I'm going to have my first job interview on tuesday.

Do you have any tips for me?

It's for a cooperative study program.

I had a government paid interview training once, it was mandatory to get unemployment cash...

One thing I remember:

Bring two pairs of shoes, I case you get one pair dirty.

Confidence sells, be honest, don't ask any questions like "how much am I getting paid", remember what's on your CV (they'll ask questions about it), and MOST importantly;

Don't panic, It's not as scary as you think.

@Ellis I think that's going to be my biggest problem, I'm already pretty nervous

rub one off short before the interview...seriously

@Steve2955 It's tricky the first time, but you'll get the hang of it.

Treat it like a conversation about yourself, not a life or death situation that might work for you. Even if you don't get it this time, your CV got someone to pay attention.

Do your homework and find out stuff about the company beforehand. What are they doing, how big are they, things like that. At least study their website.

The two most dreaded interview questions are "where do you see yourself in X years", which you can answer with an interesting job in tech.

The other is "do you have any questions", and one that you can always pull off is asking whether they have some sort of trainings or so where you'd like to hang on.

@Ellis Thank you very much for your kind support. I really appreciate it. I will inform you about how it went.

@Fast-Nop Those are really some important points. Thank you very much for your advice. It helps me a lot.

If they ask a question you cannot answer: admit it and use it as a opportunity to show your eagerness for improvement, by asking them to tell you and making notes.

@2nd2NULL wait what....

On this YouTube channel I found some useful advises: https://youtube.com/channel/...

Prepare a couple of questions to ask to your interviewers. They usually ask "Do you have some questions for us?" and answering "No" would give the impression that you are not really interested in the position.

Good luck! :)

@Marnsghol gives ease and confidence. Got my girlfriend to help out once before an interview, and I felt like a God. 😁

Didn't get the job, but that was attributed to my profile.
"How do we know you and your media profile won't leave our banking software company in the next 15 years?" also is a stupid question to ask a freshly graduated ex-student.

@2nd2NULL just not in the interview room.

@Ellis bring a towel.

@radekwlsk Ah, I forgot the absolutely most important part. Thanks 😆

And remember that they not may but WILL ask question without obvious and possible answer. Those are questions to show how you think, how fast you can adapt and sometimes what types of algorithms and approaches you know. Lot of those questions are about calculating some number that can not be calculated exactly. Like number of bicycles in the city or kilometers of road. You don't have to answer 'that will be 38573' but more give some idea how that problem can be approached. What difficulties there are and how they could be solved.

Plus don't be affraid to say how much you want to earn if they ask. If you say too much they will just don't agree on that and propose less. If you say too little you may get less than they are willing to pay. Also it is good to ask what they can offer you, not only what you can offer them. Ask how they work, if the IT team is using SCRUM or other agile methodology.

Also keep in mind with who you are talking. That may be someone from HR and they don't know shit about IT, but if it is IT chief or other specialist they will not be able to talk about employment details, but can talk and ask about developers work.

@radekwlsk for shit questions like "how many golf balls can a whole monastery of Shaolin Monks eat when they fly in hot air balloons", you can also answer "2013". What, 2013 golf balls?

No, 2013 is the year when Google dropped this kind of questions because they unsurprisingly found out that they tell nothing about the applicant and are a complete waste of time.

https://qz.com/96206/...

Since it will usually be a useless HR drone coming up with that shit just to feel smug despite not knowing anything about tech, you should immediately use the shock to take initiative and ask questions e.g. about their tech stack and their development processes (waterfall, agile etc).

@Fast-Nop I know Google stopped using them, but that does not mean every other HR 'specialists' and random IT guys deployed to recruitment did so too.

@radekwlsk and that's the thing - Google stopped that because they have proven it to be stupid. If other HRs havn't stopped that by now yet, that tells that they aren't specialists, but incompetent idiots who are years behind present. Telling them a bit from 2018 isn't the worst idea. Of course, that ruins the only thing that they have ever gotten out of that, i.e. feeling smug.

But seriously, any company who has such idiots in recruiting is hardly worth applying anyway because idiot recruiters tend to recruit.. well, other idiots. An interview works both ways, and with such unprofessional shit, the company is close to fail their part.

@Fast-Nop lot of bigger companies dont have time for playing recruitment and for the first step they outsource it. Then from what the HR ladies from linkedin and then question according to company supplied requirements only then the few get to second interview at the company. At least in Poland it looks like that in a lot of cases. First step of recruitment is done by incompetent recruiters that have really no idea what the one they are questioning will be doing anyway. That is fron where 5 years of experience in Swift came and other stupid stuff.

It is sad. But it is true. There is too many people on the market looking for the job, and to find the ones that fulfill the requirements and did not lie in their CVs is outsourced in a lot of cases.

@radekwlsk @xonya @Sefie @Fast-Nop @Ellis @2nd2NULL

Thank you all so much for your support. It took some time to get the result, but I got accepted. I'm extremely happy right now.

Congratulations!