I applied through an employee referral. The process took 6 weeks. I interviewed at Valeo (Cairo, Cairo Governorate) in Jun 2016
Interview
The process took 6 weeks . It started by receiving a phone call from the HR department after sending my application through an internal referral .
The phone call was a simple screening English interview just to make sure that I have applied for the correct position and to set the schedule for the first phase in their recruitment process which is the Exams (likely after 3 or 4 days).
The Exam process usually starts at 9:00 a.m and it's divided into two different parts :
- Technical exam : MCQ concentrated on Embedded systems/Embedded C/Software Engineering .with an easy to moderate difficulty.
- English exam : MCQ focused on English grammatical and vocabulary skills and an Essay to write 10 lines about your careers goals as for me I found the exam easy but you will have trouble with this exam if you are lacking the sufficient linguistic skills.
I passed those exams and I was told to come in the next week to have a technical interview with a senior software engineer.
The technical interview started with simple questions about my graduation project and any previous projects if they were related to Embedded Systems . then the interview went to the general knowledge related to Embedded systems and Advanced C after that you will be asked to write a simple C code with a specific functionality. the interview took nearly 2 hours and was really friendly and it was oral most of the time and I passed it easily then I was told that I will be receiving their reply in two weeks .
After 3 days I received a phone call to set another technical interview with one of Valeo managers which was easier than the first and it was mainly related to general Embedded systems and C knowledge and he asked a C code at the end and the interview didn't take more than an hour.
The final phase was the HR interview which was the most difficult part as in my opinion, it was scheduled in a month after my last interview and it's in English so if you have any problems with your English you won't pass.
It took 15 minutes and it started with an Introductory question which you should start with your High school qualifications then your University .
What have you done after graduation .
Why did you pick this career/field/job .
A question related to any previous successful team work experience and why it was a success. Your graduation project (speak in brief the interviewer is not an engineer anyway).
Have you experienced any conflict while working in a team project and how did you solve it.
Your most significant achievement so far. Positive/negative feed back that you received as an individual in a team (another form of the famous strengths and weaknesses question).
What would you like to change or to develop in your self .
Why are you interested to work in Valeo and whether you are applying for another companies.
Unfortunately I had personal issues and I didn't sleep for 30 hours before the interview so I quickly lost my concentration and my nerve in this interview so I had done badly even I knew in myself that I would be rejected before the interview ended. and finally received a rejection e-mail after 5 days .
So the Key to pass the HR interview(which I failed) is to prepare yourself by practicing by doing a lot of rehearsals and to memorize certain situations of your previous team work experience that you were successful . know your strengths and weaknesses(DO NOT mention any weaknesses that may reject your application). practice on making up situations if you encountered new questions . deepen your breaths and don't lose the eye contact .Ask her to repeat any question that you didn't hear or understand .
The interviewer is very fast so DO NOT let her rush things up just listen to the question carefully ... Think ... answer slowly and take your time and remember the interviewer is eager to hear a word that may cause your rejection so be cautious.
This should guarantee you to pass this phase and to move into the last interview with Valeo Egypt geneal manager and it would be an easier version of the HR interview(3 minutes at most).
Interview questions [1]
Question 1
These are the main technical questions that I had encountered in the two technical interviews:
- Interrupt routine life time.
- Pins of the SPI and its operation.
- Causes of stack overflow.
- Difference between memories in terms of speed/density/usage/cost/operation.
-PWM operation and parameters.
-Difference between startup code / boot loader.
-In which memory the Interrupt vector table lies and in which position inside the memory.
-Function that takes an array and eliminates any repetitive elements inside an array and returns it (find a proper way to return it).
-Function that takes an array and prints another array with same size where the elements in the new array are the number of repetitive times of its indeces .in the input array.
Example :
Input = [1 2 4 5 6 2 4 0 2 2 3 3]
output=[1 1 3 2 1 0 1 0 0 0 0 0]
Explanation:
0 was repeated 1 time in the input array so we write 1 at the 0 index at the output array.
1 was repeated 1 time in the input array so we write 1 at the 1 index at the output array.
2 was repeated 3 times in the input array so we write 3 at the 2 index at the output array.
3 was repeated 2 times in the input array so we write 2 at the 3 index at the output array.
4 was repeated 1 time in the input array so we write 1 at the 4 index at the output array.
5 was repeated 0 time in the input array so we write 0 at the 5 index at the output array.
... and so on so forth
You can skip their questions with ease, but they still reject you, you can get the rejection email and the acceptance email on the same day together, and this shows the extent of their administrative confusion.
It is quite easy
The first round is group discussion, the second round is the HR round, and the third round is the manager round. Those who cleared all these rounds then only get the offer letter
I applied in-person. I interviewed at Valeo in Feb 2025
Interview
Physical interview. Tipical background questions about previous positions and career path, followed by a technical evaluation, with different questions relevant to the rolll in a paper, with a limit time to think and answer. Afterwards a revision and feedback about the exam.
