Cracking The Interview - Tips for success

I recently went to Cracking The Interview, a RecWorks Career Hacking event organised via the London Java Community. As one of the six Interviewers talking about our experiences and pet peeves, I was fascinated by some of the differences in techniques, but also the similarities. The top three common dos and don’ts were…

1. Don’t show up too early. Your interviewer has other things to do, and showing up half an hour early will interrupt them during their lunch, another meeting or, at best, catch them off guard. Ten minutes early is fine, five minutes early is recommended. On the other hand…
   Do be in the general area early. Find out where the office is and then go and find a nearby coffee shop to wait and relax.
2. Don’t be too passive. Part of interviewing is building rapport with your interviewer; after all, they’l be your colleague if you’re successful. Practice active listening and remember an interview is a two-way conversation in which you’re supposed to be finding out if this is the role/company for you. Which means…
   Do ask questions and give your opinions when appropriate, and especially show enthusiasm. All of the interviewers at Cracking the Interview said that enthusiasm was more important to them than skill level, and I agree. An enthusiastic candidate is more likely to want to learn and to keep up to date with tech news.
3. Don’t blag an answer. The interviewer will know when you’re unsure of your answer, so…
   Do give it your best shot. Say “I don’t know, but my guess would be…” and then work out what an answer might be and explain your reasoning. If you really have no idea, ask your interviewer if they can explain, in which case you might learn something useful.

There are no guarantees, but hopefully those who attended Cracking the Interview will have more success in their next interviews, and it made me think about what is important to me when I interview candidates. Hopefully, there will be another one, but in the meantime, I recommend joining the London Java Community and keeping an eye on their upcoming events. Maybe you’ll already have met your next interviewer?

Cross-posted from benshouse.net
Image attribution: Flickr, Creative Commons