Union Pacific interview questions

We met in a room allotted by the Baton Rouge Career services center. The day went as follows: We were greeted by the HR Rep who gave an introduction of the company, what to expect, stressed the importance of safety and even more the fact to be prepared to spend long hours at work with little free time. The railroad is a demanding and challenging career. He then gave us a little background of himself which was interesting and inspiring in the fact that the company gives the impression that it likes to promote within. With this said, he stated that the average age for UP workers is 56 and that UP expects up to 1/3 of its workers to retire in the next 5 years. After all of this, we prepared for a series of tests. The first one was a 5 minute verbal reasoning test. It is not difficult but you have the added pressure to answer a few questions that require a quick read in a short period of time. Basically, you are presented with a series of short statements. Based on those statements some conclusions are drawn that you have to answer with either True, False or Not enough information. The second test was an hour long of simple business management questions. Most of the questions revolved around analyzing a graph and answering the questions. A few fairly simple analogy questions. The final two test were basically personality questions. One primarily revolved around your work/ school experience. The last test and the most time consuming was a series of 248 questions that asks you answer statements strongly disagree, disagree, unsure, agree or strongly agree. The focus of this test it looks like is to determine your personal character as well how consistent you are with your answers as many of the questions are the same just reworded differently. During this stage of the final two exams the HR Rep plucked us out individually at half hour intervals for one on interviews. The interview was seemingly basic. No off the wall questions. More or less why should UP hire you? Describe a time that you overcame a challenge? How do you handle disruptive coworkers?

Applied online and received an invite the following day to take a reading test. The test was administered by a 3rd party and was basic reading comprehension. I'm convinced a 10 year old could easily pass this test. A few days later my online status changed to "qualified on test" and a week or so after that I was invited to attend a hiring session the following month. The hiring session was held in a hotel conference room by 2 HR's and 2 managers. They spoke about their experience working for UP, some of the less desirable aspects of the job and then played a short video. They then answered questions from the group (about 20 of us) and assigned times for our interviews. My name was called right on time (the interviews are very structured) and I sat across the table from the 2 HR's and 1 manager. They started the interview off by asking me to tell them a little about myself. They were all engaged and easy to talk to. They asked probably 10-15 basic personality questions and 5-10 questions about handling the work environment. A few days after the interview I received a call and an email notification of a conditional offer. As part of the conditional offer, I was required to fill out pre employment forms within 24 hours of receiving it. It took about an hour and a half to complete them. I was informed that the in depth background check would take up to 3 weeks to complete. Meanwhile, I had to schedule a medical evaluation and a physical abilities test within 5 days of accepting the offer. The PAT consisted of pulling on a machine that didn't give while they measured my heart rate during the work and rest periods. They also measured my grip strength and my back flexibility before and after the test. The medical exam was a 12 page questionaire, a simple eye chart/color blind test, hearing test, lung capacity test, urine drug test and an ear examination by the doctor. If everything checked out my status on the website was supposed to change to "released to start" 5 weeks later it did. With no call or email notice (so check that website daily)! I should also mention that my conditional offer had my training schedule and my released to start notification was given 3 weeks prior to my start date.