Interviews - IT Roles

Hi All

Been out of the interviewing process for a while now so wonder if you all got some questions I am likely to be asked.

Its an IT Dev role on the big bucks so I expect it quite challenging and expect a test or two as well.

And yes I am a team player that can work under his own initiative and meet targets placed in front of him.

When asked any questions I always ask "Why do you work for the company?" but seen on TV the "What is the question I should ask you about the company?" question but think that a bit wank?

Be prepared for tech questions on whatever type of dev you are applying to do. 'How would you approach doing x for instance'. Sure there are a few on here who have done these recently. I had an interview recently and was a mental approach. Three of them. One asking about general stuff for the role and one who wanted to pick my brains on a couple of products I had worked with for a previous client. Asked for examples and then why I had taken the approach that I had. One of them asked why my CV didn't show everything I was telling them as well.

One question that always seemed to come up for me was 'what's my biggest weakness?'
And don't reply with the typical perfectionist answer, everyone says that!


Sent from my iPhone using Tapatalk

To that just say 'interviews' then they know u will be better after!


DJ OD

I've had this question in the past - you state something that you want them to think is bad about yourself but turn it around at the end.

For example, something like "I suppose a weakness is that I like to check and re-check things several times and be a perfectionist, which can take more time than normal. Although this can be viewed as using up additional time on a piece of work or project, I like to think of it as "Quality Control", but I must continue to trust in myself and the work I produce."

Something along those lines.

Ask about the firms culture. Seems a bit of a buzz word at the moment!

What language(s)?

how do you reverse a linked list without recursion?
whats tail recursion and its benefits?
whats a static variable?
whats a virtual class/function?
tell me about the last project you worked on, what style of project management was it, was it successful, what would you change, what would you use again?
have you worked with a follow the sun model (if relevant)?
x happens walk me through how you deal with it.
two users come up to you with issues (I know it's dev but that usually means third line support) how do you prioritise?

depending on language will be able to add a shed load more.

questions to ask -
what do you enjoy most about area/team?
what would you change if you could?
where do you see me in 1/3 months time (gets them to visualise you in the role)?
ask about added extras, cycle to work, gym etc
training, do they do in house, send on courses, reembourse any qualifications etc prince 2 agile (scrum master etc).

Don't ask about mobility - looks like you're just trying to get foot in the door.

biggest weakness I've used intolerance of incompetence both within myself and others but give an example such as someone fucks up a release, then does exactly the same thing again but add you're mellowing with age.

Edit: Would have turned the post to a bit of a mess adding this to the end so it goes on the top instead. Here is an interesting discussion (more focused at sysadmin type people) of this topic. I wanted to cut and paste, but there is a lot and that site is not static. http://serverfault.com/questions/148...nistrator-jobs

I may be the complete wrong person to answer as I don't work in IT, haven't done many roles, and have always been the worker rather than the manager/interviewer.

However here are a couple of things I thought I would add:

I remember getting told by an old boss that when he interviewed for my role, he saw some people that were a lot more qualified on paper. The reason he picked me was because all the other interviewees gave short robotic answers, while I embellished everything I had to say.

If I was to ever consider an IT role again I would definitely be asking these following questions:

What problems does the department currently face?
What major projects (relevant to your role) are in the near future?
Does the company have a system for appraisals, and if so what it is?
What career path is on offer or is this a dead end role? (Obviously would need to dress up the question to suit the conversation)
Does the company offer any help with... change as applicable (training/qualifications to further your understanding/ training/quals to keep your existing certs up to date, training/quals on new and relevant technologies, etc)
Would you consider the workload to be proactive, reactive or reasonably balanced?
Is the job a 9-5 or does it entail extra hours, and if so what is the remuneration for the extra hours and the typical/expected demand?
Do I actually receive any holiday or do I merely receive the privilege of not being in the office for a certain number of days?
Can I meet my predecessor to ask him a couple of questions about the role?
Will there be any handover?
If the answers to the last two are no, then what happened to my predecessor?

These probably come across as fairly cynical as I had been considering putting some of these to prospective employees then realising they may go down like a lead balloon which prompted me to change trade. If you feel these are relevant or may help, you would probably need to dress them up to suit. E.g. about working outside 9-5, that can easily be made more attractive to a prospective employer by asking if overtime is available and how much is typically available.

On another note, I would have a lot of respect for anyone with the balls to do this:

On a more serious note that comic brings up a going point that work = money. I remember one day a company paid almost a week late and acted like it wasn't a big thing. I told my boss if I turned up week late for work there would be hell to pay, and we can consider this situation directly equivalent. Put that fucker in his place for a while.

http://www.smbc-comics.com/comics/20140817.png

Some good ideas from Blacksheep and Over Carl Thanks ;-)

What language mate - seriously if it's a proper dev role they'll probably drill you on that, I've even had one make me write code and send it in (about half day work). Depending what it is I may be able to give you some pointers on what we/other companies have asked - tend to keep pushing till you break sometimes (they'll get their x language guru to do it).