The process took 4 weeks. I interviewed at CSX (Jacksonville, FL) in Nov 2009
Interview
Initial interview was on-campus with the director of finance. He is an extremely nice man...he really wants to get to know you and doesn't try to intimidate you or see how you react to stress. They have specific case questions they ask relating to how you would actually perform on the job.
I received a call to schedule an on-site interview about 4 business days after the first interview. Second interviews are on-site in Jacksonville. CSX will pay for airfare and reimburse you for any other relevant expenses. I arrived in Jacksonville on a Thursday night. There is a dinner scheduled the night you arrive with current finance team members. There were about 10 other applicants interviewing when I went for my interview. The next day, you will have two behavioral interviews with finance team members and you will also have to do a case presentation regarding a finance case they sent you a week before.
Make sure you know about the company a little. Mainly be able to express your interest in finance and the job in your first interview. Have a lot of questions. Practice short case questions a little. For the second interview, I got the feeling that the case presentation was the most important part. They want to see how you will actually do on the job. Work hard on the case, be confident, and do your best to impress them. The rest of the interviewing process is just to show your personality mainly. I thought the behavioral interview questions were very work-related so if you don't have much work experience, make sure you can answer these types of questions from the experiences you have had.
Interview questions [1]
Question 1
How would you deal with a subordinate that was not behaving ethically?
I applied through university. The process took 1 day. I interviewed at CSX (Jacksonville, FL) in Nov 2011
Interview
After completing a finance skills test I received an invitation to interview at my university campus. A CSX recruiter from the finance department visited our campus career center to meet with six potential trainees. Two or three of the six were to be selected for another round of interviews at CSX headquarters. The interviewer asked for a brief rundown of my resume and asked a series of questions to get a better feel for how I would behave as an employee. Thirty minutes were allotted for the interview, but as he arrived to the interview late, the session lasted about 15-20 minutes. He was very friendly and there was no sense of pressure or tension during the process.
Interview questions [1]
Question 1
What would you do if you discovered an employee was behaving unethically?
I applied through university. The process took 2 days. I interviewed at CSX (Jacksonville, FL) in Oct 2011
Interview
I had a great experience throughout the interviewing process. On campus interviews for the first round and at headquarters for the final round. Between interviews, I had to take many different on-line assessments, ranging from personality tests to finance aptitude tests. At the final interview, I had to present a case to high level management and also had two one on one interviews.
Everyone at CSX seems to enjoy their job and the people there were a pleasure to meet.
Interview questions [1]
Question 1
How would you prepare an annual budget for our company?
I applied through university. The process took 2 weeks. I interviewed at CSX (Jacksonville, FL) in Dec 2010
Interview
The candidates had different first round interviews. Since I was close to corporate HQ, I had an in-person screening while others had a phone interview. If you passed the first round, you were invited to Jacksonville for the final round and put up the night before at the Omni Hotel near the Jacksonville Landing. The night before the actual interview, they 'require' you go to dinner with members of the finance team (two VPs and one former management trainee were at mine).
A week before the interview, HR will send you a case that requires you to utilize some financial analysis skills and then present it in PowerPoint format to a panel of two to three people, typically high-level VPs within the finance department. From what I can tell, the case has been recycled for years and is pretty generic, but serves more of a test to see whether or not your assumptions (everyone will have different answers) can be backed up when under the scrutiny of VPs and how your presentation skills are.
The actual day of interviews was fairly light. They broke up the group into two interview groups (morning and afternoon). There were only two interviews, each with a member of the finance team and it was about three to four behavioral questions, nothing else.
The company is what you would expect from a mature industry...the actual building is old as hell and the culture seems very corporate (the sight of neverending cube farms brought back chills). There seems to be a big push for diversity as the previous group of Finance Management Trainees was majority female and had a couple of minorities (one black female, one Hispanic female, and an Asian guy). My interview group had four minorities (including myself) so take it for what's it worth at the Old Boy's Club at CSX.
I got the rejection email within 2.5 weeks of the interview (expected it), but I know someone else got an offer within 4 working days of his interview so that should give you a rough idea on whether or not you will get the gig.
Interview questions [2]
Question 1
If you had a team, how would you go about dealing with conflict within that team?