must pass entrance exam to be given an interview. Exam consist of a vocabulary exam and cognitive exam. Both exams are timed. If you do well on your interview you will be placed into Phase 1 of the interview process. Here candidates will be tested. Those candidates you successfully pass each exam will them be moved to proceed to Phase 2.

First things first, the railroad used to be a family business and a brotherhood but now it's become just another corporation and a political mess. Since the railroad has come under such public scrutiny for nepotism, the selection process for who gets hired has become too long and drawn out. They have you take a "cognitive" test which is not at all indicative if you're capable of performing this job well or retaining the information such as S&D. If you fail this, you're no longer in consideration and or given a chance to sell yourself in an interview. The whole overview was a huge waste of time for me, if you actually get there *on-time*, something crucial in the railroad business, it doesn't matter because you're waiting forever for the overview to start to accommodate all the late arrivals. They then tease you with talk about how great the job is THEN make you take the test. To give you an idea of how backwards this initial step is, they have about 6-7 HR reps, and only 1-2 actual engineers there. I also flew all the way across the country to attend this event. One of the worst experiences in my life.