Boeing Interview Questions and Answers

I recently got several requests for my coaching services for a job interview with Boeing. It seems the company is hiring a lot of new engineers and analysts nowadays. It should not come as a surprise in the world we live in at the moment–wars and conflicts, and the never-ceasing dream of conquering the space just play in favor of the aerospace industry.

Considering everything, I decided to come up with an article, looking a bit at the interview process at Boeing, the questions you may face, and also whether it actually makes sense having a coach for this interview. Before we look at the questions, I want to point out a few crucial points (to help you understand what really matters in this interview).

Boeing places a lot of value on your past working experience, especially on project basis

In my experience, a crucial part in the interviews with Boeing is a discussion of your past experience. Projects you worked on, milestones you reached (or failed to reach), challenges you faced (with people you managed, data you worked with, processes you had to set up), and how this all relates to the work you will do in Boeing. Sure enough, there will be other questions, and preliminary interview rounds you have to pass, but at the end of the day, the decisive part is this discussion of your past projects, and situations you faced at work.

Some people call this STAR method or behavioral interviewing, and they aren’t far from the truth. However, I would say that with Boeing it is even more about the results you actually achieved, and your way of thinking about the various technical and analytical challenges, than about the way you managed various situations at work (though the two are no doubt inter-related). What I try to say here is that you should do your best to prepare for this part–thinking about all your past projects in depth, making a lot of notes. The goals, the milestones, the processes in place, the people you worked with and managed, challenges you faced, successes and failures. This will help you tremendously in the crucial stages of the hiring process.

Hirevue/Video interview at Boeing

I do not necessarily like the trend of video interviews. The technology it is overrated, and since one doesn’t get to see the entire picture when it comes to a candidate (remember that non-verbal communication is 90% of the message we send over, and we ‘see’ only a small part of it on the video), it is easy to make wrong judgements, screening out the most interesting candidates. However, like it or not, most big corporation use video interviewing nowadays, and Boeing is no exception.

This is the part of the interview with the STAR or behavioral questions, and a few simple puzzles you have to solve (just to put a threshold when it comes to an IQ of the applicants). You cannot really prepare for the puzzles (but don’t worry, you will pass them unless your IQ is simply below par to work for Boeing), but you can prepare for the questions. Let’s have a look at them.

Behavioral (situational, STAR) questions you will likely face in your interview with Boeing

As a rule of a thumb, they use these questions in all interviews, even with entry level jobs. That means that they may ask you about facing this or that situation at work, without having any previous working experience. I know it makes little sense, but hey, many things in HR, recruitment, and interviewing make little sense… Anyway, if you have no experience, you can either say what you would do in a given situation, or you can try to find a similar situation from your school or personal life, and demonstrate the right attitude on it. Because when it comes to these questions, it is your attitude that matters for the hiring managers. Let’s have a look at the questions.

Tell us about an obstacle you overcame

In an ideal case, the obstacle you talk about should be as close as possible to the role you are applying with Boeing. As en example, if you apply for a programming role, it should be some coding problem. If for analytical job, it should be something related to difficult data analysis. When your desired role is managerial, you can talk about an issue you faced while managing your team. And so on, and so forth.

Try to explain in detail what was the problem, how you analyzed it, the solution you applied and the result. An interesting way of addressing this question is actually picking an obstacle you didn’t overcome, but by trying to do so you learned some important lesson that made from you a better engineer, analyst, manager, etc.

In case this is your first job application, you can always talk about the obstacles you overcame at school--for example some subject you struggled with, or even some personal problem. The key attitude to show here is that you do not give up, and do not panic when facing the obstacles. On the contrary, you try your best to analyze all possible solutions, and work hard on eventually pushing through.

Tell us about a time you struggled with a colleague/team member

This one is rather self-explanatory. The attitude they look for in good candidates is the one that doesn’t put your own ego on the pedestal. On the contrary, you should demonstrate with your situation that you always try to understand the point of view of the other person, and try to focus on the goals of the company/team/project, rather than on some interpersonal fights that lead nowhere. You can talk about any sort of situation. For example:

You disagreed with a way your manager suggested to proceed with something.
Someone was under performing in the team, and it impacted strongly your own work (hence you wanted to do something about it).
Collision of viewpoints/worldviews with one of the colleagues.
Someone you found it hard to communicate with, and had to communicate with in a team a lot.
A typical ego battle–when everyone wants to be the leader, or come up with the best solution.
Any other situation that helps you demonstrate the attitude I was talking about.

Tell us about a time you went above and beyond.

This question is more typical in customer service interviews. However, based on the information I have, Boeing uses it quite often as the part of their video interviews. The question offers you a variety of good options for an interesting answer. Some of the more obvious ones:

Going above and beyond for your former/present employer. That means staying overtime when a demanding project required it, learning new skill necessary to improve your effectiveness at work, being there when everybody else quits, and so on.
Doing something extra for your colleague. For example tutoring them outside of your working hours, helping them with the task they struggle with (without showing that to anyone else, meaning you do it selflessly), offering emotional support in difficult times (being a human and friend, and not only a colleague, even though it isn’t a part of your job), etc.
Going an extra mile for a customer, be it a situation from your former (college) job, or something from your first corporate job (at the end of the day, there is ALWAYS some customer in the process, even though it may not always be obvious who this customer is).

The key is once again to show right attitude. In this case it means that you are ready to go an extra mile for other people (and for your employer), at least occasionally, when the job demands it. Nobody can go above and beyond all the time, because the only eventual result of such a way of working is a burnout…

Some other STAR questions you may face in your interview with Boeing

Describe a situation when you reached a goal and tell us how you achieved it.
Describe a situation when you did not agree with the opinion (or decision) of your superior or supervisor, and knew that they were wrong. How did you handle that?
Tell us about the most difficult decision you’ve ever made.
Describe a time when you struggled to build a relationship with someone important. How did you eventually overcome that?
Have you ever faced an ethical dilemma? How did you approach the situation?
Tell us about a situation when you had to make a decision without all the information you needed.
Tell me about a time you had to comply with a policy or procedure that you did not agree with.
What’s the best project you’ve ever worked on?
Tell me about a time you had to leave a task unfinished.
When is the last time you had to give someone a really difficult feedback?
Tell me about a time when you delegated a project effectively.
Describe a situation in which you applied technical skills to solve a problem.

My coaching for your Boeing interview, eBook in the making

If you find these questions difficult, or do not know how to correctly ‘translate’ your career experiences (or lack of them) into the answers that will satisfy the interviewers at Boeing (and the AI in the video interview), we can go over each question together, and help you prepare for them. My rates start at $100/hour, and you can always contact me to arrange the first coaching session.

Since my time is limited, I may also consider putting an eBook together for Boeing interview (with multiple sample answers to all questions you may face, and more), or in general for these STAR questions and video interviews etc. But I will see. Anyway, you can contact me for coaching meantime, and even if you do not, I hope this article helped you to understand what matters in an interview with Boeing, and how to eventually get the job with the company.

To your success,

Jacob Gates