Interview Tips :Preparation for the interview Md. Hossain (Ex. BUET student). Email: MdHossai@gmail.com I've seen an article about Resume writing Tips: Do's and Don'ts at csebuet site. That serves the starting point in landing a job. A big part depends on a successful interview. A good interview is crucial to have a job in a good company. Most of the tips, outlined here, are universal but related in particular to North American (USA and Canadian) corporate culture. Whether you're a student in North America or living in different parts of the world but willing to start a career here, I believe this article will help you to prepare for a job interview. First few tips are for pre-interview preparation and rests deal with common interview questions and how to answer them.

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Before you go to an interview, prepare for the following:

• Do research about the company, visit company web site.
• Read the requirements of the position which you've applied for.
• Pay attention to your clothing, shoes, hair, postures, body language etc.
• Practice deep breathing to keep yourself calm under pressure.
• Try to speak slowly, clearly in short sentences.
• Do a farm handshake and use common courteousy greetings.
• Smile a bit.
• Go for the interview with your best outfit that has professional look.
• Keep your cell phone turned off or in vibration mode during interview.
• Do not sit before you've been asked to do so.
• During interview try to present yourself as an active problem solver.
• Do not arrive too early or late. Arive on time. Arriving 10 minutes before the interview is fine.
• If interviewer offers/asks you water or drinks, thanks them for asking even if you decline it. If you don't need it let them know that you're fine.
• Do not forget to thank interviewer at the end of interivew.
  

Common interview questions and how to answer them:

1. Tell me a little bit about yourself?

This is a common interview question. It helps interviewer to know you better in your own words. Do NOT start telling your life story or a summery of your resume in oral form. Focus on recent activities, unless you've a great past. Present yourself as thoughtful, helpful and critical problem solver. If you're still a student with Computer science major, say something like I'm currently an MS student at XYZ college in XYZ city. I like doing programming. I’ve got best grades in xyz programming. Or if you’ve done your graduation say "I graduated from XXX college/Univ. After I came USA, I enrolled in MS program at XYZ univ. Currently I'm working for this company where I've developed XXX module of xyz software using Object oriented methodology etc etc. Or I've written xxx thesis /PhD dissertation on xxx topic. Some of my papers published in xxx publication. How you say and how you present yourself represents your personality and background. So be articulate, focus on main points and be positive. Stay calm, look at the eyes of the interviewer, speak slowly but clearly.

2. Why do you want to leave your current position?
Or Incase if you're not employed, Why did you leave your last position?

Do not tempted to give negative information. If there are logical reasons tell it to the interviewer. For instance I've been working for XXX product for a long time. I believe it's time to move on to work on different technologies. Incase if you were not employed and left last job to pursue a college degree mention it. Do not show bad feelings about your past employers. Do not forget to show your interest in this particular company and this new job. Make sure you back up your reasoning with well-thought out arguments.

3. In order to find out whether your skill will fit in the company, they may ask you ... Have you ever done this XXX work before?

If you've done/familiar with it say yes. Give a short but specific example of it. Only share positive examples. If you're not familiar, Do NOT say "NO" outright. Tell them you’ve not done it but you're a quick learner and always like to face new challenges and usually finds a way to solve it. Present yourself with "I can do" attitude.

4. What are your strengths and weaknesses?

Telling about your strength is relatively easy. Make sure some of your strengths are inline with the requirements of the job that you applied for. Weakness may be a failure that occurred in your last job. You can mention it but make sure you gave example how you over come it or how you changed direction that worked out for you. Tell it and end with positive note and make sure you addressed it, so that it has not happened repetitively and lesson learnt. For instance, you could say that over time you've learnt how to manage time better and prioritize workload, developed skill in effective communication. These are the few weaknesses, but now you feel that you paid enough attention to them and able to overcome them. This approach while shows some negativity but filled with positive information that will provide your interviewer some feelings that you are aware of your drawbacks and taken steps to address them.

5. Tell me about your personal responsibility at your current job?

If you've coded/fixed bugs/managed a project mention it. Do not just say you were responsible/involved for this and that. Instead exactly tell what you did with very specific examples. And how you made a difference by doing so. For instance I coded for this project and implemented coding guide lines/best practices across the board.

6. What are your long term goals?

Do not provide too much details about your long term goals. Rather discuss things that are important to you professionally and how you plan to achieve them. If growth is a goal, mention that. Always show your intention to contribute positively. By this question, employer tries to get some idea where you'd like to be heading in future.

7. What are your accomplishments (in last job)?

If you're a student high light your achievements in college projects. If you already employed, tell few achievements from your previous jobs and the contribution you've made. Make sure you give specific example, such as, I automated the test system which reduce manual testing load to our Quality assurance process for regression testing that saved us 50% test time for scheduled projects. Try to co-relate some of the success stories to the job for which you're currently applying.

8. What did not you like about your last job/boss?

Never ever give any negative information. The interviewer does not know either you or your boss well. So s/he won't be able to apply judgment whether your negative info about your boss does make sense or not. S/He might think you're a complainer. Even if your boss have not pay attention to his/her responsibility do not bring it to this interviewer. Instead mention that it helps you take extra responsibility. Say something logical but not anything bad about the company or your boss.

9. Do you've any questions?

Never, simply say "NO". You indeed have questions. This will show that you're interested in the position and willing to know more about it. The questions you can ask:

About the company culture?
How would you describe the ideal candidate for the job?
Regular Work/business hours?
What are the expectations for this position?
What kind of person are you looking for?
What kind of problem would-be-hired person be solving?
who (which team) would the person work for?
Why is this position open?
What's the next step in the interview process?
Is it ok to do a follow up call?

9. How much salary are you looking for?

Always try to avoid salary question at the beginning of interview. You never bring it up. Just in case the interviewer ask the question at the beginning of the interview try to say something inline with ... I'm interested in learning more about the position at this point. If I'm a good match then it might be good to talk about the compensation. But if they insist do not just say a figure. That might default you in two ways ... your figure might be too high which makes interviewer not to proceed interview further or it might be too low which will leave an impression that you do not know how much you worth. Best approach is to ask whether they could tell you the range of salary for this specific position and then you decide whether it's ok for you tell a figure with in the range. Or simply give them a range and let them know that you'd prefer to be
paid upper end of that range. If you do not know what the range would be, try to figure it out from salary.com , by entering the job title and the job location. Also ask them what benefits package they usually offer other than salary. It might include stock options (if not public company then probably profit sharing etc), relocation fees (if you're moving to a new place), signing bonus, dental and medical insurance etc etc. Do not forget to calculate cost of living differences if you're applying a job in a new city/state. So if everything goes ok, be prepared to explore all options. For instance, if you're changing employers from one city/state to another you need to bring up relocation expense which might cost you few thousands depending on your situation. It includes moving to your car, furninutes etc to new place, a temporary location to stay before you rent/buy one. I've seen folks who talk most aspects of relocation, such as one month company paid housing, searching for new rental place with the help of third party who gets paid by the company. If you need immigration assistance make sure it fully covered including travel for visas etc etc. Incase the salary is not up to your expectation try to explore whether the company offers commuter checks, working from home (telecommuting) etc etc.

10. Can you describe a previous work situation in which you were able to contribute solving a problem, or your ideas were being taken to solve it ?

For this question you should give a specific example of a problem and how it's been solved with your contribution. For instance ... our online store was sluggish. I spent a bit of time to figure out why it's been slow. Then came out with idea of SQL query optimization that helped a significant improvement in performance.

11. Tell us about your work ethics?

Do not tell that you love to work for long hours or in the morning you prefer to come to office at 10 o'clock, because it makes you efficient, whereas office starts at 9. If you've a any specific leadership style or work style mention it. Do NOT just mention that you are a team player, provide specific example of your contribution to the team.

12. Whom do you report to and what is his position in the company?

If you report to junior person, that makes you more junior. Pay especial attention what the interviewer really wants to know. Some time job-title reflects what you did. But it is not uniform in every company. So do not sell yourself short with a straight answer. If need to be, elaborate it.

13. Why should we hire you?

Do not be boastful but be confident. Provide examples from your past job that you're a problem solver and explain your abilities those are also a requirements for this position.

14. Do you visit any web site or blogs on the Internet on a regular basis?

Try to keep this answer in line with your profession unless you really visit an interesting site. (If you work with .Net development, you can mention microsoft developer network web site, similarly Sun Developers' solution site is a good one for J2EE developers, or if your job related to perl development then CPAN site is a good example, adobe's devnet is also a good site for web development with adobe product). A few good sites related to computer software developments
are ...

http://www.gnu.org/
http://slashdot.org/
http://sourceforge.net/
http://freshmeat.net/
http://www.tucows.com/
http://www.download.com
http://www.cnet.com/
http://www.osdl.org/
http://msdn2.microsoft.com (Microsoft developer network)
http://developers.sun.com/ (Sun developer network)
http://www.adobe.com/devnet/ (web development with adobe product, such as flash, coldfusion, dreamweaver ...)
etc etc.

15. What to do when you've an interview that includes lunch?

Say, you've an interview at Google at their Mountain View, California location, and you're scheduled from 11AM to 3AM interview. Probably they will offer you a lunch, which might be in house-lunch as Google supplies free lunch to employees at its cafeteria. But there are lot of other companies where you'd be accompanied to a restaurant to have lunch with your interviewer. If that is the case it would be good to have some advance preparation to learn some formal lunch etiquette. Even if you never have had this situation do not panic, just use your common sense, such as do not order some greasy food, do not talk with your interviewer when you've mouth full with food. If you're uncomfortable with alcoholic beverages do not order it, just because your interviewer did one for him/her. When bill showed up, do not jump to pay it from your wallet. For more details check it out here.

As a side note, say you're in New York, USA and you've an interview at Silicon Valley, California, the chances are if the company calls you for interview they will pay your full trip including good hotel (Corporate America, does not mind to accommodate prospective candidates at best hotels ). If you've to checkout in the morning, make sure that you have enough time to reach the office of the employer. You can always ask the front desk for Express checkout process. If need to be grab a cab/taxi. Also make sure you take breakfast before going to interview. Do so, even if you've to buy it from Hotel's in-house breakfast (which might be slightly expensive), because usually all your expense will be paid by the company. The bottom line is do not appear in an interview with empty stomach which might cause you some undesirable discomfort during your interview.

Related helpful web-resources for interview tips:
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http://hotjobs.yahoo.com/interview
http://www.techinterviews.com/?p=300 [Lot of sample questions here]
http://interview.monster.com/
http://interview.monster.com/archives/tips/
http://www.workopolis.com/content/resource/career911/articles/interviewing/intintro.html