I had my interview and POSS today. Since I flew from the west coast to NY it took me all day to get there. My flight was supposed to leave at 8 a.m. It was delayed until 10:30, which of course meant I'd miss my connection by wide margin in Wash DC. I told the ticket people, hey, I have a big test and an interview first thing tomorrow morning. I can't be pulling into town at 1 a.m. and get 3 hours sleep. Get me on another flight please. So they did. I ended up leaving at 11:30, stopped in O'Hare, delayed again because they couldn't find a crew for our plane. I ended up landing in Syracuse at 9 p.m., another 45 mins to get my rental, and another hour to drive the 50 miles to the hotel. I got about 4 1/2 hours of sleep after traveling 12 hours, getting to bed after midnight.
Lesson: if you are depending on air travel and you are going cross country, ask the HR to have you flown out two days before. They'll pay one night of hotel, but it's worth it if you have to pay the other night yourself so that you'll be rested and focused. The POSS started at 7:30 sharp, and I was pretty much toast from the day before. I couldn't get out of my own way on the first section, short math. I did pretty well on the next three sections, then the 5th was long math, and by this time I was in gear. So if I didn't make it, that first section is what got me.
The interview was conducted by 3 people. Their positions at this plant were called chief reactor operator, shift manager, and then there was an HR person. I got the following questions, and only these: why do you want this position? What training have you had that would apply to this position? Tell me about a time you were told by someone over you to do something that was against the rules. Tell me about a time that you were told to do something you didn't agree with, but wasn't against the rules. How did you go about that?
As soon as I answered the last question, they asked me if I had any for them. So I broke my legal pad out and asked about 7 questions, writing the answers down. I knew afterward I wouldn't remember what they said very clearly. When they had finished, I decided to risk asking them a final question: can I tell you why you should hire me? They said yes, and so I did. From this site I was far more ready than I would otherwise have been, and at the end I kind of had to create the opportunity to share what I did. The bright side is that next time I'll be much better at this.
This all took place on the 2nd. We were told they'd email us our POSS results by afternoon of the 3rd, and should know of their final decision in a week to 10 days. That's my first experience interviewing in the nuke industry and I have to say I've never experienced anything quite like it.