this post was submitted on 23 Jun 2023
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I got a job interview! Any tips?? (beehaw.org)
submitted 1 year ago by Witch@beehaw.org to c/chat@beehaw.org
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Hi yall after being on disability income for years and job searching for months I finally got to step two of the job search process: a job interview.

I am wondering if anyone had any tips for the job interview process? I am very nervous.

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[–] TheCalzoneMan@beehaw.org 1 points 1 year ago (1 children)

Assuming this is a corporate job, come up with a couple questions for your interviewer. Get them talking about the company and they'll remember you as a good listener. My usual go-to questions are:

  • "What's the company culture like?"

  • "What aspect of the company do you see as the most enjoyable?"

  • "Why did you chose to work for the company, and what's made you stay?"

Questions like that. Try to make it personal and specific, since it's usually the hiring manager that you're interviewing with. You can write them down and bring them with you; as long as you're bringing multiple copies of your resume, you can stash the questions at the bottom of the stack.

If it isn't a corporate position, then it depends. I can't answer for those since I've only done labor and corporate, so I don't now how to interview for technical or artistic positions. I would assume make sure you have your portfolio on hand, though be careful about doing on-site consultations since you would be giving them designs for free and they have no obligation to hire you after that. If they try to do that to you, do not continue the interview with them. Just thank them for their time and leave.

[–] chibi-totoro@kbin.social 1 points 1 year ago (1 children)

I agree with your premise and approach to personalization, 100%...... but not those exact questions.

I run a lot of software engineering teams and I interview people every week. I get those three exact questions from almost every single candidate. Frankly, those questions do not show any particular interest in your company - they are generic questions and kind of have a negative framing to them. The company culture one is especially annoying for a lot of reasons. If company culture is important to you, there are much better ways to tease it out from the interviewer.

Try to actually show real interest in the job, try some of these ideas:

  • Ask questions about the responsibilities of the role, and tell them you love doing whatever they are.
  • Ask about the kinds of projects you'll get to work on. Relate them to any experience you have, if you're lucky enough.
  • Ask about the latest press releases you've seen for the company.
  • Ask about the tools/software/training that is required or available for the role.
  • Ask about how much autonomy you'll have in bringing new ideas in for improving things (I love this one, it shows they might be a self-starter and have curiosity and agency).
  • Ask about what kind of fun things the workers do together. Do you have a memes channel in your slack? Do you ever go for team lunches? Do they bring their dogs to the office?
  • Ask about the roadmap for the department where the potential role is. What's the vision?

All of these kinds of questions actually show genuine interest in getting involved. Remember that a company is just a bunch of people working together. I will take an engaged, friendly, curious and smart candidate with barely any experience over a distant, disengaged, looking-for-the-least-bad-option AAA software dev any day of the week.

Hope that helps!

[–] demvoter@kbin.social 1 points 1 year ago* (last edited 1 year ago)

Ask about how much autonomy you'll have in bringing new ideas in for improving things

That is a fantastic question.