Metropolitan Transportation Authority Junior Engineer Interview Questions
& Process

I found the interview to be impersonal and unprofessional. I interviewed for an engineering position by a panel of 3 non-engineers and an HR person. All of them were staring down at a piece of paper reading questions word-for-word and then writing down my responses word-for-word, which was very off-putting. There was no eye contact for the 30 minutes I was there, and no natural conversation as there was in every other place I've interviewed. None of the panel members seemed to even know what the job functions were. As the job description was very broad and vague, I asked them what a typical day would be. One interviewer replied, "there really is no answer to that question." No one in the room seemed to even know what this position was for, and none had a relevant background in engineering to describe the tasks. There was a clear lack of preparation on their part. The questions themselves were not relevant. This was an entry-level position and they started asking about management experience. If the job is for people with minimal to no experience then why would they ask for management or senior-level experience? Other behavioral questions were repetitive that resulted in giving similar responses. If they listened to earlier responses, they could have skipped asking redundant questions rather than continue reading what was on the piece of paper. Lastly, the HR person said he would email me back by the following Monday whether or not we were accepted into the program. I thought 1 week was a reasonable time for a response. Well, he never sent such an email at that time. I attempted calling him the following couple weeks several times and he never picked up the phone once. The emails I sent were never responded to either. Other applicants I know experienced the same (childish) behavior. Finally I received a rejection notice 7 WEEKS later. That's a lot longer than 7 days, and another demonstration of the lack of honesty in this company. I feel lucky to now be working for a reliable company where people can actually be counted on.

I applied online and heard back from HR about a month and a half later to set up an interview for that same week. It was a panel interview with HR and some senior engineers, and they read all the questions from a packet. It was super short, like ten minutes max, and felt really rushed, like they were just churning through people. The job description mentioned being placed in a department based on your discipline, but the panel was all from the same department, so I guess they'd already decided where I was going without telling me. A few days later, HR called to say I was in the final round, just needing to do a background and tox screen – basically, I had the job. But I turned it down because it wasn't the right fit, and the recruiter just hung up pretty abruptly.

i applied in march 2019 and got a call back in may to schedule an interview the same week. it was a 4 panel interview. they explained what the job requires and asked mostly behavioral questions. after the interview i got a call back 2 days later with a conditional job offer pending medical and background checks.