Phone Interview Applied via Exelon's website. I received a voicemail from the recruiter about 2 weeks later. Returned his call and he conducted a 10 minute phone interview, asking questions about my current job, why I wanted a career change, my education, etc. I did a good job answering questions and selling myself. At the end of the interview he asked if I was available to take the TECH test the following week. Of course I was. TECH Test The recruiter sent me a link to practice tests at Edison Electric Institute's website. I practiced for a few hours the day before the test. I took the TECH test at Lincoln Center in Oak Brook. There were about 12 other candidates taking the test. The test was multiple choice ScanTron. You do not receive a score; only a "recommend" or "not recommend". We were told that ComEd also receives only a recommend or not recommend. Speed Interview About 5 days later I received a call stating that I passed the test and was scheduled for a "speed interview" with 3 managers. The speed interview was scheduled two weeks later at Lincoln Center. Showed up 10 minutes early in my best suit and tie. Waited in the lobby with 3 or 4 other candidates until the recruiter took us to our interviews. Each interviewer was in a separate room and we traveled from room to room interviewing with the managers individually for 20 minutes. The Speed Interview was the Behavioral Interview style (I'll explain later). Each interviewer asked 2 or 3 of the Behavioral questions. After those questions were answered I was given the opportunity to ask questions. I asked question about the job position, the company, the culture, etc. I feel I did really well during the interview, I especially hit it off with one of the managers who had a similar background as mine. I left the interview confident I would have a follow-up interview. Follow-up Interview About 1 week later I received a call from the recruiter. He stated I did well with the Speed Interview and wanted to schedule an interview with the manager I would ultimately be working for. About a week later I showed up at the regional office and interviewed with my manager and a manager from another office. This interview was not the Behavioral type, it was a traditional interview; "tell me about yourself", "why do you want to change careers", "are you familiar with drafting software", "how competent are you reading blueprints", etc. We spent about 1 1/2 hours talking about my abilities and the job position. Again, I felt I did well. The Offer The recruiter called a couple days later and told me I should expect an offer soon. Unfortunately, it took about 2 months before it finally did. I sent a few emails to the recruiter asking about the status, I needed info but didn't want to be a pest. Basically things were delayed due to management changes, summer storms causing outages, vacations, etc. Just when I was about to give up hope, he called me with an offer. I told him I need a couple days to discuss it with my spouse. I responded 2 days later with a counter-offer that was 10% higher than their offer. He responded a couple days later stating that they felt it was in the best interest of the company to stick with their original offer. I accepted the offer and started the job about 5 weeks later. I was a little disappointed they wouldn't budge on their offer, but I think their original offer is towards the higher end of the pay scale. I understand their decision, yet it is still less than I was making in my previous career. My Advice This was the 2nd position I interviewed for, as I did not receive an offer for the first position (Distribution Dispatcher). I was pretty shocked when I didn't receive an offer, and I spent a lot of time thinking about the interview and tried to determine what went wrong. In hindsight, I think I really bombed the Behavioral Interview the first time. I think I spent too much time thinking about the questions before I answered and that left an awkward silence after the interviewer asked his question. Before you interview, Google "Behavioral Interview" and watch a few videos on the topic. You will be asked a specific question, such as "Tell me about a time when you were told to do something unsafe and what did you do?". You will have to be very specific but not rambling on, and form your answer in the STAR method (Situation or Task, Action you took, Results). Try to have an idea of what questions they will ask and think about your responses. The hardest part was trying remember a situation that fits their question and then recall all the facts without sounding like a blubbering fool. Most importantly PREPARE, PREPARE, PREPARE!

The recruiter calls you and sets up a Teams up with two managers. They asked six STAR questions, and then two technical questions, as well as other follow up things. I was prepared for this but I also thought it was difficult because some of the questions don't really pertain to the field. The questions are very standardized and it feels more artificial than most. The interviewers were friendly enough, but I'm honestly not sure what they were looking for in a candidate, as I am very technically qualified but as an engineer I don't generally have to make up nonsense at work; in fact, it's dangerous to do so. In this way, I found the questions to be more for managers than individual contributors. The recruiting process is very disorganized though, and I had to send follow up emails to the recruiter to figure out what was happening. I find this indicative of the company and how they will treat you, so I probably would have passed.