Solvay Interview Questions
& Process

The hiring manager and area lead were very friendly during the interview. They asked basic engineering questions, as well as questions about my profile, how I identified with the role and its subject matter. They also asked about my motivations and career plans, and how I envisioned my career at the company. Overall, it was a calm and relaxed conversation, without any tension.

The first contact was about a month later from HR in Lisbon. Many questions were asked about myself and my career path. Technical questions about the advertised position could not be answered. You could already guess during the conversation that it would continue. After 1 week I received positive feedback and appointment suggestions for the next Teams meeting with the EMEA Manager in Spain. Both appointments were in English. Afterwards, another on-site meeting was planned. The rejection came with a standard text without explanation within a week.

The job application process spanned two months. Initially, HR from the talent department reached out to schedule an interview. This first step involved light questions focused on behavior, motivations, and current career path, aiming to assess if my profile matched the company's values. A week later, I had the manager interview. This round included three participants: my potential future leader, a colleague from the same department, and a manager from a different area. They delved into my technical background, asking about my approach to developing reliability structures and requesting examples of past development projects. They also inquired about vibration analysis and potential new technologies for reliability engineering. Two weeks after that, I had an on-site interview with the industrial director. During this meeting, the director clearly outlined his expectations for the role and the essential soft skills needed for future demands. To gauge if I possessed these characteristics, he asked for specific examples from my career where I applied these skills during work challenges. He also brought up EHS behavior challenges and posed hypothetical situations to understand how I would improve safety and awareness. English proficiency was required throughout all stages; while the interviews were conducted in Portuguese, they confirmed my English skills by asking a few questions in that language. The job requirements were very clearly stated in the initial job application description.

First, there was a nice screening interview. Then, we had an assessment day that was about 7 hours long, and we had to take the day off. It included group work, individual tasks, and different interviews with managers. It wasn't a great atmosphere, not very respectful. Finally, I got an email cancellation with some text inserted in different fonts and styles. No feedback was given.