How to Pass an Interview

for an IT position?
What to Do and What to Avoid?

Monica Cohn
 Contents
1. What is a Job Interview?
2. Preparation for an Interview
3. Typical Interview Questions and Answers
for IT positions (Software engineer, QA, etc)
Classical Questions
Technical Questions
Non-Technical (Personality) Questions
Questions to Ask
4. Typical Mistakes and How to Avoid Them?
2
 What is a Job
Interview?
A Stressful Situation or a Chance to
Demonstrate Your Knowledge and Skills?
 What is a Job Interview?
A job interview is a meeting aimed to assess
a candidate for a certain job position
The candidate should prove he or she is the right
person for the offered position
The interviewers asses the skills of the candidate
and his or her personality
By questions and small tasks

The candidate tries to prove his or her skills

The candidate demonstrates his or her personal
character
4
 How to Overcome the Stress?
The job interview is a stressful situation!
You need to present yourself in the best way
In most cases candidates fail to demonstrate
their skills due to stress
How to overcome the stress?
Just be well prepared!
Prepare yourself for the technical and non-
technical questions
Expect the questions and have good answers
5
 Interview
Preparation
What is the Best Way to Prepare
Yourself for an Upcoming Interview?
 Steps to Prepare for an
Interview
Once you have scheduled and interview, be
sure to prepare yourself for it
It is important to put enough effort in your interview
preparation
Half an hour is not enough, invest at least few days
Steps to prepare for an interview
Research the company
Research the offered position
Prepare for technical questions
7
 Research the Company
Always research the company you apply for
You should expect a question at the interview
like "What do you know about our company?"
If you answer "Nothing", you will fail
If you say something incorrect, it is even worse
How to find information?
Obligatory explore in details the company Web
site, brochures, publications, ads, etc.
Look for articles, blogs, forums, etc.
Ask your friends what do they know
8
 Research the Company (2)
What information you should know?
The company products / services portfolio
The target market and customers
The technologies used in the development (e.g.
HTML, CSS, JS, Jquery, Java, C, C++, DB2,
etc.)
Download the products and play with them
You will be asked what you know about the products
related to your prospective job
The company mission, vision, projects, etc.
The corporate culture, corporate values
9
 Research the Offered Position
Obligatory research the offered position,
requirements, advantages and responsibilities
You should research all mentioned products,
services and technologies in the job description
E.g. if you see "Experience with Selenium is a plus",
be sure to install and play with Selenium

Be sure to know all "unknown words and

acronyms" in the job description
Be ready to demonstrate skills and experience in
the fields from the job description
10
 Prepare for Technical
Questions
How to prepare for the technical questions?
Typical general technical questions
Data structures and algorithms

Logical thinking and puzzles

Software engineering questions

Object-oriented programming (OOP)

Specific questions for the offered position
If the job description says "JSF and RichFaces", you
should learn these technologies
11
 Prepare for Technical
Questions
How do you prepare for a certain technology?
Pass a course / tutorial / read a book / blog
article about the unknown technology
Obligatory create a small project using the
technology and play with it
This is the only way to get some real-life experience,
live in a project

If you have never used a certain technology (e.g.

JSF) you cannot say you are prepared
The best way to learn it is by practicing
12
 The Interview
Process
Typical Scenario for a Technical Interview
 Technical Interview: The
Process
A technical interview for software engineer
consists of the following parts:
The candidate presents himself or herself
The interviewers present the company, its
business, products, services, etc.
Technical assessment – solve few technical
problems and demonstrate the way of thinking
Personal character assessment
Negotiation – salary expectations, start date, …
14
 Presenting the Company /
Position
Typical start of an interview:
My name is … Our company is … bala-bla-bla … We are
leader in … bla-bla-bla … Our products bla-bla-bla …
Our projects … bla-bla-bla … We are the best!

The interviewers presents themselves

Usually there is more than one interviewer
The interviewer presents in short the company,
his department, his team, the current and
upcoming projects, technologies used, etc.
Some companies skip this step and expect the
candidate to know all this stuff
15
 Presenting Yourself
Typical next step in an interview:
The candidate is expected to say few words about
himself / herself
Present yourself in short – your relevant experience,
education, how did you start programming, etc.

Be prepared to talk 3-5 minutes

Your last job and projects (if you have)
Your current occupation (e.g. student in Politechnic
University)
How did you learn about the position and your
motivation to apply – you can skip this if you were
direct searched
16
 Technical Assessment
The technical assessment is the most
important part of the interview
You will be given technical questions to answer
and technical tasks to solve
Always come with a pen and writing pad
It is not so important whether you solve
correctly the tasks or answer correctly
You should demonstrate your way of thinking!
The interviewer wants to know how you attack
the problem, not whether the result is correct
17
 Technical Question – Example
In Java which explain the fastest algorithm to sort a
list of customers by their first name?

You should demonstrate your way of thinking by

saying what you think at the moment, e.g.
… I know the Collection.Sort() method, but I am not
sure it is the fastest.

If I had a computer I would perform a Google search.

I should either implement own comparer to sort by the

FirstName property.

Being silent for a minute while you think is evil! 18

 Technical Task – Example
Suppose you are given a simple problem like:
How do you can randomize a sequence of playing cards?

The first thing to do it to get the writing pad

and write an example!
This shows a correct and serious way of thinking

By using the pen explain how you could

randomize the sequence of cards
Explain how you will represent a single card and
a sequence of cards (data structures)
Explain how you could test your solution
19
 Personal Character
Assessment
Assessment of your personal character
qualities is very important for the company
Good software companies will weight your
personal skills more than your technical skills
You will be asked somehow irrelevant
questions that reveal your character, e.g.
Do you have experience working in a team? What do you
prefer – being a leader or a player?

Do you play some kind of sport? At what position?

How do you react if you are about to miss a deadline?

20
 Personal Character Assessment
(2)
At the personal assessment questions there
is no correct or wrong answer
Just be you
Don't recite some other's words
Very important: be positive!
Negative people are not welcome anywhere
Be confident
Don't say "I don't know"
Demonstrate willingness and ability to work in a
harmony and with pleasure with the others
21
 Negotiation
If your interview runs well, you will reach the
"negotiation" part
Salary expectations – always have a good answer
Eventual start date
Other terms of the contract (bonuses, holidays,
working time, etc.)
Companies don't like "money-driven" employees
You should demonstrate motivation to work hard for
long-term and continuously improve your skills
22
 Your Questions
Finally you will have a chance to ask your
questions
Having no questions is not good
Demonstrate interest to start working
Ask about your first project, about the
development process, about your team, etc.
Never ask about salary raises, bonuses, parking
space, fitness and sport facilities, etc.
You should demonstrate motivation to work hard,
not claims
23
Typical Interview
Questions and
Answers
 Typical Interview Questions
At a technical interview you will be given
questions from several categories:
General questions
Technical questions
Abstract thinking questions
Personal character questions
The "salary" question

25
Technical Questions
Algorithms, Databases, Web Technologies, Etc.
 Typical Technical Questions
Algorithms and data structures:
Can you draw a picture of a linked list?

What is typical for the Strings in Java?

Explain how polymoprhism works in the object-oriented

programming (OOP)?

Explain what is a hashtable and how it works.

Explain how the QuickSort works. How fast is it?

You are given a set of words. Find all their subsets.

You have to implement a Web spider which runs on a

cluster of machines. How you will design it?
27
 Typical Technical Questions
(2)
Databases and SQL:
How we implement one-to-many and many-to-many
relationship in relational databases?

When we use "1 to 1" relationships in database

modelling? Give an example.

What is database constraint? How constraints work?

You have a table consisting of: EmployeeId (PK), Name,

Salary, ManagerId (FK), DeptId (FK).
Write a SQL query to find the name, salary and
department of the employee that has minimal salary in
his/her department. If many employees take the minimal
salary, display just one of them.
28
 Typical Technical Questions
(3)
Java questions:
What keywords do you know in Java?

What is the difference between overloading and overriding?

What is the difference between an abstract class and an

interface?

What is the difference between collection and collections?

You have an integer array that contains 10 different

elements. Print all the pairs that have the sum bigger or
equal with 20.

You have to download 500 files from Internet but your

network bandwidth is not too wide to handle 500 downloads
simultaneously so you want to download the files by 10 at a
time. How you implement this?
29
 Typical Technical Questions
(4)
Web development questions:
Explain the difference between HTTP GET and POST
requests.

Explain the meaning of the following CSS rule:

.newscolumn {
width: 400px;
float: left;
clear: both;
}

We have a <div> element in a HTML page which is

visible. How to hide the <div> with JavaScript?

How to do the above in jQuery?

30
 Typical Technical Questions
(5)
Web development questions:
What is Doctype in HTML?

What is CSS box model?

What are the selectors in CSS? Which one is faster?

What are the Javascript data types?

What is AJAX and how it works? How we use AJAX in

jQuery/ Java based Web application?

What are the Jquery effects? What are the Jquery

events?

What are the Jquery widgets?

What is the combobox in Jquery?

31
 Typical Technical Questions
(6)
Software testing questions:
What does it mean SDLC? Explain the steps.

What kind of testing should we do on a website?

What is unit testing? When we need it? What unit

testing frameworks you have used?

Define severity and priority for a bug.

What is the difference between authentication and

authorization in web testing?

What is the difference between retesting and

regression testing?

Explain what is agile development. What is SCRUM?

Explain the most important practices of SCRUM.
32
Abstract Thinking
Questions
Puzzles, Unsolvable Problems, Etc.
 Abstract Thinking Questions
Questions in the category "abstract thinking"
aim to check the level of alertness, ability to
think and to attack unsolvable problems
In some cases there is no correct answer and
your task is to demonstrate your thinking
Estimate how many gas stations exist in Sofia.

Do you see the tree outside on the street? Can you

calculate how many leaves it has?

You have 8 balls. One of them is defective and weighs

less than others. You have a balance to measure balls
against each other. In 2 weighings how do you find the
defective one?
34
 Personal Character
Questions
Your Best and Worst Qualities, Ability to Work in a
Team, How do you Handle a Stressful Situation?
 Typical Personal Character
Assessment Questions
Questions to assess your personal character:
Describe the ideal software company from your dreams.

Can you describe an ideal colleague / team member?

What are your 5 best personal character qualities?

What are your 5 worst personal character qualities?

What kind of sport do you practice? At which position

do you play?

What shall you do if you have a deadline until

tomorrow and your project is not completed?

How do you resolve a conflict with a colleague?

36
 Typical Personal Character
Assessment Questions (2)
Questions to assess your personal character:
Do you prefer to work independently or in a team?

Give some examples of a team work from your experience.

How do you resolve a conflict with a colleague?

What does motivate you and what does not?

How do you handle stress and pressure?

Describe a difficult work situation / project you have

experienced and how you overcame it.

How you can evaluate your results. What is success?

37
 Typical Personal Character
Assessment Questions (3)
Questions to assess your personal character:
What were your responsibilities at your last job /
last project?

What major challenges and problems did you face? How

did you handle them?

Why are you leaving your current job?

What interests you about this job?

What challenges are you looking for in this position?

Why we need to hire you, not someone else?

38
The "Salary" Question
How to Answer in the Best Way?
 The "Salary" Question
The typical salary question is like this?
What salary do you expect?

Your answer should demonstrate that your work

is more important than the payment
Examples of possible answers:
I want to work at the company for long-term and I
believe that if my results are good I will be paid
accordingly.

I understand that I have to learn a lot. Thus now I

think I could start with a salary of XXX Euro and in a
year I expect to become more skillful and get a pay rise
of YYY (or be fired if I don't meet your expectations).
40
 The "Salary" Question (2)
You always talk about a net salary (after all the
taxes are deducted) for a full-time job (8 hours)
Some candidates will say:
I don't know what salary to expect. Please make an
offer for me.

Some companies have a policy for this case:

You will be a junior developer (trainee). For this
position our salary range is from XXX to YYY Euro.

Most companies will force you to say a certain

number and you should say something – be
ready! 41
 Typical Mistakes
and How to Avoid
Them?
One Wrong Word Could Spoil the Deal!
 Typical Mistakes
Never say bad words about former
employers, colleagues, etc. (don’t hate
anyone)
Always be positive!
Typical "catch-you" question
Did you have colleagues or classmates who you can't
stand? What were they? Why you can't stand them?

Possible nice answer:

Generally I can stand anyone. I don't like too much XXX
kind of people but if I need to work in a team with
such colleagues I will defenitely find a way.
43
 Typical Mistakes
Generally all kinds of inadequate claims or
pretentions are evil
Requesting too high salary, too high position, too
short work-time (less than 8 hours / day)
Being negative about something or someone
Be positive, be successful, be skillful, be
professional, don't blame somebody else!
You should demonstrate high motivation to
work hard for long-term
Anything confirming the opposite is harmful
44
 Typical Mistakes (2)
Requesting too high salary
This is my first job and I want to start with xxx Euro
net salary because I am very smart and experienced.

Requesting too high position for a start

I want to start a job at some management position
because I have graduated University in UK.

You should always show willingness to work

for a long-term
I will work in your company for few months and will go
abroad for a better job after I get some experience.

45
 Typical Mistakes (3)
Putting university / exams as your first priority
I want to start working but my University education is
my first priority. Thus I will be unable to come at
work each Tuesday and each Wednesday and when I have
tests, exams and projects.

You could say the same in a better way

My first priority is my job. In the same time I have
some commitments in the University but I am flexible to
do my best to move them out of working time. Sometimes
(e.g. once monthly) I will have to take tests / exams
in the University and I hope we could find a way to
avoid harmful consequences for my projects at work due
to my eventual absence. Do you think this would be
possible?
46
 Other Hints
Do not Come Late, Usual Dressing, …
 Other Hints
Be sure to come exactly at the appointed
time
Not earlier, not later!
Dressing code
Be sure to come with clean dresses and shoes
Dress yourself in your normal style, software
engineers do not need to wear a suit
If you are nervous, train for the interview

48
How to Pass an Interview
for Software Engineer?

Questions?