Interview questions Flashcards by Demie Aquino

Tell me about yourself

Skills: Great, first of all I’d like to thank you all for inviting me to be interviewed for this position today and I look forward to getting a better understanding of the company beyond the research I’ve done into it.
So, I studied the job description, add value to team
I am motivated, enthusiastic, a strong team worker, an excellent communicator and listener, a creative problem solver and keen to get involved and try new things so I can grow and develop personally and professionally.
Understand the importance of respect, integrity, and great teamwork and how I must support my co-workers and work closely with other people within the team to achieve the company’s mission.
Experience: Over the years at university, I have gained valuable experience suitable for this role where I have worked on challenging projects with both small and large teams; and worked independently on my own project for my master’s producing medical scaffolds for tissue engineering.
Achievements: I have a consistent track record of being reliable and trustworthy and someone who could be relied upon to carry out challenging tasks under pressure. Peer review 4.43 (avg 3 contribution)
In this peer review, I received comments about my strong communication, leadership and organisation skills, task initiation, reliability and how I am hard working and easy to work with.
Type of person: I am someone who takes pride in delivering each task to a high standard and I strive to work to the best of my ability, embracing change positively. Always open to learning and development, skills and knowledge up to date, useful and relevant. I am enthusiastic to learn about the automation systems and how to improve the manufacturing technology.
If successful, I look forward to getting involved and learning the role quickly and getting to know as much about Plasma Biotal and their services, so I can start contributing and making a positive impact within your organization.

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Why Plasma Biotal and why this role?

After doing some research into your company, it really stood out to me as a creative and innovative company and a world market leader in producing orthopaedic coatings. To me, the fact that your company has been so successful and was able to establish a reputation for such high-quality services and products in just over 25 years really highlighted to me the commitment to clients your company has. I would love to be a part of and be proud to be working for a company who is always striving and moving forward.
I look forward to also being able to improve and develop with the company as the company grows, as I want to work here long term. I understand you are looking for someone who can support your ambitious plans for innovative improvements in the future and I would love to be part of this
I also understand that you hire many talented and bright people, which means I get the opportunity to work alongside those who can push me and challenge me and that’s great for my long term professional development. Also, to be able to work in a supportive, high integrity environment with like-minded people who have a genuine interest in my success and development with training is something to be valued greatly.
Yeah so those are some of the main reasons why I would love to join your company

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Why do you want this job?

I am hoping to start a career in the manufacturing industry and aim to achieve Chartered status, therefore this job is the perfect opportunity for me to achieve this goal. The job offers a unique opportunity to develop myself personally and professionally by learning new skills, knowledge and capabilities in a broad range of projects which can help me continuously add positive value to your company.
I also want this job as it ties closely to a field I have always been quite interested in. The more I learnt about the field of tissue engineering during my Master’s, the more I wanted to further my interest in it and start a career in it. During my master’s I realised just how much the growth in research into the scientific field of tissue engineering has increased in recent years due to its applications in regenerative medicine for bone trauma, this exacerbates the need for medical devices which require high quality coatings with similar properties to bones. I am keen to join an organisation involved in this growing field that I am passionate about and look forward to continuously learning and progressing my career in this field.

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What experience do you have which is relevant to this role?

After reading the job description, I made sure I was confident I could meet the requirements of the role.
- I have knowledge and experience in the manufacture of hydroxyapatite and other similar materials for medical devices, predominantly the most relevant experience I have is the work I did during my Master’s of which I achieved a high first class.
I do know however that your company also designs, develops and manufactures other calcium phosphate-based products for skeletal reconstructive surgeries so I believe this is also relevant
- I also have knowledge of analytical techniques such as Laser Diffraction, X-Ray Diffraction, SEM as I analysed data obtained from these analytical techniques for my Master’s
I know I have good computational skills and good working knowledge of Microsoft Office as it is something I used extensively throughout my degree and in other roles I have had.
I also have experience with mechanical engineering and design as I was able to successfully design an extractive distillation column to achieve separation of 1,3-BD and 1-butene using the solvent N,N-Dimethylformamide (DMF) over the span of 6 weeks in my third year for my design project. This also means I have good technical writing skills.
I can also communicate effectively at all levels, for example I conducted outreach activities and presentations to students in schools and colleges in my role as Student Ambassador.
o This means I can communicate positively and clearly, conveying and adapting information to target audiences based on their level of knowledge.
I also have strong attention to detail, well organised and focused on quality work. For example, in my role as a freelance proof-reader for multiple student theses, it was crucial for me to be detail orientated to be able to produce high quality work for my clients.
I am also willing to integrate with the organisation and work as part of a varied wider team to achieve positive change. For example, I collaborated with PASS co-leader to organise interactive problem-solving sessions for a diverse group of 12 first year students.
o Required integrity, respect and appreciation of others and their different backgrounds, which I believe are strong values to have when dealing with others.
I also have experience which can help me support improvements to environmental sustainability and efficiency. For example, during my third year design project, I produced LCA’s and studied optional units in my final year (Sustainable energy systems, sustainable resources and processing and sustainable development and industry)
I am also confident I can successfully be involved with manufacturing and process improvement projects from design to implementation due to my experience during my third year design project where I worked independently and within a group to design a sustainable plant for the production of 1,3-Butadiene.
Therefore, with these relevant experiences, I know I would enjoy the challenge of applying my knowledge of science and engineering within a diverse team in this role.

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What makes a great team in your opinion?

Of course, there are so many different factors that must all come together to make a team effective. The most important thing is that the team has a shared objective and a common goal that everyone in the team is fully aware of. However, to achieve the end goal, members of the team should have different skills and qualities so the team must be diverse in order to be successful. Wouldn’t be useful if we were all really good at the same thing but not so good at other things.
Team also has to be good at communicating, and not just speaking, also listening.
Also have to be supportive of other people within the team, and if someone is struggling, you need to be prepared to say right lets help that person get back up to speed and on track so you have to be a supportive team member.
Finally, to be an effective team you must be willing to take on board feedback and have to have the ability to constantly analyse your performance as you go along, and be open about any improvements that can be made.

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Tell us about a time when you worked as part of a team?

I have worked in many different teams in a variety of different settings. However, the most interesting project I have undertaken was during my third year at university. For this 16 week design project, I worked independently and within a group to design a sustainable plant for the production of 1,3-Butadiene. Due to the project’s open-ended and unbounded nature, it required my team and I to be flexible, analytical and innovative in our solutions to problems by applying our scientific and engineering knowledge. We all had to work outside of our comfort zones as a lot of what we encountered was completely new to us, and at some points a couple of people in the team were getting frustrated with the level new knowledge and self-teaching we had to do. However, I explained to the group that, as difficult as it is now, by learning new knowledge and skills, it will better us for our future when we do go into the workplace and have to put our knowledge to practical use. In the end, we were successful in the project as we all shared a common goal and interest and supported each other throughout to overcome the challenges. It was a great motivator for the team, as despite all the challenges we still managed to complete the project on time and to the required design specifications, so I believe it was a really good experience for everyone on the team.
I also thoroughly enjoyed the challenge the project presented which furthered my interest in roles involving designing and analysing innovative processes. The project equipped me with and allowed me to develop various soft skills such as leadership, collaboration, time management and organisation, as well as hard skills including Aspen Plus and data analysis with Excel.

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Why should we hire you?

I believe you should hire me because
o I am a fast learner and will get up and running in the role quickly which means I will be able to add value to your company quickly should you hire me. I am willing to and look forward to being able to learn from more experienced members of the company. I also have an interest in the field that your organisation specialises in and I believe it is important to hire someone who thinks positively about the work you do. I am also a creative person who favours creative approaches to solving problems and embraces change and feedback enthusiastically.
o I am also a loyal and trustworthy person with high integrity who will always act as a positive role model for your organisation. I hope to be able to showcase this loyalty to your organisation if you choose to hire me.
o Finally, you should hire me because I am looking for long-term employment with the same company. This means you will have a high performing employee long into the future who will grow and develop with your business.

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What is your greatest weakness?

That is a good question. I believe my greatest weakness is that I am too critical of myself sometimes and put too much pressure on myself as I always aim to hold myself to a high standard in everything that I do. Overtime, I have learned to recognise when I start to do this and I have been working on improving my mindset and understanding that as important as it is to ensure every piece of work I hand in is up to the highest standard, I shouldn’t overdo everything to the point where I proof read reports too many times, start picking at it and start seeing and producing problems in my head that don’t exist. I am quite aware of my flaws and what I can personally improve on. An activity that I have done to help me with this is through my proof-reading work for clients on the freelancing website UpWork. Doing this work has really helped me to stay focused on the tasks, due to sometimes very short deadlines given to me by clients, and I have come to realise that the standard that I work at and my attention to detail is already extremely high given my client satisfaction rate, however I never felt the need to overdo everything that I did.

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What is your greatest strength?

I believe my greatest strength is my positive and enthusiastic attitude, which means that I am open minded and my willingness to learn and challenge myself. I have always been quite eager to learn new skills and it is something that I thoroughly enjoy, especially if it is in my area of interest. For example, cycling. Growing up I never had a bike and never learnt, failed cycling proficiency. Learned how to ride 2.5 years 2nd year and in that time I really saught to improve my cycling skills and now its one of my favourite hobbies to do in my spare time.

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Name a time a team member was not cooperating effectively and how you resolved this

I remember a time during my Process Safety project where one member of the group had consistently missed meetings and work deadlines that we had set up for each other. I decided to invite the person for a private one to one call to understand why they were finding it difficult to contribute in order to better understand their situation.
They then opened up that they were having some personal issues at home and wasn’t able to concentrate on the work as much as he wanted to. However, he didn’t feel comfortable bringing it up in front of the group as we had only met each other and he felt he had to over explain the details as he was feeling guilty about his lack of contribution.
I explained to him that we’re a team and we’re here to support each other and at the end of the day, we all go through difficult periods so I understand his situation and I reassured him that the others would feel the same. I also offered to revisit the team’s goals with the person and talk it through with him so I could better facilitate his tasks by taking on some of his workload during this period when I had completed my sections.
Its important in situations like this to empathise with and give moral support to group members rather than ostracize them without understanding the full situation, which is something I have encountered during my years at university.

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A time where you had to overcome a challenge when working on a project.

I was discussing how to complete a task with my group members during my 3rd year design project. The results we were getting didn’t seem plausible and some group members suggested we carry on using the numbers despite them clearly being wrong as we had worked so long on those results.
It was my job not only to say no to proceeding with these results but to also explain the consequences of using them down the line, affecting the rest of the project.
The issue was that the sizing of equipment such as storage tanks and distillation columns seemed far too large for the production scale we were aiming for which in turn would affect the economics of the project. Therefore, using the results we were getting would be unfavourable as it would make the design uneconomic and completely write off our whole project.
When I challenged the members of the group, they became frustrated as trying to get new results would take more time and the section deadline was coming up. I stood my ground and explained how making a mistake early on would just have a large snowball effect at the end and fixing something like this, despite it taking a few hours or days longer, would make our lives a whole lot easier down the line.
After discussing this situation with our project supervisor, they eventually understood the effects of doing this and agreed with me. Therefore, we had to work extra hard to resolve the issues with our results and worked to the last minute to fix it.
This situation was challenging for me as I had to deal with a conflict within the group, which itself is already quite an uncomfortable situation especially as most people were understandably tired and just wanted to move onto the next section, however I take pride in my integrity and will always aim do the right thing in any given situation.

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Where do you see yourself in 5 years time?

I genuinely see myself still working for your organisation.

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How would you handle stress and pressure in this role?

I believe I work best when I’m under pressure and up against time or working as part of a team to get a difficult task done within a set time frame.
I handle stress first and foremost by making sure I’m fully organised in my work
If I know what I need to do during each day and each week then whenever a stressful situation comes along, its far easier to deal with them
I also handle stress and pressure by remaining calm in every situation. If things go wrong the only way you can get through them is by having a clear mind so you can communicate clearly. You need to remain calm and composed and also have a positive mindset.
It would also be helpful to work together and draw on other people’s experiences as part of a team to achieve an end goal which I believe really helps when encountering stressful situations as you are able to support each other.

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Tell us a bit more about your master’s dissertation

Yep great, I actually really enjoy talking about my Master’s topic. So my Master’s topic is actually something I’ve been really interested in for a while, hence why I chose it and honestly my supervisor Dr. Anastasiou is so knowledgeable in his field and really gave me great support and guidance throughout.
So the main aim of my project was to produce a bi-layered three component chitosan scaffold. So the three components of my scaffold was as mentioned chitosan and also cerium oxide nanoparticles and finally a calcium phosphate mineral in the form of brushite. So I really put quite a bit of thought into these biomaterials and I landed on chitosan as the base material as it’s already a well-studied material and highly biocompatible with most human tissues. It’s also produced from the deacetylation of chitin obtained from low-cost crustacean shell sources making it quite a sustainable material to source. I then chose cerium oxide to be loaded into the inner layer of my scaffold to help with soft tissue regeneration as it has anti-inflammatory and antibacterial properties as well as angiogenic potential (growth of blood vessels from existing). Finally of course I chose calcium phosphate for the outer layer of my scaffold which facilitates the regeneration of calcified tissue. Calcium phosphate comprises approx. 65% of bone tissue so really that was an easy choice.
So I synthesised brushite via a wet chemical precipitation method and characterised the brushite powders using XRD, to determine the phase purity and crystallinity of the synthesised brushite and of course compared it to the reference pattern obtained from ICDD (international centre for diffraction database), particle size distribution analysis with laser diffraction (Mastersizer 3000) and SEM (for size and shape, needle or flat plate like)
I also characterised commercial cerium oxide with the same methods.
With these biomaterials, I then fabricated the scaffolds with varying concentrations of the biomaterials so I’d end up with multiple samples for comparison to ascertain the best sample for implantation.
So I used a freezing and lyophilising technique to fabricate the scaffolds using a freeze dryer and then characterised each scaffold sample to determine their mechanical properties and determine how they may behave if implanted into a host. I did this with surface image analysis using a stereo microscope, calculated theoretical porosities of the scaffolds using their densities, performed swelling analysis, hydrolytic degradation studies and thermogravimetric analysis and came up with my own conclusions to which scaffold composition would be most effective, using information from literature to back up my conclusions.
So for all of my data analysis I used excel and used origin to produce my graphs.
o To be able to do my experiments, I have good general laboratory skills I had to show that I can follow standard operating procedures, be creative yet methodical in my designs and synthesis methods and be responsible for my own project. During the project, I sought to continuously improve and adapt my methods of synthesis and fabrication, learning from previous samples. I also have good technical writing skills.
So yeah I really honestly did enjoy my dissertation topic and it was really quite unique and different to everything I had learned from my previous years. It really made me interested in the field of tissue engineering and regenerative medicine and is the reason why I do want to pursue a career in this field further.

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Can you tell us about the 3rd year design project

So for this project, I worked with 5 other team members to design a sustainable plant for the production of 1,3-butadiene. This was a 16 week project which is the longest project I have undertaken so far. It was a really interesting experience and I was able to work with like-minded people towards a common goal which I really enjoyed.
So the project itself was extremely open ended and due to the project’s open-ended and unbounded nature, it required me to be flexible, analytical and innovative in my solutions to problems by applying my scientific and engineering knowledge. I had to work outside of my comfort zone as a lot of what I encountered was completely new to me, however I enjoyed the challenge the project presented which furthered my interest in roles involving designing and analysing innovative processes. The project equipped me with and allowed me to develop various soft skills such as leadership, collaboration, time management and organisation, as well as hard skills including Aspen Plus and data analysis with Excel.

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How did you lower the installed costs of vessels and trays by 9%?

I was able to lower the installed costs of the vessels and trays by optimising the length of the column, mass of the column, the column diameter and plate spacing. To ensure the optimisation was successful and did not have any negative impacts on the design, I ensured that the downcomer clearance check was satisfied (not too big - must be less than the height of the outlet weir) to prevent trays from flooding from the downcomer becoming unsealed and vapour flowing up the downcoming resulting in flooded trays. I also ensured that residence time was at least the minimum of 3 seconds for non-foaming systems. A minimum residence time within the downcomer is required to allow the vapour stream entrained within the liquid stream to disengage [6], preventing choking in the downcomer. And with these changes through optimisation I was able to reduce the installed costs of vessels. Double pass flow

How did you optimise the design and reduce process costs by 23%?

- My team and I were able to optimise the design and reduced process costs by 23% with heat integration. So, we determined the enthalpy change across temperature intervals and produced a grand compositive curve to determine the breakdown of minimum utility requirements and heat recovery potential. Initially, fired heating alone was utilised in this system to heat process streams to a temperature of 265°C. Since fired heating is costly, the use of flue gas, from fired heating, for process heating was optimised to minimise utility costs. We then introduced MPS and LPS as hot utilities to reduce the duty of the fired heating. So, when comparing the two scenarios where we used only fired heating as hot utility compared to fired heating as steam, the costs we determined were reduced by 23% when heat integrating.

Tell us a bit more about your role as a Proofreader

Yeah so this proofreading role I actually started after I graduated as sort of a thing I did on the side during summer. In this role, I’ve proofread multiple student theses and provided syntax and grammar improvements for my clients. So this role really required me to be quite detail orientated as of course I really wanted to provide the best service for my clients and ensure they were happy with the work I produced. I actually did quite a few proof reading jobs when I first started and got quite good ratings so I achieved the rising talent badge which showcases my early success with upwork clients where some of the criterias are to Maintain a 100% complete profile with accurate skills and genuine work and complete projects on time and as promised for clients.
Really stood out to me and stuck with me ever since. Of course when you proofread you also learn so much about the different topics that you take on and it really opened up my eyes to how certain fashion brands prioritise sustainability more than others. Motivated me to be more aware of the sort of brands I shop with, and I try to be as sustainable as I can be in my fashion choices.

Tell us a bit more about your role as Student Ambassador

I’ve always been very interested in STEM outreach sort of passing on my knowledge and enthusiasm for STEM subjects onto the future generation. So it was really a good opportunity for me to talk about my positive experience studying my degree, answering people’s questions and giving more information about the subject. So in this role I would do presentations for students in schools and colleges and I’d also help out on UCAS days and Open days and be involved in Q&A sessions on those days both online and in person. So this role means I can communicate positively and clearly, conveying and adapting information to target audiences based on their level of knowledge.
As a female myself in quite a male dominated field, in probably my cohort of 220 students there were probably like 40 females if that, I always wanted to encourage other girls and women to really pursue a career in STEM. Even now I still attend women in stem events so it is something I am actively interested in.

Tell us a bit more about your role as Yard Marshal

I actually have gone back to working at Amazon as a yard marshal part time during my job search as I do enjoy the work I do there.
So in my role I’m pretty much sort of in charge of the yard, the lorries and trucks that come in. I help guide the lorries into their bays, complete paperworks such as vehicle audits, safety check sheets, transportation discrepancy reports and risk assessments to ensure safety in the yard is the greatest priority. I then help the warehouse associates unload or load the lorries safely and also work with the dispatch team with amazon flex drivers sort of guiding the drivers to where they need to go and problem solve complications such as missing parcels. So for example if a driver is missing a parcel, I’ll go through their parcels, count them and identify which parcel is missing. I would then report this through their app and remove that parcel from their deliveries. So normally this would happen if someone cancels their parcel last minute so we don’t actually have it but its still showing up in the system. But yeah I always strive to make sure situations like this are dealt with quickly to not delay the driver further. This role really requires me to be decisive and confident in my decisions and be fully aware of everything that is going on as I am responsible for my colleagues and the drivers health and safety.

Tell us a bit more about your mapping role

Yep so this volunteering role is actually for a very interesting cause which is funded by the OSM foundation. The organisation aims to help Major Limb Loss (MLL) victims access health and rehabilitation provisions by mapping main roads, tracks, buildings and footpaths to better connect remote regions of northern Uganda to health care provisions.
So in my role, I used satellite imagery to identify these tracks and roads. I worked on smaller projects with smaller square footage areas alone but I also coordinated with other volunteer for large scale mapping projects which would be too much to take on a single mapper. So over the years I’ve completed over 16 large scale mapping projects in total and many more smaller scale mapping projects.
I really enjoyed this volunteering experience as I could see I was really able to make a difference to other people’s lives and that’s really rewarding and motivating.

Do you have any questions for us?

Thank you very much, I really enjoyed the process. I just have a few questions if that’s okay.
* As I said previously, I plan to stay with the company for a long period of time if I’m successful and I’m interested to hear what plans you have for the business over the next 5 to 10 years.
* If I am successful, what would you need me to concentrate on in the first 30 days of starting?
* What’s the culture like within the organisation?
* Can you tell me more about the team I would be part of in this role?
* What sort of advice would you give to the successful applicant who wants to excel in this role?
Before we finish off, I just wanted to say thank you very much for interviewing me. I’ve really enjoyed the process and it’s been great learning a bit more about the company. If you do hire me, I promise that I will be a high performing employee and I will give it my all. Thank you very much.

Can you tell us about how you designed the extractive distillation column

Debating between LLE or extractive distillation. Landed on extractive dist because LLE uses more solvent which, in the case of a leak, would be more toxic for the environment.
I then chose my solvent which was DMF because it has a wide liquid range and it seemed the most attractive solvent at the time.
I then chose a higher operating pressure as the components I was separating had relatively low boiling points and to avoid expensive refrigeration cooling for low boiling point components
I then conducted short cut distillation which helped me obtain initial estimates for number of stages, reflux ratio and feed tray location so I could start simulating the design on aspen plus.
Then to get better estimates I used a bunch of different equations like Fenske equation, underwood equation, Gilliland correlation, Kirkbride correlation to determine the min number of stages, min reflux ratio, actual number of stages, optimum feed tray location.
Then I did rigorous simulation varying solvent to feed ratio to get the desired purity of 1,3-bd.
I then did initial cost estimations and column and condenser and reboiler sizing.
Then did material and energy balances and designed and optimised the internals of the column.
Then did some mechanical design with like shell thickness, head thickness etc and checking bending and stresses.
Then conducted sensitivity analysis, start up and maintenance and a final economic analysis.

Tell us a bit more about your role as pass leader

So I was a pass leader in my second year of university. Every first year is allocated a pass leader group and I remember my Pass leaders in first year were really helpful and gave me a lot of tips with housing and stuff like that early on in the year. The help they offered me really motivated me to want to give advice and help to other first year students. So I worked with a pass co-leader to organise interactive activities for our group of 12 first year students which involved sessions where we’d discuss areas to live in towards the start of the year and during exam times we’d go through past paper questions together and problem them solve them. The students would also come to us for help with their lab reports which they always said was really useful as I had done those labs previously and was able to show them the kind of things I included. And yeah at the end of the year, they were asked to submit feedback about their sessions and it was all positive comments really and I was very glad to have helped because I was in their situation the year prior so I really knew the struggles they were going through. And in this role it was really important to have high integrity, respect and appreciation for others and their different backgrounds as a lot of the students in my group came not only from other cities in the UK but also from different countries.

How did you synthesise brushite?

Wet chemical precipitation method - calcium nitrate tetrahydrate, diammonium hydrogen phosphate. Calcium nitrate solution heated to 37 C, (temp of whole synthesis cannot exceed 40 C as crystal structure of final prod may be altered), to this solution the same volume of diammonium hydrogen phosphate solution was added dropwise with a syringe pump. Stirred continously, covered with parafilm to prevent co2 ingress and left to stir and precipitate for 1 h. Then excess liquid (deionised water) was removed from top, then frozen overnight. Then freeze dried. By freezing slowly overnight, this allows faster vapour removal during the sublimation phase due to the production of larger interlinked crystal structures which leads to a faster freeze drying cycle. This was especially crucial within a lab where temperature sensitive materials are used, as the freeze dryer can increase the average room temperature by approximately 2 °C and someone in the lab was actually working on ice cream. XRD - Phase purity and crystallinity. The sharp diffraction peaks with small peak widths confirms the crystalline structure of brushite. All major peaks of the diffraction pattern align with peaks in the ref pattern. Therefore, the higher intensities of these peaks may be as a result of the shape of the brushite crystal particles and it can be assumed that the crystals favour the (1 1 -1) plane

Laser diffraction

Laser diffraction measures particle size distributions by measuring the angular variation in intensity of light scattered as a laser beam passes through a dispersed particulate sample. Large particles scatter light at small angles relative to the laser beam and small particles scatter light at large angles.

XRD

XRD works by irradiating a material with incident X-rays and then measuring the intensities and scattering angles of the X-rays that leave the material [1]. A primary use of XRD analysis is the identification of materials based on their diffraction pattern.

SEM

The SEM is an instrument that produces a largely magnified image by using electrons instead of light to form an image. A beam of electrons is produced at the top of the microscope by an electron gun. The electron beam follows a vertical path through the microscope, which is held within a vacuum.