Lately I have been given the oppertunity to take part in job interviews. Job interviews are nothing new for me, but now, I am sitting on the other side of the table and I am one of the interviewers who are asking the questions. That means no need for me to be nervous, though it was kinda weird during the first two to three interviews. My role in the job interviews is to find out if an applicant has the technical knowledge to be of any help for us in case we hire her. That is not all though. My opinion is also asked for in terms of my personal impression of an applicant. This post contains a few hints and tips for applicants to being able to perform better in job interviews.

The obvious

There are a few obvious parts in a job interview that I would like to highlight. This is mostly due to my (again I have just started being a part of an interviewing team) experience:

1. Be on time (5 minutes before is OK, 10 minutes is not). Being late is unacceptable! In case you are running late – call!
2. Do not show up underdressed (in most cases unless you know better: wear a suite – tie is recommended though in our case not required – we are looking for developers)
3. Do not look like you just got up

I am sure there are more important things, those three are the ones that I found were sticking out in a bad way that I thought would be a “best practice” for job interviews.

Do NOT be nervous

In case you missed it. The company you are having the interview at is interested in you. They would like to meet you just as much – maybe even more? – as you want to meet the company. OK, I know, most people will be nervous at job interviews, but most of the time (there are exceptions, too) the ones you will be talking to are just humans and yes, most of them are nice. They might ask weird/hard questions, but there’s a reason for that, too. They want to see how you react. They want to test you. There are really uncomfortable questions that in most cases do not even have a correct answer to see how applicants react on stress or how they would solve tough problems / situations. In any case, do not be nervous. Think about your answer, give the answer – what else would you do? What’s the worst that could happen?

Be interesting

So, you show up on time. You are wearing a suite and a tie. You did not just get up and look wide awake. You are not nervous ;-). What else should you do to perform well in a job interview? Have something to talk about. Be interesting.

In one of my first interviews as an interviewer I asked an applicant what his master thesis was about. All she could tell me was the title of the thesis. One sentence. I thought, well, someone needs to work on her thesis for let’s say 4 months minimum. After 4 months of working on one single topic I expect you to have more to talk about. This applies to all of the points metioned in your CV. My hint here is, know what you can tell about most parts of your CV, if it is too far back, people probably will not ask you about it anyways. The last job you had – be prepared to talk about it – in detail. Do not give one-sentence replies (Again, there are exceptions to this rule, but in most cases more than one sentence is better).

Another thing that kinda bothers me during some interviews is that applicants keep talking about what their company was doing. How the team did this and that. That’s OK to some extend, but during a job interview I want to know what the applicant was working on, what her role inside the team was, what barriers she took care of, etc. So, again, you should be interesting and have something to tell about your latest job(s) and your role(s) in each of them.

Disclaimer

All points given here are my own personal opinions. I am not really experienced in being an interviewer so do not take everything mentioned here for granted. Think about it, adjust it, ignore it – whatever you wish. I beleive that there are some good points made in this post.

Conclusion

Compliing to the given statements will of course not guarantee you a job, but it would increase chances of getting a job – at least if I am the one interviewing you ;-)

What are your thoughts on this? Am I missing something important? Am I totally wrong on one or more points? Let me know!