Construction interview questions and how to answer

Construction interview questions and how to answer

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Got an interview for a graduate job in civil engineering, construction or surveying? Treat the interview as a mutually beneficial conversation: be polite, be professional but, above all, be yourself.
Don’t just choose examples from your degree – pick ones from different areas of your life.
Construction, engineering and surveying interviewers are typically senior members of the team you’d be joining, and they are looking to find out more about you. Are you someone whom they could safely send to client meetings straight away? Would you fit well in a multidisciplinary project team? Can you get things done? If you have a related degree, do you know your stuff?
Part of the way in which you can answer these questions is in how you treat the interview: see it as a respectful conversation rather than a grilling.
Don’t be afraid to ask them questions or ask their opinions. The interview is as much for you to work out whether you’d get on with the employer as it is the other way around.

Types of graduate construction, civils and surveying interviews

The most common types of interviews are:


  • telephone (sometimes used by recruiters as a first interview)
  • face-to-face, based around competencies and your CV
  • technical.
You can expect to be asked about your skills and attributes, why you want the job, your understanding of the industry and your career aspirations. Here are some hints on how to approach some of the more common questions.

Possible interview question 1: ’Tell us about yourself’

This is the most likely first question of any interview. It invites you to share something about your background and is supposed to ease you into the interview. Focus on your academic and work background and why you want to work for the employer.
  • Know your CV: remember the dates of your work placements and be ready to talk about the tasks you did and skills you picked up.
  • Practise your pitch in front of a volunteer to ensure you sound natural and confident – you should be able to ad lib to fit the occasion.

Possible interview question 2: ‘Give an example of when you...’

Interviewers use ‘competency-based’ questions to find out whether you have the skills for the job, so expect to be asked for example of times when you used particular skills.
  • Don’t just choose examples from your degree – pick ones from different areas of your life. ‘It does make candidates stand out if they can call on examples from other areas of their lives, such as internships, part-time jobs or extracurricular activities,’ Neemita Mepani, graduate resourcing partner at AMEC, reflects.
  • Try to use different examples from those that you used in your application form or covering letter.
  • To ensure that you provide employers with a detailed picture of your capabilities, follow the STAR format when giving your examples. Explain the Situation, the Tasks you had to complete, the Actions you took and the Results of your actions. Place the most emphasis on the actions and the results. 

Possible interview question 3: 'What would you do if...?’

Scenario-based questions ask you how you would tackle a likely work-based situation, such as liaising with a team member who has a conflicting agenda to yours. The aim of these questions is to see how you think and go about solving problems.
  • Don’t be afraid to ask them questions to clarify what they’re asking before answering.
  • Take the time to think. If you’re nervous about pausing for too long, take a drink of water – a useful delaying tactic.
  • In your answer you could call upon times when you faced similar situations in your past, if appropriate – not only from any construction-related work experience you have but also from any group work at university, involvement in student societies or part-time work.

Possible interview question 4: 'What do you know about the company?’

You may also be asked what you’d expect from the company as a graduate employee, about the opportunities and threats facing the company and about your understanding of the industry. This is where research pays dividends. Before your interview, find out:
  • What does the firm do? is it a contractor or a consultant? In which markets or service areas does it operate? Is it a local, national or international company?
  • What are the organisation’s core values and aims?
  • Who are its main competitors? Is it generally perceived as doing better or worse than them?
  • What is it currently shouting about on Twitter, in the news and on its website?
Some useful resources include:
  • The TARGETjobs employer hubs (all we know about graduate employers in one place).
  • The employer’s website – their graduate section and corporate site.
  • National newspapers and trade press.
  • Your careers service, which has details about companies and contact details for graduates who may work for employers you’re interested in.
As part of your answer, you could ask them their opinion on the company’s direction.

Possible interview question 5: 'What do you know about the job role and career path?’

Questions assessing your knowledge of what the job role in that company entails and how your career path would pan out are designed to find out how committed you are to the career you’ve chosen and whether you have a realistic understanding of what the day job is like. Follow-up questions might include ‘What do you think you will be doing day to day?’, the classic ‘Where do you think you’ll be in five years?’ and ‘What do you think you will find most challenging in the role?’.This is another instance when you need to have done your research:
  • Your answer should partly be based on what you know about the company – whether it a contractor or consultant and the type of projects they work on, for example.
  • You should also bear in mind the typical career path of people in your role, such as a professional qualification, and relate it back to the training and development in that company. In five years' time, for example, would you usually be chartered?
  • Take into consideration which areas are growing within the company and why – or why not.

Possible interview question 6: 'What could you bring to the company, role or team?'

This question could also be phrased as ‘why should we hire you?’.
  • Your answer should partly be based around your skills (such as teamwork), and your enthusiasm for the industry, the job and the company.
  • If you have studied an industry-related degree, consider what you can offer in terms of your technical knowledge: during your course you should have been exposed to the latest thinking in terms of sustainability and methodology.  While you should not make out you know it all, your knowledge should add some value to the team.

Asking your own questions in construction interviews

All interviewers will give you the opportunity to ask questions, and this is a great opportunity to find out more about the organisation. Avoid asking about salary, anything that’s covered in detail on the company website or for help on your final year project. Good topics to ask about include:
  • how the employer tackles issues such as sustainability
  • landmark projects
  • what the interviewer enjoys most about their job
It’s impressive to ask a question that has come out of some of the research you’ve done yourself, for example, ‘I read that you were focusing on X sector. How is this affecting Y?’.

Tackling technical engineering and building surveying interviews

If you have a built environment degree or are going for an engineering job, expect to face some questions on your technical knowledge – how you apply basic principles to a work-based situation. This might involve a formal technical interview, a technical exercise, a presentation or some technical questions within a more general interview.
‘In a technical interview, we want to know whether you can apply the theory from your degree course in the real world,’ says Aman Rai, part of the graduate recruitment team at Arup. ‘We may ask you to come up with a solution to a problem and then ask you what would happen if we changed the design in a particular way.’
Top tips on preparing for a technical assessment
  • Practise sketching diagrams and brush up on your numeracy.
  • Read through your coursework and be prepared to talk about your project work and dissertation.
  • Ask a friend to give you feedback on the clarity of your explanations of technical solutions.
  • Research the company’s specialist areas of work
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