How to ace your technical interview
By Matt Hayes | 13th February 2022
Acing your technical interview is as much about practice and preparation as it is about your technical skills.
You’re going to be up against equally skilled and qualified professionals in the interview process. That means you need an edge on the competition to get the job. Here are 5 essential tips to ace your tech interview.
5 top technical interview tips
Do your homework
Doing due diligence on the company is more than their website and values. Investigate their product in more detail. Therefore, look at reviews or blogs written or press release to get a feel for how they communicate their brand. As a result, it will help you formulate opinions or questions to pose in the interview. Therefore, reinforcing your desire to work with the company.
Remember your soft skills
Interviewees often neglect evidencing soft skills during preparation. Cover your bases because soft skills are requirements for employers. For example, how good you are at influencing stakeholders, simplifying requirements to be understood by non-tech experts or how open you are to exploring alternative ideas and input.
Practice
Practise answering competency-based questions using the situation, task, action and result method. Revisit your CV and use this structure to evidence your experience. Questions vary but running practices scenarios equals being better prepared to address interview questions.
Be ready for the technical interview test
Knowing what you’re walking into is half the battle. Start whiteboarding at home and prepare for scenario-based questions by creating your own. Involve the interviewer during these practise sessions. As a result, this will give them an insight into your approach to problem-solving, communication and collaboration.
Take your time
It’s okay to take a minute to digest and process before you launch into problem solving. If in doubt, ask for clarification. Because asking shows the interviewer that you know when to probe deeper for additional information. Therefore, the outcomes are aligned to the requirement.
The curveball interview questions
Even the most prepared IT professionals can be side swiped when the interviewer decides to throw a curveball question. A lot of these questions don’t have a definitive answer. They’re simply questions designed to test your ability to think logically under pressure. Regardless of your answer, make sure you make logical deductions to get to it.
Even knowing these curveballs are a possibility, makes you mentally prepared for the situation.
Technical interview stages
Technical job interviews can be intense and technical skills will be rigorously tested. Therefore, look at the stages of the technical interview to be prepared for anything.
Interview tips wrap up
Being 100% prepared for an interview is difficult because there are multiple unknowns. However, this advice will get you in the right frame of mind to approach unknowns in the best way.
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The DH team