might have been great.  In the eyes of the hypothetical hiring manager I described, this result probably looks like a failure.

The hiring manager needs to maximize the value he gets for the cost of the training manager.  Knowing he might only get a 60% participation rate, will make the training far less effective.  Another candidate, showing a consistent pattern of running programs with very high participation rates is likely to have an edge, even though we haven’t assessed the quality of the training or the impact on the performance of the company.

Ideally, the job seeker wouldn’t emphasize participation rates.  A better approach would be to emphasize the impact of the training.  With 60% participation, showing how the group that completed the training improved their performance while the non-participants didn’t improve would be extremely impressive.  If the job seeker can’t show a benefit like this, it is likely they will lose out to another job seeker than can. 

Employment and Unemployment Trends

There’s a lot of talk about the economy and unemployment levels. Depending on who you listen to, you will hear the economy has turned around and is starting to improve or the economy is in a downward spiral and getting much worse. The truth is much more complicated.

There’s a lot of talk about the economy and unemployment levels.  Depending on who you listen to, you will hear the economy has turned around and is starting to improve or the economy is in a downward spiral and getting much worse.  The truth is much more complicated.

The reports can be confusing, especially if you only read the headlines.  For example, the most recent report showed a drop in unemployment, from 9.5% to 9.4%.  The same report showed the number of jobs in the economy decreased by 247,000.   So, how can we have less jobs and lower unemployment?  A big reason for this is the season adjustment to the figures.  The government adjusts employment data based on normal seasonal changes. 

Looking at the unadjusted figures paints a clearer picture.  Below are the unadjusted numbers for May, June and July (in thousands):
 

 
May

June

July

Change (May-July)

Number Employed

140,363

140,826

141,055

692

Number Unemployed

13,973

15,095

15,200

1,227

Total Workforce

154,336

155,921

156,255

1,919

Between May and July, the workforce grew by 1.9 million people.  Much of this is a result of students graduating and entering the workforce.  During this time, the number employed also grew, with 692,000 jobs added.  This lead to an increase in the number unemployed, as the number of new workers vastly exceeded the number of new jobs.

So, how could we added so many jobs at a time when the government is reporting job losses?  The government adjusts for seasonal changes.  For examples, many companies in the tourism industry add summer help, and then eliminate the same positions in the fall.  Ordinarily, these companies would have hired a lot of more people.  After adjusting for the typical summer hiring, we have had a loss in jobs. 

Is the economy improving?  The number of people employed hit a bottom in March and has improved since then, with over a million more people employed in July compared to March. During this same time, the number of people unemployed increased by 2 million.  Employment is increasing but at a slower rate than the workforce.  You can use these stats say the economy is getting better or worse.  Add in the seasonal adjustments and you can paint any picture you want.

The overall numbers are good to know, but what is really important is the affect on individuals.  Are people able to find jobs?

The most disturbing statistic is the number of discouraged workers.  A discouraged worker is a person who wants a job but has given up and stopped looking.  The government removes this person from total workforce.  Over the last ten years, we have averaged around 400,000 people who are discouraged.  In July, this total reached 796,000, almost 400k more than normal.

If you are discouraged, frustrated and can’t find a job, giving up may be tempting.  There are nearly 800k people who have done just that.  The economy is tough and jobs are scarce, but there are jobs.  Maintaining a positive attitude  and working hard in your job search are the keys to success.  It isn’t easy, but it is essential. 

Describe Your Work Experience So a Child Can Understand It

One of the most common mistakes job seekers make is over complicating their background. Unless you are seeking the same job from a similar company, it unlikely the hiring manager will understand all the details of the job. This problem is magnified if the hiring manager is an individual outside your functional area.

One of the most common mistakes job seekers make is over complicating their background.  Unless you are seeking the same job from a similar company, it unlikely the hiring manager will understand all the details of the job.  This problem is magnified if the hiring manager is an individual outside your functional area.

It is common for a team of people to assess candidates.  At least one will be in your functional area, but the others could be from completely different departments.  They may understand the basics of the job being filled, but are unlikely to be experts in the career field you are pursuing. 

Most people assessing your resume and interviewing you will not understand what you have done if you don’t explain it clearly.  Surprisingly, some of the most confusing and difficult to comprehend resumes are also some of the longest resumes.  The problem comes from the detail.  Providing a ton of details, staying in the weeds so to speak, will make it difficult for a reader to understand your experience. 

The solution is to keep it simple.  Explain each role you have had in a sentence or two simple enough that a person with no familiarity with your career field could understand.  How would you explain your job to a child in middle or high school?  If you can explain your background very briefly in a way that is easy to understand, your resume will be much more effective. 

Making your resume easy to digest for anyone requires you to explain very technical terms and to use few if any acronyms.  Use terminology most people will understand and your resume will be easier to read.

Keeping your resume simple doesn’t mean you discard every technical detail.  If you need to provide technical details of what you have done, explain them a little.  If you provide a simple general explanation of what you did and then provide the technical details, most people will be able to understand the significance of what you wrote, even if they don’t understand every detail. 

Bottom line:  If you don’t write about it on your resume, it never happened, and if you write about it a complicated, confusing way that is difficult for most people to understand, it never happened.  Make your resume accessible to as wide an audience as possible.  If it can only be understood by the primary hiring manager, it is unlikely it will ever make it into that person’s hands.  Resume screeners are likely to delete it before it ever gets to the person that can understand it.

Fraudulently Padding a Resume

How to land a job you are completely unqualified to perform (do no try this at home… unless you want go to jail). This system is proven effective (especially step 8) and was used by a woman in Connecticut.

How to land a job you are completely unqualified to perform (do no try this at home… unless you want go to jail):

  • Step One: Make up a bunch of stuff that isn’t true and put it on your resume
  • Step Two: Create a fake industry association and give it an official sounding name
  • Step Three: Announce you won a major award from your fake organization
  • Step Four: Start sending out resumes
  • Step Five: Tell employers you lost the supporting information such as licenses, diplomas, etc.
  • Step Six: Plan an awards banquet for your fake organization and invite 30+ people, including your perspective boss
  • Step Seven: Give the people attending the banquet scripts telling them what to say and how to compliment you in front of your perspective boss
  • Step Eight: Leverage your dishonesty to get free room and board for three to five years from the state prison system

This system is proven effective (especially step 8) and was used by a woman in Connecticut.

Unfortunately, there are people who think this eight step plan is a good idea.  If you’re looking for a job and are missing a key credential, it can be very frustrating.  There are reasons why certain credentials are required – for example, an RN in a doctor’s office should have a nursing license.  For one “Nurse of the Year,” the lack of credentials didn’t stop her, at least initially.

Betty Lichtenstein was recently arrested for illegally using the title “Registered Nurse” and reckless endangerment and criminal impersonation.  Various news outlets are reporting how Betty claimed she lost her RN license.  To get around this, she created a fictitious “Connecticut Nursing Association” and gave herself the Nurse of the Year award.  She staged a dinner with about 30 people where her perspective boss could see the award presented to her (the dinner cost her over $2,000).

I see a fair bit of lying and deception on resumes by job seekers.  The big stuff, like fake degrees is easy to spot.  For other lies, it takes a little more work to uncover.  This is why most employers, particularly larger companies, will not shortcut their background checks.

Lying to obtain a position as a medical practitioner carries with it significantly greater criminal implications than many other fields.  In Lichtenstein’s case, she’s looking at the possibility of 5 years in jail.  There are a wide range of laws that prohibit lying employment applications or defrauding companies or government entities to get a job.

Additionally, the news articles published on Betty’s story will stay on the internet forever.  A simple google search of her name will uncover these stories and will make her ability to get a job much more difficult. Who want’s to hire someone who would lie to this degree.

The most common lie I find on resumes (mainly because it’s the easiest and fastest to check) is the use of a fake degree to boost a person’s education.  There are tons of diploma mills that will sell a Bachelor’s, Master’s or PhD.  Some offer overnight shipping and next day service.  All you have to do is write a check.  These are easy to spot.  Just go to the Council for Higher Education Accreditation (CHEA) and search for the school (http://www.chea.org/search/search.asp).

If you want to learn more about Betty Lichtenstein, “Nurse of the Year from the Connecticut Nursing Association”, check out http://www.nbcconnecticut.com/news/local-beat/Nurse-Betty-Plays-Pretend-52626832.html