Interview Preparation - Questions to Expect and Plan

Most interviews are based on conversation and dialogue.

There are some standard questions that you should be prepared to answer. The answers should be natural and focused, and about you and your career goals.

Get started with these questions.

Try to answer every question with an example that explains your answer - a specific project or challenge, the tech involved, what you struggled with and how you solved it.

Every story you can tell like this helps the interviewer get to know you as a person, and shows that you understand the tech. The more specific you are about the tech, the more confident your interviewer will be.

Tell us about yourself:

• This is a short section which works as the opener, and provides the interviewer with a bit of context about you. Don’t tell your life history, or go into deeply personal information.
• Talk about: A little bit about your history, where you’re from, what interests you, why you want to be in IT.
• If you have children then you may want to mention this here.
• It’s nice if you can reference something you know about the interviewing company, i.e. if you’re interested in the same technology or problem space.

What are your strengths?

• Could ask for one or two.
• Pick one or two things that you feel confident about and talk about how they contribute to making better software products.

How do you handle challenges?

• Do you plan things out before you start?
• Do you go right at the problem?
• Do you involve others?
• What’s your strategy?

Give an example: Tell the interviewer about a challenge you’ve faced in a professional or personal context (but not too personal), and what you did to overcome it. Note: code challenges are almost always better than personal ones.

What kind of projects have you done?

• This is the tech part of the conversation. Include your hackathon projects, as these are always unique.
• You should be able to summarise each project in a non-technical way e.g. “an app to connect recyclers with e-waste dumps”
• Then explain the tech:
• languages used, back end, what kind of database, what kind of front end, where it was hosted / how people accessed it.

What would you do if…

• Sometimes interviewers create a scenario and ask how you would react.
• Think about things you can do that would help your team solve a problem, or create a new opportunity.
• What interviewers are looking for:
  • How you break down a problem into it’s different parts (tip: follow the problem solving template!)
  • What direction you would take
  • Collaboration: how you would involve others
• It’s ok to take a bit of time to think about what you’d do, and why.
• You can step the interviewer through your thinking by:
  • Re-phrasing the question describing the different parts of the problem,
  • Describing then the different things you could do in that situation, and
  • Saying which you would choose

How do you work in a team?

• Talk about mentoring, planning together, sharing knowledge, sharing work / pairing.

How do you handle conflict?

• Talk about collaboration, how you work to understand the problem, how you work to resolve the problem.
• Have an example ready.
• *Tip: Talk about the Situational Problem Solving Approach, or any other method you work with.

What are your other interests?

• Good team members have interests outside of work. Your interviewer wants to know that you pursue your own interests.
• Think about one or two - not so many that your interviewer will worry about whether you’re bored at work.
• If you have children, you could also mention them here.

What do you know about [this company]?

• Find out what you can about the company, from the internet (website, company blog, facebook and/or internet search for ‘news’) and from people in the community.
• It’s good to know what their main product / products are, and what their tech stack is, where their offices are - in Cape Town, and where else in SA / Africa / the world.
• Social news: their website or blog will tell you about if they’ve won any awards, if they run any a social programs, and so on.

What are your career goals?

• How do you want to grow in your career.
• Have an idea of small steps, of technologies you’re interested in, and things you may want to achieve.

Why do you want to work here?

This question is about two things:

• what do you know about the company (above) and
• what your career goals are: how do you see them fit with your interviewing company.

Less common questions:

What are your weakness/es?

• Nobody is good at everything, so don’t say “nothing”.
• Rather, be prepared to talk about two things that slow you down, or you know you don’t do well yet. Interviewers usually only ask about one, but sometimes two.
• Talk about: how they slow you down and what you do to get around them.
• Be to the point, and don’t dwell on the problems.

NOTE: don’t start telling the interviewer everything you’re terrible at, or ways in which you undermine others. This lands up in digging a hole for yourself that you won’t recover from. A good way to start is “I’m not very good at ….” or “I’d like to get better at …” and then explain why you need to improve, and what you’d like to be able to do.

How do you handle failure?

• What do you do when you don’t succeed at something?
• What steps do you follow when you realise you have failed?
• Try to use an example of a specific project and the tech you were using.

How do you handle success?

• When things go right, what do you do to make sure they keep going right?
• Try to use an example.