How I Got an Engineering Job at GM
Background
This past January I was at the career fair on Wednesday and met representatives from GM after a friend’s recommendation to check them out. I was completely clueless about what I wanted to do with my life at that time and why I would want to work at GM, a car company that I have known about but barely knew anything about. I got a first interview on Thursday, the next day, and a second interview on Friday. On the Friday evening, I got an email invitation for my final site visit to Michigan. Today, 8 months later, I am enjoying what I do at GM as a Design Engineer in the Battery Pack Group for the next generation of electric vehicles, and next Spring I will be back to Berkeley as a GM representative to recruit Berkeley students to GM for summer internships and full-time jobs. Many people have asked me what GM’s recruiting process was like, so I am writing this.
Car Guys vs Non Car Guys
Not everyone who got into GM as a college senior took the same path, and people who currently work at GM have very diverse backgrounds in skills and experiences. You would imagine someone who works at a car company to be a “car-guy”, someone who grew up loving cars, fixing cars, building cars, driving cars, who breathes cars in and out. Here at GM, no matter which department or group you are working in, there are people like that, a lot of them. I was not one of them. And I believe many of my audience out there aren’t like that either. So I want to tell you all that GM is a diverse place and we are looking for very different people across different fields. Maybe what attracted them from me was my diverse work experience in startups, non-profit organizations, and small companies; but someone else in the same role as I am in the same group might have come from a very specialized background in battery research and development. At GM, I have also learned about so many different fields that I had never known about. And being a car guy doesn’t always makes someone the most qualified in that space. For example, we have computer scientists in the cybersecurity group that strengthens the car’s IT infrastructure against hacking, and software engineers in the infotainment group that improves the connectivity between our cars and our mobile devices. These are people who might care more about the user experience of a driver, the connectivity technology, than how a car or an engine is built and run. There isn’t one unifying sentence or statement that summarizes what it’s like to be in the automotive industry, because what you work on can be so different. And that’s what’s fascinating about this industry, is the opportunity to gain exposure and experience across so many different fields that may either make you a better automotive engineer in general, or move on to something else from that skills and knowledge that you have gained.
So my conclusion on this portion is that, if you worry that you didn’t have the passion or background in cars as many of your colleagues and friends, don’t be afraid. GM is looking for people who want to make a difference and people who want to learn. Ultimately, our efforts are displayed in the production and the sales of our cars, but what you will be doing is challenging, rewarding, and diverse. You have to be a lifelong learner, and you have to take pride in what you do and what you create.
The Recruiting Process: Interviews
As mentioned before, I was one of those people who didn’t have a clue about why I would want to work in the car industry. When I was faced with the recruiter whom I later found out to be a Chief Engineer of Powertrain at GM, he asked me a very simple question, “Why do you think you want to work at GM?” Without knowing the real answer, as a chemical engineer, I talked about how I have learned thermodynamics and I know how an engine works, I know about mass transfer and heat transfer, and I know about the mechanics of materials in E45. I tried my best to relate my chemical engineering education to “fit into” what they expected out of me, and I had thought that cars were always about engines. Then he looked at my major “chemical engineering” and asked “have you thought about working on batteries?”
I had never thought about that, but it was a great idea. I was always interested in renewable energy and I had known about Tesla for a long time. I didn’t know GM was making electric cars and I didn’t know that today I would be working on the product that directly competes with Tesla. I gladly said yes, although being a chemical engineer doesn’t mean that we know a lot more about batteries than anyone else. And batteries aren’t just about the active material responsible for all the active chemistry in the Li-ion cell, but also include the electrical components that control the batteries, the mechanical structure, and the thermal management system. Working in the battery group means that you want to learn more and know more about the things going on in these other disciplines, and you will meet people with different backgrounds.
After saying yes to the question, I got an interview for following morning. The guy I was about to meet was Martin, as told by the Chief Engineer I met on the first day, “you gotta talk to Martin!” This was one of the first few live interviews I have had, but we quickly connected within a few minutes into the interview. It turned out that he has worked and lived in Shanghai, where I grew up, and I used to play rugby for my school against where his son went to school.
Personal stories aside, I want to elaborate on the behavioral interview. Behavioral questions are like “tell me about at time where you did this…” Responding to this question wasn’t hard, but the followup questions are what get you thinking and digging more. Be prepared to elaborate on anything you talk about and provide details and insights. What did you learn from it? How did you wish you had done differently? How did it change how you react in the future? These are all questions that you might not have thought about regarding any of your previous work or research experience, but GM wants to hear about how you think. Your accomplishments and experiences, no matter how impressive they might be, are not worth as much as what you get out of it and how they impacted you. Be yourself, be truthful, be honest, and be bold.
If you get into the second round of interviews, more questions like this will also come. In total you will be asked about 8 questions in the two rounds. Try not to talk about the same work experience for more than twice. So you want to prepare about 4 to 5 different experiences. These don’t have to be work experiences; they could be about a class project you worked on, an assignment, a club activity, an invention, a volunteer event. Such is true for any college senior or junior, you should try to have 8 things to talk about over at least 4 experiences. Think hard and dig hard before you go into an interview. Once you have these experiences ready, it’s not hard to tackle the interview questions.
Final Site Visit
I had my second interview on a Friday afternoon, that following evening, I got the email inviting me to GM in Southeastern Michigan for a site visit. To me, I had the impression that this was a final interview, but it wasn’t. I was basically in unless I don’t go to the site visit or I make some serious offenses at the site visit. This is the opportunity for you to learn more about the company; you are interviewing them basically. You want to know whether GM is the place for you, and most importantly, the teams that you meet. You also get to experience what it’s like to live in Michigan, for a little bit. If you are going to the site visit, you are pretty much in already, and it’s really about how you felt during that site visit that will determine whether you really want to take this path to come and work here. They also warned you not to feel competitive against all the people that came with you. As said before, we are not competing for limited positions, and we are pretty much in already, so it’s really about bonding with and learning from each other.
We left on an early morning in San Francisco Bay Area to board a plane that would land later in the afternoon in Detroit. Michigan was especially cold in mid-Feb, especially in the evening. On the first day we checked into our hotel and was brought out for dinner. We went to Royal Oak, a city with lots of yopros (young professionals). There are three major non-manufacturing sites in the Detroit Metropolitan Area where engineers could work at, the GM Technical Center in Warren, the GM Global Powertrain in Pontiac, and the GM Milford Proving Grounds in Milford. If you work in Warren or Pontiac, Royal Oak is a good place to stay at. If you work at Milford, Novi and Ann Arbor will be a good place to stay at. Novi was where our hotel was, and we were brought to Ann Arbor for dinner on the second day. During this dinner, we also got to meet some of the recent graduates from Berkeley who started working at GM (within the past 3 years or so). They will share with you, more personally, what it’s like to transition from living in California to living in Michigan, where to live, buying/leasing a car, grocery shopping, winter clothing/driving, and anything you would like to know about.
On our first full day of the site visit (after the arrival on the first afternoon), we went to each of our perspective future work locations to meet with the hiring managers and the group that we could be working in. We also received an introduction of the TRACK (Technical Rotation and Career Knowledge) program. On my first day, I met with two of the three different teams and had lunch with one of the potential hiring managers. On my second day, I met with the third team. This is the opportunity for you to learn more in details what the teams are working on, and you get to share which one you would prefer, and they also get to decide whether you are a great fit for their team. Show genuine interest and respect during the visit, but also be honest and clear in stating what you truly want. After all, this is the team that you will work with in the future and one of your very first impressions of working at GM, and probably your very first full-time job.
On the afternoon of the first day, all the candidates at different locations gather at Milford Proving Ground for a ride and drive event. We got to test out the performance of the vehicles… ON ICE! Driving the cars that your company makes is also one of the most exhilarating things about working at a car company. Seeing those cars on the roads and into the families of millions and millions of people is what brought us all here, is what unites us all at GM.
Shortly after the site visit, I got the call from GM Human Resources about the offer, which was also sent to email. I had until early March to make a decision, although I later learned that that date is also negotiable.
More than “The Car Company”, The Technology Company
I have used the term “the car company” a lot, but the truth is, we aren’t simply a car company. We are a technology company. It is true that GM is a very old company, and there are a lot of history and traditions. But collectively, we are creating the future. We are developing new technologies that will one day go into our cars, but also driving the industry standard and go into all cars. In 2015, no one is working on the Chevrolet or whatever from 2009; we could be driving them. We are all working on cars that come out in the next few years or the next few decades, and with them, the technologies.
This brings me back to the beginning of the article, the Car Guys vs the Non Car Guys. As an entry level engineer in this technology company, GM doesn’t expect you to be extremely knowledgeable in something, not even cars. If you think you know something very well, you will find that someone else at GM who has worked longer than you did is more knowledgeable. We are looking for people who not only already know a lot, but also have a lot of potential, to learn and to lead. If you want to leave the interview with one impression, it should be “This guy is a lifelong learner.” Do what you love, have passion at it, and always be willing to learn new things to make a meaning.
Background
This past January I was at the career fair on Wednesday and met representatives from GM after a friend’s recommendation to check them out. I was completely clueless about what I wanted to do with my life at that time and why I would want to work at GM, a car company that I have known about but barely knew anything about. I got a first interview on Thursday, the next day, and a second interview on Friday. On the Friday evening, I got an email invitation for my final site visit to Michigan. Today, 8 months later, I am enjoying what I do at GM as a Design Engineer in the Battery Pack Group for the next generation of electric vehicles, and next Spring I will be back to Berkeley as a GM representative to recruit Berkeley students to GM for summer internships and full-time jobs. Many people have asked me what GM’s recruiting process was like, so I am writing this.
Car Guys vs Non Car Guys
Not everyone who got into GM as a college senior took the same path, and people who currently work at GM have very diverse backgrounds in skills and experiences. You would imagine someone who works at a car company to be a “car-guy”, someone who grew up loving cars, fixing cars, building cars, driving cars, who breathes cars in and out. Here at GM, no matter which department or group you are working in, there are people like that, a lot of them. I was not one of them. And I believe many of my audience out there aren’t like that either. So I want to tell you all that GM is a diverse place and we are looking for very different people across different fields. Maybe what attracted them from me was my diverse work experience in startups, non-profit organizations, and small companies; but someone else in the same role as I am in the same group might have come from a very specialized background in battery research and development. At GM, I have also learned about so many different fields that I had never known about. And being a car guy doesn’t always makes someone the most qualified in that space. For example, we have computer scientists in the cybersecurity group that strengthens the car’s IT infrastructure against hacking, and software engineers in the infotainment group that improves the connectivity between our cars and our mobile devices. These are people who might care more about the user experience of a driver, the connectivity technology, than how a car or an engine is built and run. There isn’t one unifying sentence or statement that summarizes what it’s like to be in the automotive industry, because what you work on can be so different. And that’s what’s fascinating about this industry, is the opportunity to gain exposure and experience across so many different fields that may either make you a better automotive engineer in general, or move on to something else from that skills and knowledge that you have gained.
So my conclusion on this portion is that, if you worry that you didn’t have the passion or background in cars as many of your colleagues and friends, don’t be afraid. GM is looking for people who want to make a difference and people who want to learn. Ultimately, our efforts are displayed in the production and the sales of our cars, but what you will be doing is challenging, rewarding, and diverse. You have to be a lifelong learner, and you have to take pride in what you do and what you create.
The Recruiting Process: Interviews
As mentioned before, I was one of those people who didn’t have a clue about why I would want to work in the car industry. When I was faced with the recruiter whom I later found out to be a Chief Engineer of Powertrain at GM, he asked me a very simple question, “Why do you think you want to work at GM?” Without knowing the real answer, as a chemical engineer, I talked about how I have learned thermodynamics and I know how an engine works, I know about mass transfer and heat transfer, and I know about the mechanics of materials in E45. I tried my best to relate my chemical engineering education to “fit into” what they expected out of me, and I had thought that cars were always about engines. Then he looked at my major “chemical engineering” and asked “have you thought about working on batteries?”
I had never thought about that, but it was a great idea. I was always interested in renewable energy and I had known about Tesla for a long time. I didn’t know GM was making electric cars and I didn’t know that today I would be working on the product that directly competes with Tesla. I gladly said yes, although being a chemical engineer doesn’t mean that we know a lot more about batteries than anyone else. And batteries aren’t just about the active material responsible for all the active chemistry in the Li-ion cell, but also include the electrical components that control the batteries, the mechanical structure, and the thermal management system. Working in the battery group means that you want to learn more and know more about the things going on in these other disciplines, and you will meet people with different backgrounds.
After saying yes to the question, I got an interview for following morning. The guy I was about to meet was Martin, as told by the Chief Engineer I met on the first day, “you gotta talk to Martin!” This was one of the first few live interviews I have had, but we quickly connected within a few minutes into the interview. It turned out that he has worked and lived in Shanghai, where I grew up, and I used to play rugby for my school against where his son went to school.
Personal stories aside, I want to elaborate on the behavioral interview. Behavioral questions are like “tell me about at time where you did this…” Responding to this question wasn’t hard, but the followup questions are what get you thinking and digging more. Be prepared to elaborate on anything you talk about and provide details and insights. What did you learn from it? How did you wish you had done differently? How did it change how you react in the future? These are all questions that you might not have thought about regarding any of your previous work or research experience, but GM wants to hear about how you think. Your accomplishments and experiences, no matter how impressive they might be, are not worth as much as what you get out of it and how they impacted you. Be yourself, be truthful, be honest, and be bold.
If you get into the second round of interviews, more questions like this will also come. In total you will be asked about 8 questions in the two rounds. Try not to talk about the same work experience for more than twice. So you want to prepare about 4 to 5 different experiences. These don’t have to be work experiences; they could be about a class project you worked on, an assignment, a club activity, an invention, a volunteer event. Such is true for any college senior or junior, you should try to have 8 things to talk about over at least 4 experiences. Think hard and dig hard before you go into an interview. Once you have these experiences ready, it’s not hard to tackle the interview questions.
Final Site Visit
I had my second interview on a Friday afternoon, that following evening, I got the email inviting me to GM in Southeastern Michigan for a site visit. To me, I had the impression that this was a final interview, but it wasn’t. I was basically in unless I don’t go to the site visit or I make some serious offenses at the site visit. This is the opportunity for you to learn more about the company; you are interviewing them basically. You want to know whether GM is the place for you, and most importantly, the teams that you meet. You also get to experience what it’s like to live in Michigan, for a little bit. If you are going to the site visit, you are pretty much in already, and it’s really about how you felt during that site visit that will determine whether you really want to take this path to come and work here. They also warned you not to feel competitive against all the people that came with you. As said before, we are not competing for limited positions, and we are pretty much in already, so it’s really about bonding with and learning from each other.
We left on an early morning in San Francisco Bay Area to board a plane that would land later in the afternoon in Detroit. Michigan was especially cold in mid-Feb, especially in the evening. On the first day we checked into our hotel and was brought out for dinner. We went to Royal Oak, a city with lots of yopros (young professionals). There are three major non-manufacturing sites in the Detroit Metropolitan Area where engineers could work at, the GM Technical Center in Warren, the GM Global Powertrain in Pontiac, and the GM Milford Proving Grounds in Milford. If you work in Warren or Pontiac, Royal Oak is a good place to stay at. If you work at Milford, Novi and Ann Arbor will be a good place to stay at. Novi was where our hotel was, and we were brought to Ann Arbor for dinner on the second day. During this dinner, we also got to meet some of the recent graduates from Berkeley who started working at GM (within the past 3 years or so). They will share with you, more personally, what it’s like to transition from living in California to living in Michigan, where to live, buying/leasing a car, grocery shopping, winter clothing/driving, and anything you would like to know about.
On our first full day of the site visit (after the arrival on the first afternoon), we went to each of our perspective future work locations to meet with the hiring managers and the group that we could be working in. We also received an introduction of the TRACK (Technical Rotation and Career Knowledge) program. On my first day, I met with two of the three different teams and had lunch with one of the potential hiring managers. On my second day, I met with the third team. This is the opportunity for you to learn more in details what the teams are working on, and you get to share which one you would prefer, and they also get to decide whether you are a great fit for their team. Show genuine interest and respect during the visit, but also be honest and clear in stating what you truly want. After all, this is the team that you will work with in the future and one of your very first impressions of working at GM, and probably your very first full-time job.
On the afternoon of the first day, all the candidates at different locations gather at Milford Proving Ground for a ride and drive event. We got to test out the performance of the vehicles… ON ICE! Driving the cars that your company makes is also one of the most exhilarating things about working at a car company. Seeing those cars on the roads and into the families of millions and millions of people is what brought us all here, is what unites us all at GM.
Shortly after the site visit, I got the call from GM Human Resources about the offer, which was also sent to email. I had until early March to make a decision, although I later learned that that date is also negotiable.
More than “The Car Company”, The Technology Company
I have used the term “the car company” a lot, but the truth is, we aren’t simply a car company. We are a technology company. It is true that GM is a very old company, and there are a lot of history and traditions. But collectively, we are creating the future. We are developing new technologies that will one day go into our cars, but also driving the industry standard and go into all cars. In 2015, no one is working on the Chevrolet or whatever from 2009; we could be driving them. We are all working on cars that come out in the next few years or the next few decades, and with them, the technologies.
This brings me back to the beginning of the article, the Car Guys vs the Non Car Guys. As an entry level engineer in this technology company, GM doesn’t expect you to be extremely knowledgeable in something, not even cars. If you think you know something very well, you will find that someone else at GM who has worked longer than you did is more knowledgeable. We are looking for people who not only already know a lot, but also have a lot of potential, to learn and to lead. If you want to leave the interview with one impression, it should be “This guy is a lifelong learner.” Do what you love, have passion at it, and always be willing to learn new things to make a meaning.