Mechanical engineering is a field that involves designing and building products and systems. It requires analytical thinking, attention to detail, and the ability to work on a team. In addition to questions assessing whether you have these skills, an interview for a mechanical engineering position will have technical questions designed to test your knowledge. Here are 10 mechanical engineering questions and answers to help you nail that interview.
1. Which software do you know?
Answer: Be honest. Don’t pretend to know more than you really do about a particular software. Also, convey a willingness to learn software you don’t know.
2. Do you stay on the cutting edge of technological innovation?
Answer: Demonstrate your knowledge of a current trend in the engineering field. Give an example of a publication you follow for your industry news.
3. Which aspect of mechanical engineering interests you most?
Answer: Anything but the answer “anything.” Companies want to know if you prefer to be on the bench designing systems or on the front line building them.
4. How much importance do you place in teamwork?
Answer: Teamwork is vital to the success of any complex project, and I look forward to the opportunity to work with a team of talented coworkers. You want to show that you’re the epitome of a team player.
The following questions are from the glassdoor community and are from real mechanical engineering interviews.
5. If you have a refrigerator in an isolated room (no heat in or out) and left the door to the refrigerator open, what would happen to the temperature to the room? Would it go up, down or say the same?
Answer: Since the door is open, the condenser would be forced to work harder. This energy increase would give off heat, which means the temperature would increase.
6. If you were in a dark closet with 49 white socks and one black one, how many socks would you pick so as to ensure that you exit the closet with a pair of similarly colored socks?
Answer: This is a simple probability question. The answer is 3 socks. Since there is only one black sock, selecting three socks guarantees a pair of white socks.
7. You are in a boat and you threw the anchor into the river. The anchor settled on the lake floor. What happens to the level of water before and after the anchor is dropped?
Answer: This is a reasoning question that doesn’t have one right answer. You could argue that it rises due to the density of the anchor, or that nothing happens because it is a flowing body of water. The important thing is being able to logically explain your answer.
8. You are in a boat in a pool with a rock in your hand. You throw the rock into the pool. Does the water level rise, drop, or stay the same?
Answer: Similar to the question above, but in this case you know that it is not a flowing body of water.
9. There are two rooms – one has three light bulbs, the other has three switches. You can’t go to the room with the bulbs. How will you find out which switch turns on which light bulb?
Answer: Rewire the circuitry so that they are parallel circuits, and then any switch will turn on all three lights.
10. You put a glass of water on a record turntable and begin slowly increasing the speed. What happens first – does the glass slide off, tip over, or does the water splash out?
Answer: The gravitational force of the speed increase would eventually cause the glass to tip over.
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