ZF Group Manufacturing Engineer Interview Questions
& Process

So, this whole job thing took like 3 months to go through. Started with a quick screening call, which I thought was decent, but then got ghosted with a rejection two weeks later. Weirdly, like five weeks after that, I got another call about the same job. Apparently, the hiring manager liked my resume and projects, so he wanted to set up an interview. Even though it was out of the blue, I was like, 'Why not?' The first interview was with the team manager, who was kinda unprofessional – no camera on, and the recruiter was there too. Mostly standard behavioral questions and stuff about my projects. Even though it felt unprofessional, they hit me up the next week for another interview. This time, it was in person at their plant. We rescheduled once, but then the in-person interview happened. It felt like it went well, pretty much the same questions as the team interview, but his whole team and an HR person were there too. The team was a bit unprofessional, one guy looked like he didn't want to be there and didn't ask anything. I figured they were pulled in last minute. I thought I nailed it, but nope, got another rejection email, which was just an automated copy of the first one, which was pretty ironic. I kept checking their job board and saw the same job posted over and over, so I kinda wondered why I even bothered driving out there, especially since I saw three new postings for it the morning of my interview. Honestly, I was stumped about my qualifications since it was an entry role and I fit the description perfectly, even the preferred stuff. I tried reaching out to the recruiter and manager for feedback, but they just ignored me. And get this, the job got reposted again the morning I got my rejection.

I was found through my resume on Monster. The first interview was a 40-minute phone call with some pretty high-level questions about situations, project management, and what attracts me to the job. After that, the recruiter had me take a PI test, which was just a self-assessment of words and what others might say. Then, they flew me down for an in-person interview, which I'd rate as 8 out of 10. It was very technically focused, and some parts were a bit beyond me, but I explained the extent of my knowledge and experience in those areas. I asked about training and learning opportunities since my last job didn't offer much, and I want to grow my skills. They called me back two days later to offer me a spot on the team. The whole process was fast, and they're looking for people who are energetic, driven, and follow the rules.

So I had 3 interviews in total. We started with 2 phone calls, and then a face to face interview. The first call was with HR, who was really nice and told me about how the interviews would go. Then I had a technical interview over the phone that lasted about an hour. They got back to me after about 2 weeks to schedule an onsite interview. That one was focused on behavioral questions and lasted for about an hour too. I got the job offer via email about two weeks after that.