Petro Canada Interview

[bigbadboss101]

I have one next week.

[Gainsbarre]

Originally posted by realazy
Sorry for bumping up an older thread. But I just want to ask Gainsbarre or any other people that would know how Petro-Can usually does their interviews.

I have an interview scheduled on Thursday for an internship position with them and was wondering what kind of interview style they use and what types of questions might be asked. And if there are any questions that are really technical or difficult to answer?

Alright. The only two questions that I was asked in the first interview were:
1) Do you enjoy teamwork?
2) What do you know about Petro-Canada

For 1, well the answer there is obvious -- "yes I enjoy teamwork as people of diverse backgrounds bring about cognitive conflict that is beneficial for the development of new ideas. but I can also work independently when needed..." and so on

I nearly cracked up at how surprised the interviewer was when I answered 2). I of course mentioned how Petro-Canada is an interated oil & gas company with upstream operations in Alberta and off of Canada's east coast, refining capacity in Edmonton and Montreal and downstream operations (service stations) across the country. The old man was so shocked that I knew about all that -- "usually when people think of Petro-Canada they think of the place where they fill up their cars and maybe buy a few snacks" (huh??!?!). Apparently none of the earlier interviews caight onto the fact that Petro-Canada is more than just a downstream service station (and I had no O&G experience myself). So be familiar with all of Petro-Canada's operations -- UPSTREAM as well as downstream! (just a general overview should be fine).

Second interview, a bunch of behavioural questions -- things like "name a time you went above and beyond the call of duty", "name a time when you had to make a presentation", "name a time when you disagreed with a colleague and how that was resolved", "name a time when you improved a process", and so on. Third interview was more of the same. I wasn't asked any technical questions. And there were none of those "why are manhole covers round" or "how many piano tuners are there in Chicago" type questions.

Hope this helps...any other questions just let me know.

[TVG]

Originally posted by Neons4life
my wife worked for them, and it was by far the worst job she had.

It's a big company. Some jobs probably do suck. My mom worked there for 32 years and they treated her VERY well.

[sanwen]

Hi, Gainsbarre,
How long did it take for them to get back to you after the first interview?

[Gainsbarre]

Originally posted by sanwen
Hi, Gainsbarre,
How long did it take for them to get back to you after the first interview?

They took their sweet time overall -- about 8 weeks total. However, I had actually received an email from the interviewer about 20 minutes after the first meeting, asking me to come back for another interview.