Friday, March 18, 2011

Post 013

Interviews, interviews interviews.

One of the biggest fears in a man's life aside from running out of time, is running out of chances.  Man is never afraid of being penniless.  So long as one is capable of working, one will have money, thus rendering the issue of being penniless moot.

However, to BE capable of making money, one must have a job, and for this, one must have the opportunity to interview for said job, and, by a transitive relation, if one screws up an interview, they essentially make themselves penniless.  Which, brings me to the main topic of this post : the Interview.

Many people within the class of 2012 have actually taken the extreme route in which to apply for long internships that will take up the majority of a year, and push their 4th yr in school into a 5th year.  In return, they are granted with loads of experience, contacts, and perhaps some extra cash to pay off their tuition fees (and make a purchase of that new processor they've had their eye on).  So, let's start with the basics : the questions.

Many people who applied to IBM (along with myself) have had different things to say about the interview.  For the same software tester position, some have been asked to write code, some have been asked behavioural questions, and some have even been asked a mix of both.

Luckily for me, my interview questions revolved mainly about behaviour, and a few questions regarding what I've done before.

Due to my old age, I've began to forget bits and pieces of the interview, so a few questions asked involved the following :
1.) Have you worked with/created a database before?  What environment?
2.) Describe a complex project you've worked on, and what happens with teammates who fail to produce. (Yeah....by now, we should have a lot of stories to tell)
3.) Upon creating a business website, what are the components that require testing?
4.) What sort of Linux platforms have you worked on? (To test one's experience really)
5.) Have you worked with web before?
(There are a few more, but...I really have no idea what they are anymore at this point.)
8?) Have you heard about the manhole question?
9?) What sort of role do you play in a team?

Naturally, there are no right or wrong answers as it always varies between jobs.  However, qualifying for a job is a very difficult thing to have happen.  In many cases, looking for a job is difficult in the sense that questions asked during the interview is very very specific to a job you have no understanding of.  So for those who have found a job they'll like, congratulations.  In fact, to make this seem like a major point, Shauniechulo had compiled a list in room 206.
That IBMer List over to the left is essentially what I'm most afraid of.  As you can tell, one name has question marks next to it, and that essentially belongs to Yours Truly.  Wouldn't it suck if I'm stuck not being able to work with Jesus, Santa, Thor and Odin at IBM?  I'd think so.

On a side note : IBM has a nice office.  I mean, I watched them build that place cause I lived around the area, but wow, from the inside, it's a lot more impressive than I thought.  For all you people interested in a job in the future...might I suggest IBM?

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