Objectives

  • Consider the non-technical aspects of an interview

  • Prepare some example answers to refer back to/adapt to different questions

Typical interview questions

I’m going to go over some of the typical interview questions that you’ll come across in most interviews you come accross.

You can cheat a little by studying what each question wants from you and coming up with some pre defined answers based on what the question is trying to understand.

What’s being considered in a Technical Interview

  • A technical interview evidences your skill through application to:

    • Something relevant to the interviewer.

    • A problem you’ve not seen before

  • It shows you can reflect on your process

    • Either whilst carrying out the interview or afterwards

What about the other interview?

  • Professional life is more than writing code…​

  • What kind of person are you?

  • Will you work well with others?

  • Will you be able to function under stress or other adverse circumstances (If necessary)?

Typical interview questions: Who are you?

  • Tell us about yourself

    • Personality, Priorities, Experience.

  • What is your greatest strength/weakness?

    • Suitability, self-awareness, self-improvement

  • What are your goals for the future?

    • Will you stick around? Are you keen to develop/progress

  • How do you handle stress/Pressure?

    • Adaptivity/planning, self-awareness

Typical interview questions: How would you…​?

  • Proceed if presented with a task you don’t understand/have no idea how to complete?

    • Generic problem solving

  • Approach a situation where you disagree with a figure of authority?

    • Interpersonal skills, confidence, integrity?

  • Explain to a non-technical person the reasons why you’re unable to implement their request?

    • Communication

Typical interview questions: Tell me about…​?

  • A difficult work situation and how you handled it

    • Interpersonal, problem-solving, communication, ability to learn/adapt

  • A time you make a mistake

    • Ability to learn/adapt

  • Your dream job

    • Suitability/fit, expectations

Additional resources

Tips for answering interview questions

  • Don’t just say what - explain why and/or how as well.

  • Use examples to justify your answers.

  • As much as possible, put a positive spin on things…​

  • …​but be honest/real too!

Activities - Personality

  • list 3-5 of you key personality traits

    • For clearly positive traits: outline examples of how you apply them to your work.

    • For less helpful traits: describe how you accomodate them and/or try to improve.

If you don’t know where to start consider doing the myers brigs personality test:

https://www.16personalities.com/.

Warning: it is many peoples opinion that this is astrology for recruiters and entry level phychologists. You might get some insight, you might not. Who knows. It can appear randomly anywhere during working life.

Activities - Anecdotes

  • List 2-3 positive and 2-3 negative experiences you’ve had in the context of work/university, including:

    • Team-related events

    • Project- or programming-related tasks

  • For each experience, note down:

    • What happened, and why

    • What it demonstrates about you

    • What you learned from it

Activities - Technical Interview Practice

  • Hop onto to Codewars.

    • You’ll get some general computer science tasks that’ll generally mimic what you’ll see on coding tests.

  • If you’re targeting an area which requires optimisation knowledge look into that subject area for your chosen language. Look at caching concurrency etc.

  • Mark advent of code for the 1st of december. https://adventofcode.com/ (Advent calender of coding challenges.)