How to Prepare for Interview in IT Easily | Best Tips and Advice

Jan 26, 2023 by Efim

Hey! Today, I want to talk about job interviews. Now I am actively interviewing for various positions in various companies and startups doing business in absolutely different areas, from the financial sector to the field of online education. Looking at these interviews, I thought it would be useful and interesting for someone to read how I prepare for these interviews, what I prepare for in advance and how I behave.

Gather company information

The most important advice when preparing for an interview in IT, I think, is to prepare for an interview not by position, but by company. For example, you are an experienced or novice Frontend developer who received an invitation for an interview from a web studio that develops and maintains sites for partners. In this case, preparing for a technical interview is absolutely useless. Of course, you can repeat JavaScript syntax or practice writing some functions, but it will be absolutely useless.

It would be much more effective to learn more about the company. For example, what kind of web development do they do, what frameworks do they use, who are their partners, what industry do they do business in, what are their projects in terms of scale and level of complexity - are they simple landing pages or multifunctional sites with complex architecture. This is really important. Answers to these questions can be found on the official websites of the companies or the profile on LinkedIn.

Having answered the above questions for yourself, you will get a general idea about the company, and it will already be intuitively clear, for example, what stack other developers work with. Study the company's finished projects - who were the customers, what industry the customer works in. In general, the portfolio of the company can already be understood how serious and responsible the position for which you are applying. It's one thing if Nike is listed in the partners section on the company's official website, it's another thing when a local shoe store. These will be two completely different interviews, with different counter questions and requirements.

Prepare questions

In 100% of the interviews, they always ask me - do you have any questions at this stage of the interview? There should always be questions. If you don't have questions, come up with anything, even if the question is stupid, or you already know the answer to it. Based on your analysis of the company we talked about above, you should prepare your questions ahead of time, so you don't hesitate and build confidence in the interview by asking your questions one by one. Questions can be completely different, it all depends on the specific company and the type of your activity, but there is a universal list of questions that I absolutely always ask, no matter what position and company it is. Here is a list of some of them:

1. How do you communicate with the customer and within the team (Slack, Zoom or corporate chats)?
2. What is the usual workload? How much work per day or week? What are the usual volumes and terms of projects?
3. Is there any training provided and, if so, how does it take place?
4. Could you name the most common case with which I am going to work as soon as I start, if so

I repeat, questions can be absolutely any, and it is impossible to come up with a universal list. But you should have 10 questions for every interview. Questions will show your interest, show that you have already analyzed the company and its activities, are familiar with the product and can already judge it without having worked in the company for a day.

Self story plan

This is an optional item, but I recommend that everyone do it, whether you are an introvert or able to sell a broken iron for your annual salary. Different things happen in interviews, and very often people get nervous. It is important that in case of any hitch, you quickly orient yourself, find a way out and continue your story where you left off.

This is especially true for those who are being interviewed for the first time and this is their first job. In this case, when there is no experience with real projects, when you did not even graduate from the university and the only place where you worked was a pizza delivery man, it is difficult to build a story about yourself and say more than three sentences without preparation.

Prepare a story about yourself. It should not be longer than five minutes. Tell only the information you need. Since you have already collected information about the company, then tell what connects you with this information. If you are getting a job as a web developer, then in the story about yourself it is not necessary to say that you worked as a pizza delivery man for two years. Tell them that you were a freelancer and learned to write code yourself or are working on a personal project, a web application (of course, you shouldn’t lie, but the experience should be relevant, that is, related to the job you are applying for).

If five minutes is too much talking about yourself, talk about your strengths and weaknesses, talk about internships, personal projects, publications anywhere. This information will not come to mind quickly, you need to refresh a lot in your memory, formulate an idea - for this I ask you to write a story about yourself in advance.

Resume and test task

Most often, candidates who have already passed the first resume contest and the second selection on test tasks are called for interviews. If this is your case, then keep the test task and resume open in the window next to Zoom. Very often in an interview they ask questions on test tasks - why did you do it this way and not otherwise; what is your logic; can it be done even better. This is absolutely normal, and you should not worry that if you were asked to open a test task, then now you will look for errors in it. If you are already interviewing, then your test is perfect (or at least good enough to invite you to an interview).

They also ask questions very often - in your resume you indicated ... what does this mean? Can you explain, please? In an interview, they just want you to build sentences beautifully and express yourself logically. I assure you, they absolutely do not care what you mean by writing in the experience in a pizzeria - working with people. They just want to listen to you and get to know you better.

It's also important to brush up on your resume. If you have been looking for a job for several months, then to any interview question about an item from your resume, the maximum that you will answer is - Did I write that? I don't remember. This should not be. According to such words and thoughts, it is immediately clear that you are not very interested in this position, and they can find a more attentive candidate.

Conclusion

In this post, I tried to describe the methods that I use myself when preparing for an interview. It is important to note that this is just my preparation. I did not talk about how to write a resume, how to behave in the interview itself, what is worth saying and what is not, how to talk about salary correctly, and so on. I just shared a few steps that will bring you closer to the coveted position, make you a more confident candidate, which will surely attract the attention of the employer.

Don't ignore the steps I've told you about. On the one hand, they may seem obvious and useless to you. However, these are things that many people miss. And if they are at least three times geniuses, if they forget what they indicate in their resume or say in a story about themselves that they have no experience, then such a candidate is weak in the eyes of the employer, despite all his abilities. It's important to show yourself! Good luck with that!