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Interview and selection day: content, schedule and selection criteria

Pleased to meet you! Here are some useful tips and information for your interview or selection day at Volkswagen.

2 min read

What’s important to us and why we conduct interviews and selection days

Using our application process, we want to find out whether you fit into the team not only in terms of your technical expertise, but also personally. In our interviews, we’ll ask you various questions which you should answer using specific examples if possible. Ideally, these are examples from your own career, but you can also use other situations for this. What we want is to get to know you as a person so that we can make an assessment.

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Example questions

  • What values generally guide you?
  • How do you approach complex topics?
  • How do you respond to challenges and difficulties?
  • How do you go about dealing with other people?
  • In what form do you take responsibility?
  • And how do you deal with self-reflection?

We also want to know what compliance and integrity mean to you personally, how you uphold them, and how you make sure that others uphold them.

Selection Day

If you apply for our StartUp Direct or StartUp Cross career entry programme, for the PhD programme or a job for experienced professionals and we like your application, we invite you to our selection day (for professionals or management entry) so that we can get to know you a little better.

Brief overview

Brief overview

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The selection day includes an interdisciplinary interview and various exercises depending on the entry level, such as being asked to give a presentation. An online test must be completed in advance.

The selection day usually takes place online using the Teams program
Language: German or English
  • Preparation

    We invite you to our selection day in good time so that you can get ready for it. If your selection day includes a presentation task, that task will be described in your invitation. Otherwise, we recommend that you take another look at Volkswagen as a company, what makes us special and what our corporate values are.

    Technical requirements
    Because the selection day usually takes place online, you should make sure in advance that you have a quiet, undisturbed place to talk. You also need a computer, smartphone or tablet with a microphone and webcam, optionally a headset with integrated microphone – and a reliable internet connection. If your selection day features a presentation task, make sure you know how to share the presentation from your device.

    In case you have technical issues for whatever reason, the invitation includes a dial-in phone number in addition to the dial-in link.

  • Who takes part

    Usually, three observers take part in the selection day:

    • a moderator
    • a representative of the relevant department or a closely related one
    • a representative from HR

    The moderator guides everyone through the selection day, presents the tasks and question areas, and explains the selection criteria. The other two observers usually just listen, but may ask questions in between.

  • What matters

    We want to use the selection day to get to know you better so that we can assess how well you fit into our team and Volkswagen. It may sound obvious, but just be yourself. When you talk to us, show us who you are, what’s important to you, the values you live by and how you tackle challenges and complex situations. Use specific examples if possible, ideally from your working environment and/or studies. The best way to do this is to put yourself in our place and think about what we need to know about you.

  • Acceptance and "rejection"

    After the selection day, you will receive personal, criteria-based feedback from us and find out whether you have passed. If you have, we usually give a commitment straight away, subject to any signatures that need to be obtained, and go through the next steps with you up to onboarding.

Interview

If you apply for one of our entry opportunities for those at school (such as vocational trainings) or university (such as internships) and we like your application, the department invites you to an interview to get to know each other.

What happens during the interview with Volkswagen?

Your interviewers come from the department for which you are applying. It usually starts with you introducing yourself based on your career so far. You have about 5 minutes to do this. We then go into your career more closely and ask you, for example, about successes, failures and how you dealt with them. Depending on the entry level, we also ask you how you react in certain situations – and ideally you can give us actual examples. We’d also like to know a little about your professional goals.

Online or on site? This is where the interview takes place

The department decides whether the interview takes place online or whether we invite you to come to us.

  • If the appointment is at our plant, we of course tell you in the invitation where to find us. An initial overview of how to get there is available here. Open directions
  • For an online appointment, you need a computer, smartphone or tablet with a microphone and webcam, or a headset with integrated microphone, and of course a reliable internet connection. In case you have technical issues for whatever reason, we give you a dial-in phone number in addition to the dial-in link. Tips and hints for online interviews

Perfectly prepared: our tips for the interview or selection day

How can I best prepare for my interview or my selection day with Volkswagen? Find out here:

German or English? Which language is actually spoken during the selection day or in the interview?

The selection days and interviews usually take place in German. For applicants from abroad, we also offer English as an option. If you apply for a position in a department where only English is spoken, the selection day or interview will be in English anyway.

And finally

We’re very much looking forward to meeting you.

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