When going to a new area, you will be faced with many problems of different types and scopes. How would you decide what to work on first?
There are many correct ways to prioritize one's work, but it is important for the candidate to demonstrate that they will consider the impact as well as the difficulty of projects when prioritizing their work. It is important to remember that workplace safety ALWAYS takes precedent to other items. Assuming there are no pertinent safety projects, then tasks should be prioritized based on impact, cost, and lead-time. There is no magic formula, the engineer just needs to justify their thinking in a reasonable way. For example a project with a relatively small business impact that carriers no cost and that can be implemented on the same day, may be prioritized ahead of a large impact project that takes weeks to complete. It is also important to remember the impact of team-member morale and buy-in. A project with a difficult to measure business impact that will improve the rapport with the team and lead to additional idea generation may be prioritized ahead of other items with a more measurable effect.
"First I would prioritize any items which directly affect safety in the work place. After any safety deficiencies are corrected, I would prioritize my work based on business impact, cost, and speed of implementation. My main focus would be on high-impact projects which carry relatively low cost which can be implemented quickly. If there are any employee suggestions which can be implemented fairly easily, I would try to work those into my schedule to improve morale and build team-member engagement."