This article will help job seekers who are looking at General Motors for their career future. Included are the facts about the General Motors hiring process along with preparation tips for candidates at all stages of the process.
What Is General Motors?
General Motors is best known for designing, manufacturing, marketing and distributing vehicles. It is headquartered in Detroit and has produced over 9,600,000 vehicles. It has locations worldwide, with a total of 157,000 employees.
Benefits for employees at General Motors include:
- Comprehensive medical plan
- Dental plan
- Vision plan
- 3-6 weeks of vacation time (depending on amount time at GM)
- 16 annual paid holidays (may differ by country)
- Paid parental leave for mothers, fathers, and adoptive parents
- Life insurance
- Disability benefits
- Employee and family discounts on GM vehicles
GM Brands:
Chevrolet |
Buick |
GMC |
Cadillac |
OnStar |
GM Financial |
Ultium |
ACDelco |
Periscope |
Vehicle Intelligence Platform |
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GM Hiring Process
The General Motors hiring process has four stages: Search and Apply, Resume Review, Assessments, and Interviews and Selection. The entire process takes approximately 6-8 weeks depending on location and role. Detail about each of these stages can be found below.
Search and Apply
The first step to getting a job at General Motors is filling out an application on their website for your desired role. Before applying online, they suggest carefully reviewing the qualifications for the role to make sure you are applying for a job that will match your skills and interests. Common qualifications may include being a college graduate, having a certain number of years of experience, and being authorized to work in the country you are applying to work in. However, these qualifications will differ depending on the desired role. Before submitting your application, make sure your resume and cover letter are professional and ready to be submitted to be reviewed by General Motors recruiters.
GM Resume Review
After you apply, GM recruiters will review your resume and may schedule an initial screening interview to ask clarifying questions about your qualifications for the role you are applying for. The resume review process can take from to 3-4 weeks, after which the recruiters will reach out and invite you to complete assessment tests relevant to your role. While you are completing the assessments, it is also common to schedule a face-to-face interview at this point in the recruitment process.
What Are the General Motors Assessments?
The assessments for General Motors differ largely by role, but they may include:
- Apprenticeship Test
This will differ depending on the role you are applying for (e.g., assembly line workers, engineers, and supervisory roles). Most often, this will be a mechanical aptitude test that will assess your basic mechanical knowledge and skills. Other roles require passing a hands-on assessment as well.
- DDI Adaptive Reasoning Test (ART)
The ART is an exam that measures a candidate’s cognitive ability and predicts success in the role you are applying for. Each question is based on the answer of the question before it. If you answered the question correctly, the next question will be more difficult and vice versa. This assessment is mostly used for leadership positions at General Motors. Read more about DDI tests.
- Personality Test
This test is designed to see if your personality fits the role you are applying for. Almost all applicants at General Motors will be asked to complete a personality assessment at some point in the hiring process. It assesses how you will fit in their work environment, including how you will deal with clients, other employees, and the challenges of the role. These tests are most often multiple choice and they may ask the same question in multiple ways to see if you are consistent in your personality. The best tip for personality assessments is to make sure you understand the role you are applying for, so you can have an idea of what the company is looking for.
- Numerical Reasoning
Numerical reasoning tests are the most common psychometrics used by companies to assess how quickly and accurately candidates can handle numerical information. The tests usually have a range of questions having to do with finance, accounting, and financial analysis. These are most often multiple choice and include a time limit. While taking this assessment you will have to use basic mathematical skills along with interpretation and analysis of financial data presented to you.
- Verbal Reasoning
Verbal reasoning tests look at your deductive and reasoning skills. The questions have a wide range of format, subject, and objectives. They may be sentences or paragraphs, addressing history or business, and assessing reading comprehension or if you can determine the authenticity of claims. This test is most often multiple choice.
- Situational Judgement Test
Situational judgement tests (SJT) will have you review generally 25-50 hypothetical situations that you may face in the role you are applying for. They can be given in multiple different formats such as written, audio, or verbal.
- Ramsay Mechanical Aptitude Tests
How to Prepare for the General Motors Assessments?
To prepare for these assessments, it is suggested that you practice assessment tests before you take them for the company, so you can be sure that you won’t be caught off guard during the assessment that counts. Another important part of preparing for the General Motors Assessments, is to understand the role you are applying for, so you can determine what qualities and skills recruiters will be looking for in your assessment results.
Interviews & Selection
Most roles at General Motors include a phone interview and then a face-to-face interview with people from the team you are applying for. Some roles may also include a technical interview.
Basic interview questions for General Motors include information about your previous work experience, your work attitudes, and how you may handle different situations relevant to your role. It is not uncommon for the interviews to include an integrity test aimed at understanding your loyalty to your employer.
After the interview, the recruiter will extend a job offer if all goes well. Candidates who receive job offers with General Motors are also asked to complete a pre-employment drug test and a criminal background check.
GM Interview Tips
To prepare for your interview with General Motors, we suggest becoming familiar with some of their common interview questions and devising a strategy to answer them beforehand. Some common interview questions from candidates who have interviewed with General Motors in the past are:
- Tell me about a time you had to take a risk.
To answer this question, make sure your answer will show your strengths as an employee. It can be tempting to tell about a time you did something you were not supposed to at work; however, it is better to talk about a decision you made that may have been out of the ordinary but was still acceptable behavior for your role. You should be able to explain a reason behind why you took the risk and make sure that the risk is strictly related to work, and not personal life. Another tip with this question, is to make sure you are ready to talk about the impact of the risk, on you and others, in a positive light.
- Describe a time you had to publicly admit to making a mistake.
When answering interview questions about mistakes, make sure to focus on what you learned from the experience more than on the mistake itself. Focus on the skills and qualities you learned, along with how you resolved the mistake. Make sure the mistake is honest, but is relatively minor, and won’t jeopardize your chances on getting the job you are applying for. It is best to have your answer for a question like this prepared before the interview, so you aren’t caught off guard during and end up giving a response you will regret.
- Tell me a time when you had to give your boss bad news.
With questions that focus on negative news, it is important to stay as positive as possible during your answer. Once again, focus more on the way you handled the situation than on the ‘bad news’ itself. This question is a great opportunity to show the interviewers your interpersonal skills with how you communicated with your superior in this situation. With all questions like this, it is also important to share how you grew from the experience as. Make sure that when talking about bad news, you don’t belittle anyone, you’re not vague, and you’re not defensive.
- What was the most difficult situation you experienced and how did you deal with it?
Like the questions above, when answering this question, you should employ the STAR technique: Situation/Task, Action, and Results. You should briefly explain the situation, be specific in what actions you took, and focus on the results of your actions and how it positively impacted you and others. Avoid being self-deprecating, and overall just stay positive during the entire explanation of the experience.
Another way to prepare for your interview is to make sure you spend time learning about General Motors as a company, so you can make it clear that you understand the business. Overall, it seems that General Motors is really looking for candidates with a continuous-learning mindset, so it is best to frame your answers in a way that show you have grown from difficult situations in your past.
Conclusion
Overall, General Motors is a huge company with multiple different roles and career paths available to those that apply. The recruitment process seems to differ for each role and we suggest talking to your recruiter about specific questions you may have about your individual process.