Most likely questions to be asked at an interview

1. Give an example of a situation, where time schedule has been upset by unforeseen
circumstances and what did you do?
2. Tell us about the time when you had to coordinate other peoples schedule to finish
a project?
3. Describe one of the most stressful interaction you have had with internal / external
customer.
4. What is the most challenging experience you ever had through out your career?
5. What was the best project that you ever done and explain what were you doing?
6. What are the programmes that you have used before or that you can use?
7. Any technical question e.g. What is the minimum cover or bedding of sand that
you need in
order to lay a sewer pipe?

Answers

1. Make an example of a construction project whereby you were constructing a

road and at a certain chainage there was this big boulder / rock which needed
blasting. You went back to check the geotechnical investigations and the
geologists had missed the rock and it was not provided for in the bill of
quantities. You as consultants had to make provisions for blasting of that rock
and you went to ask for the rate from the contractor. Finding that it was going
to disturb the critical path on the tasks scheduled, you requested the client to
grant you a variation order. The budget was proposed to come from the
contingency funds. You can also include that worse of all under this boulder
there was ground water seeping through just after blasting the rock and
another situation come across as the client had indicated that there were no
additional amount to be provided on the projects budget. Then you had to
communicate these unforeseen circumstances with the Mayor to provide
funds in order to complete the project and deliver the services to the needy
community. You can say that the mayor had to coordinate these matters with
the council and the national government in order for the project to be given
another round of extra funds.

2. On a roads project you had to construct layer works and surface the road and
there were box culvert structures which had to be constructed by the
emerging contractor. On the programme the sub-contractor had to finish the
structural construction just before the surfacing of the road begins and the
sub-contractor seemed to be far behind the programme. Meetings were held
and the contractor was not voicing out if what was the cause of them being
behind the schedule and was saying that they will cache up. You had to
personally talk to the sub-contractor to find out, what was the problem was,
only to find that the sub-contractor had no enough funds for purchasing
material. You had to go out of your schedule to assist the sub-contractor in
terms of opening accounts and pursuing the steel and concrete companies to
give them material and pay the material on delivery or fee account claim. You
also had to work night shifts in order to assist the sub-contractor to meet the
targets for the project to be delivered in time.

3. One of the most stressful situation you had was with your e.g. Contractor. The
contractor was not following the safety regulations on site while working on a
busy main road putting up road signs. The contractor was not providing the
safety vests, safety helmets, gloves and goggles to the labourers. You spoke
to the contractor and issued a site instruction that he must provide these
 safety equipments and protective clothes to the labour, but the contractor
was not interested and took the site instruction book with big ignorance. As a
result you had to penalize the contractor for not following simple instructions.
On the third time you had to dismiss the contractor and appoint the next
contractor.

4. Any challenges you ever met e.g. In your work place you had a student
technician and you were responsible for him / her, so you get this big or
challenging project and you had to do everything from start i.e. from
communication with the client, arranging letters of acceptance, holding
meetings with the councilors and the community to inform them about the
project, preliminary design, design and producing drawings, tender
documentation including bill of quantities and specifications, going out to
tender, tender evaluation reporting, appointment and chairing meetings for
handovers and progress meetings and site visits / supervision until the
completion of the project, preparation and producing the snag lists and the
completion certificate and handing over the project back to the client. So you
had to teach or transfer skills to the student Technician at the same time
produce quality work.

5. Simple and straight forward, talk about any project you were involved in and
you had good exposure of and that was challenging to you.
NB// Include everything Structures, Roads, Sewer and Water reticulation. Also
talk about safety (OHSAct).

6. Explain from the basic Administration programmes e.g. Microsoft word, excel,
PowerPoint, Access to design programmes e.g. AutoCAD, Ally cad, Civil
Designer, GIS, Pipe mate, Road mate, Microsoft Projects and other relevant
programmes that you can use.
NB// Please never say you dont know GIS Geographic Informational System
it is so easy it is all about the X , Y and Z points where Z is the level of that
particular fixture/ structure or road co-ordinates.

7. The minimum cover of a sewer pipe is determined by the depth and size of
that particular sewer line and the volume of the sewer that should be carried
by the line. Therefore SABS / SANS standards must be used in order to
determine the minimum bedding and the type of bedding required.

They might ask you again if what other standards or specifications are used in
civil engineering.
COLTO, TRH, TMH, CSRA, Tender or document specifications etc.