Best interview questions for a Construction Quality Engineer

Construction Quality Engineer Interview Questions

Construction Quality Engineers are perfectionists who can assess the quality of a project. They will define a company’s quality standards, find KPIs and measurement scales to assess this quality on, and give actionable feedback on this.

You should seek these skills in your Construction Quality Engineer:

Excellent eye for detail.
Knowledge of different types of construction projects.
High-level communication skills.
Exceptional analytical ability.
Ability to test and assess construction quality.

Interviewing a Construction Quality Engineer

Construction Quality Engineers take a project from good to great. They will ensure every project that reaches a customer or client is up to standards. Because this role will have an impact on your business image, the interview process is an essential time to assess their ability to take on this role.

To help with this, we’ve put together these example Construction Quality Engineer interview questions, which will help you to do just that!

How to open the job interview

It’s worth noting, even Construction Quality Engineers that have been in the business for years will feel a little nervous during their interview. This doesn’t mean they’re wrong for the role! To unlock a candidate’s full potential, you need to put them at ease to allow their personality to shine through.

The easiest way to do this is by asking a few easy opening questions that get the conversation flowing naturally.

Job Description available

See our Construction Quality Engineer job description here

For the interview

A positive opener to start

What is your proudest moment as a Quality Engineer?

What made you choose a career as a Construction Quality Engineer?

Behavioral Questions

Name a project or role you have worked on that you think went really well?
This will help you to understand a candidate’s experience, their confidence areas, and give you an insight into their passion for different projects.
Tell me about a project you worked on that you found extremely fun.
As above, here you get an idea of a candidate’s passion and experience.
Tell me about a time you made a change or adjustment to a project that greatly improved the final product.
This will highlight a candidate’s initiative and ability to guide a process to be the best it can be.
Describe a time when you have made a suggestion that a colleague didn’t agree with.
Construction Quality Engineers will need to know how to push their ideas forward and use their expert knowledge to reinforce these suggestions.

Soft Skills

How do you settle a debate between two colleagues who can’t decide on a decision?
This is an important skill for a Quality Engineer. Their expert opinion will help to make the right decision for the project, so knowing their communication skills are strong enough to support this is essential.
How would you turn negative feedback from a client into actionable improvements?
This is a test of a candidate’s leadership and initiative skills. Here, they need to take simple feedback from a client and turn it into points that they can pass on to the team in order to improve.
What skills do you have that help you in a Construction Quality Engineer role?
Here, a candidate will get a chance to boast their best skills, which can be either soft and hard skills.
When helping to explain the improvements that need to be made on a project, how do you ensure construction workers with less technical understanding than you follow what you’re saying?
This will again test a candidate’s communication, they should be able to mention a few techniques they have learned during previous roles.

Hard Skills

What is the largest project you have worked on?
This question will help you measure a candidate’s skills and experience against your own business needs.
Which quality assessment systems or processes have you used most in the past?
Here, you’ll get an idea of what assessment skills a candidate can bring to your team, and whether they will need to be onboarded onto any of your current processes.
Have you received any formal training for this role in the past?
This won’t always be necessary but will help give you an idea of what a candidate may need to be onboarded with when they join.
Have you received any construction site safety training in the past?
Construction Quality Engineers will often be working on active construction sites, so knowing your candidate can do this safely is highly important.
Do you have any training in specialised construction project types, such as electrical or plumbing?
This is a question aimed at finding whether a candidate will bring any niche knowledge to your team.

Operational / Situational Questions

If you were required to assess the quality of a construction project you hadn’t worked with before, how would you approach this issue?
A candidate should be able to mention researching the project type, as well as communicating with team members with more knowledge in the subject if needed.
Imagine you notice a large mistake in a project, how would you rectify this?
The mistake should be mentioned to the relevant team and the correct way to approach the project should be explained. The project should then be reassessed when improved.
Imagine you make a mistake when assessing a project’s quality, how do you fix this?
Mistakes happen! A candidate should mention owning up to the mistake and fixing it as soon as possible, in order to minimise damage. They should also mention learning from this.
If you were to join our team as a Construction Quality Engineer, what would your very first moves be?
Your candidate should familiarise themselves with past and current projects, current ways of working, and get to know the team.