As a hobbyist, I'm curious: other than what the markings say (value and tolerance) and an estimate of power capacity, what would you expect the interviewee to be able to say about the resistor? Assuming you're not interviewing in a lab.
- Can they tell me the value and tolerance of the resistor by reading its color code?
- Based on the physical size/package, what's the resistor's power rating? Estimate if you don't know. Does pulsed versus continuous power make a difference?
- What kind of resistor is it? Metal film, carbon film, carbon composition, wirewound, ...?
- What's its temperature coefficient like?
- About what does it cost in small and large quantities?
- What kinds of parameters would you expect to see in a SPICE model?
- What are its noise characteristics? Johnson noise, flicker noise? Say I handed you a metal film resistor -- when would you want to use it instead of a carbon composition resistor?
- What does the resistor look like at RF? If it's a wirewound resistor, or one that was constructed by cutting a spiral groove into a film or substrate, what effect might that have at high frequencies? Estimate what its equivalent AC circuit might look like.
- Any concerns about quality, aging, and reliability?
- How about voltage coefficient of resistance?
The interviewee wouldn't be expected to go into much detail from memory, but they would definitely get extra points by just mentioning some of the factors. It would be fine if they answered the last question by saying something like, "There will be a certain change in resistance with applied voltage. It's going to be small and will almost never matter, but for precision applications I'd want to look it up on the data sheet." Basically I'm looking for an acknowledgement that there's no such thing as a truly linear or "boring" part.
That reminds me of a common practical joke from EE lab in college (~30 years ago): take the "right" value of carbon resistor (probably 1/4 watt, I forget how resistance mapped to time delay), plug the leads into an ordinary 120v power outlet, and walk away.
As the current flows through it, it'll warm up a little. Because carbon resistors have lower resistance at higher temperatures, as the resistor warms up, it'll start conducting more current, which will make it warmer, until a few seconds or minutes later (depending on resistance value, ambient temperature, etc.) ... "bang!".
All real components have real impedance, not just resistance. So at a minimum you'd expect a new EE grad to at least model a resistor as a combination of resistance, capacitance, and inductance, and explain what contributes to each (i.e. a wirewound resistor has more inductance than a bulk metal foil, or something). For veteran industry EEs you'd also expect them to mention things like microphonics, self-heating, thermocoupling, etc.