Careers With BMW

Scottwal · 10-25-03, 01:41 AM

Hey-

First of all, i'm, quite the fan of this messege board, i've seen a few other BMW boards, and this one takes top honors in my book. So hopefully i'll be able to spend a fair amount of time around here, other bimmer fans are always good people to talk to.

Anyways- It is my goal to work for BMW. I think that it would be among the greatest jobs possible, and it would combine all of my interests... namely design/engineering and wonderful BMW's. I am a student currently, at Cal Poly San Luis Obispo, majoring in Mechanical Engineering. I am basically just wondering what you people know about getting hired by BMW, and what I could do to improve my chances of getting this dream job. Thanks a lot for the info-

Scottwal

GIR · 10-25-03, 02:03 AM

Well I was once like you so I think I can give you some advice

What you first need todo is excel in what you do. Be different from the rest, stand out in a crowd. Secondly you need papers to back you up, I don't know wether your school is concidered prestigeus but complete a university level education and write a thesis on some amazing new groundbraking subject.

While in school try to get an intern job at BMW. If you get a intern job try to do the best job ever and make friends with the people there. If you can do that your job at BMW is secure.

Visiting BMW career events is a mayor helper also you can get alot of info from the BMW career site but beware, alot of people reply to the positions on the site so make sure your resume is perfect into the details.

The BMWGroup career site can be found here:
http://www.bmwgroup.com/e/0_0_www_bm...eers.shtml?4_0

Their page for newcommers can be found here:
http://www.bmwgroup.com/e/0_0_www_bm...einstieg.shtml

See how I found those pages in a few minutes? The net can be a great helper. On those pages you can find a world of information about BMW and tune your resume accordingly.

Make sure you list your whole life in your resume. Small things like "I worked at a bar" (I did

) will show the Human resources people that you have human skills or "I worked at a construction site" will show them that you don't shy away from manual labor. I'm sure you had some parttime jobs, when I was going to school I had lots of um.

If you are invited for an interview, be yourself and do not be nervous. Do not act like your life revolves around this job, be nonchalant. Just have a nice conversation with the people interviewing you, pretend they're some friends you just met but don't be too close with them.

Finally, this is the most important part, don't be full of yourself and don't exadurate. I get alot of people who are just full of them selves or write down things they can't backup. If you would read some of the resumes you'd think some of these people are the center of the universe. Present yourself but be humble.

Building up credentials should be your priority rightnow.

thepolarfoxqx · 10-25-03, 05:35 AM

well, i'm not sure what part of engineering you'd like to do for BMW, i know they are increasing their north american opperations, but the heavy engineering is still done in munich. Cal Poly is a fairly prestigious school, but yeah, as GIR said, research is huge, work on interesting and high profile projects if you can get into them, don't be afraid to go off on tangents and push them to the limits, and get published!!!

Trust me, after nasa in the 60s, working for bmw is darn near the top of my list of cool jobs.

Scottwal · 10-26-03, 12:27 AM

thanks a lot for the replies, i can definately strive to acheive all of this, because the payoff would be so worth it. As for which specific field of engineering i would want to do, i still havne't completely decided, but i'm basically planning on making myself as well qualified as possible. I am taking courses in german, and plan to study abroad in Munich my junior year, so hopefully i'll end up fluent in german. Does the munich division of BMW hire out of the US any, or should i aim to start at designworks here in california? Do (or have) any of you work at BMW? If so, i'd really appreciate hearing how you managed to get to where you are today. Thanks a lot

Scottwal

thepolarfoxqx · 10-26-03, 03:48 AM

the design center does the aesthetics of the car, not the engineering, and I've never heard of them hiring out to the US, but they might, i know they have a plant in spartansburg, sc, but all of the interesting stuff goes on in munich.

GIR · 10-26-03, 05:16 AM

According to the BMW career site they have an exchange program BUT like in most cases you have to be highly qualified to be accepted in such a program. Because of the time, effort and money involved with a expat program they will make absolutely sure they need you there.

I don't want to destroy your dreams before they even start but an expat offer is really hard to get. You have to be among the best in the world (not just US or Germany) at what you do. If you're just a college graduate, well there are enough college graduates in Germany aswell so it's easier for them to get someone in Germany then to expat you to Germany.

Like I said before, excel at what you do, be among the best and make sure BMW knows they need you.

thepolarfoxqx · 10-26-03, 02:49 PM

i see it like this, he could make himself worthwhile enough, if he had a strong background in german, the fact he is at Cal-Poly now, and could potentially get his graduate degree somewhere even more prestigious could make him worthwhile to BMW, especially if he is well published. It's hard to say no to someone like that.

essi5 · 12-13-07, 07:27 PM

Nice website and forum guys. I found some really useful information here. I was wondering if anyone here has actually worked or is working for BMW as an engineer. How's working at BMW like? I'm studying Mechanical Engineering in Canada right now and I would like to know if it's possible to get my dream job at BMW and also I wanna make sure once I get the job, it is 100% the job I wanted really bad. Man could you imagine working as an engineer on M5!