Suddenly: Are you ready for your job interview?

This is not related to the topic of my blog, however I am trying to make my work life easier by giving the following hints to people whom I and other interviewers see in the office. 

If you are looking for a new job, check this post before you schedule the next interview with a potential employer.

Our team is looking for a QA specialist. To be honest, we are struggling to find a good candidate. In the past couple of months I interviewed about 5 people, and in the majority of cases my post-interview thought was:"How can we trust a team member if they lie even at this step?"

So I decided to put all my concerns in one post to help candidates and to stop wasting our time on those interviews.

Usually an interview has two parts: HR and professional. It is easy to pass HR screening, but you have to talk to a manager and senior staff of the team that you are planning to join. Keep in mind that the technical interview is performed by people who are doing a similar job that you are going to do. To interview you they have to stop their work, go through your resume, and even confirm the existence of workplaces and education that was listed. They may spend up to three hours, including an actual interview, to hire you to this position. It is three hours of their work time that has to be covered later.

1.      Know your resume. Interviewers get information about your qualification from this document. If you are being asked about some item in your resume and you can't explain it, you failed. (For example, "you were promoted to this position at your previous workplace; can you briefly explain your duties at that specific role?")

2.      Always proofread your resume before sending it out. It will be better if somebody else would go through the resume for you. Grammatical errors, missing words, and discrepancies would be visible immediately to the person who sees it for the first time. Pay attention to details that you put in your qualification summary and in work experience. If you say in your previous job’s description that you were doing automated testing, for example, don’t write that you have only theoretical knowledge of automation in the summary.

3.      Try to have short and exact answers: not more than 3 sentences, covering only the question that was asked. Respect the interviewers’ time. If they need more details, they would ask.

4.      Make sure that you understand what this company does. Obviously, most of us are looking for a job because we need money and we prefer a convenient location. However, an employer needs someone who is interested in this field and will remain at this workplace for a long time.

5.      Make sure that your words are consistent. If in the beginning you say that you like this position because video games development is the most exciting field, but 10 minutes later you say that you do not play video games, because it’s not your thing, you won’t get a job.

6.      Prepare good questions for the interviewer. Do not ask “Did I get a job?”, “How much am I going to get?” or “May I have a vacation next month?”. People who are responsible for a technical interview do not have those answers. Also, the decision of hiring a person is usually made sometime after the actual interview.

7.      It is OK to say that you don’t know something. Every good workplace is going to provide some training for new hires. Alternatively, you may be offered a lower position and learn this subject while working. If you say that you know, but you could not explain the specifics, interviewers would be concern about the rest of your skills.

8.      This question may sound a bit private for an interview, but it tells employers about your personality and your fit for a team. Do you have any hobbies? Try not to say no in response.  Even watching movies could be a good hobby if you present it nicely.

Good luck at your next interview!