A job interview in IT. What do I expect? The steps involved? How do I conduct an interview?

After conducting over a hundred interviews and speaking several times about this topic at conferences, I decided to share it first on my YouTube channel, and then in text. Enjoy reading!

Intro

Today, I will describe how an interview goes, how it starts, what steps are involved in general, and what you can expect from this process, if you haven’t yet encountered it.

If you have, you can find out how we at iTechArt, and myself specifically, conduct interviews. Hopefully you will find this informative.

Beginning

The first message that you receive or that you send is the beginning.

Anywhere, if you write or write to you, then the interview begins at this stage: the beginning of communication. It is not necessary to capitalize “You” here. This is not about formal etiquette. It is simply a matter of communication. The most important thing is to be polite and a good person. If you submitted your resume along with an application for a job, it would be very similar to being asked to apply for this job and saying: “Yes, I am interested.”. Let’s talk.” The Belarusian market is more applicable to CVs sent directly to rabota.by or LinkedIn, whereas for the European market there is a Glassdoor for Russia HeadHunter.

After that, what usually happens? It is likely that you will be asked some standard questions, like: “what is your level of English” and “please send your CV”. Moreover, if it is not publicly available, a link to github. Don’t take it personally even if you have it, such as in linkedin or your CV. Generally, recruiting works in such a way that a prospective interviewer needs all the information about you. Recruiters, on the other hand, fill it in and toss it to the tech interviewer. Often, the recruiter will not look at your github because they are not tech-savvy. He wants the interviewer to see the github. For example, I always glance at the CV and if I see something interesting there, I can go beyond github. Sometimes people do post links to vc.ru or medium, that is, where they were present, held conferences, or wrote articles. I’m interested in all of this.

However, if you are asked to provide information that is in the CV, you can do so.

It can be duplicated. It doesn’t mean your CV hasn’t even been reviewed. This means they don’t want to lose anything, and they make sure all the information that could be relevant to the interviewer is available. Obviously, you will be talking to more than just the recruiter.

It is likely that you will speak directly with the interviewer or manager, or that some company employee will transfer you to where the candidates are being processed directly. It may differ from company to company. In our case, either the recruiter writes, or I, as the manager, or the candidate himself comes.

Then I ask him a few questions about his CV, English, and salary expectations. Considering this, I decide whether to continue communication. If it is necessary, which in most cases it is because I have never witnessed anything so extravagant, then we go ahead.

I value English more than anything else. Different companies have different needs. There are companies, especially in the CIS region, for which English is not a very important skill. If you have the “can read” level, it’s fine. Our company makes 70 percent of our decisions after an interview based on soft skills and English.

But why? Since we are an outsourcing company, it is important for us that candidates can work well in a team, can transfer knowledge to others, and can communicate with customers, since most of the interviews within the company and on the project will be held in English. In some companies, you just land on a project. In some companies, the project itself is the company. In summary, these factors are very important for us and I focus mainly on them, but not everyone has this and if I were in another company, I would focus on other indicators.

Pre-screening

Most likely, pre-screening is waiting for you if you have little experience. What does it entail?

Your recruiter will call you and talk for 15–30 minutes, asking you questions that interest him or her. Usually, these are technical questions that have been agreed on with the interviewer and manager of the job to determine if you are up to speed on the basics.

In addition to the programming language, some libraries and frameworks are now in vogue, and only professionals in this field are familiar with them. Therefore, most likely you will not be asked how it works.

They may ask “did you work with them,” or “did you set up or just study theoretically?”. As well as some general questions related to motivation and sociology, such as: “why do you want to study this”, “what makes you passionate about it”, “how did you study”, “how will you study”, “what does modern technology teach you”, “what books do you read”, “what sites do you visit”.

Also, English. Probably, you’ll be talked to in English for a few minutes. The questions may vary, but you should also understand that here it is better not to be cunning, but to be prepared. People often ask you, for example, about your hobbies or why you chose such a programming language, in English. It is vital to be prepared and know what you will be responding to. It is essential to understand that there is a chance that something else will be asked at the interview, and your English will also be evident at this level. This can be a plus. Obviously, if this is the most banal question in terms of “your hobbies” that you can’t adequately answer, then that raises some questions. However, if you were asked something more difficult, and you can prepare in English at a high level, but during the interview you were faced with something you weren’t ready for, this may also be considered as a plus. It’s not as good as if you could communicate freely, but it’s not too bad. As a manager, I have seen such situations, and when we hired someone it was a plus because he could prepare well.

In terms of development, you should know what you are doing at an elementary level. Initially, every evening, I also wrote on a sheet what I would answer in the morning. Because of this, I improved my technical English greatly and began to speak more fluently.

Appointment

The next step is an interview. To accomplish this, we need to decide “when to conduct it”.

Our focus is usually on the candidate, since there are people who are currently employed and can only afford to call, for instance, at the end of the day. Alternatively, someone is available only during business hours or in the morning. This is more about the candidate. There are options and we can adjust.

As for the interview, we have an hour and a half for interns or junior candidates. In contrast, we have about two hours for a Middle+ candidate or junior with commercial experience. But, of course, an interview can last longer. This is especially relevant for anyone applying for a position between technical and managerial. Because you can spend two hours on management questions, you can also spend two hours on technical questions. It is very challenging to combine both if the person is, for example, a team leader.

Social part

What is the structure of the interview? First, we have the social part.

During this process, we introduce ourselves, talk about the company, and what we do. We ask the candidate if he is interested in the company, if he has acquaintances in the company, and what is known about us. It is usually a plus if the candidate knows. Therefore, it might be a wise idea to Google a bit. Doesn’t take long, but scores you a lot of points in the interview.

Since this is a social part, there are questions regarding communication and soft skills. If a candidate had management experience, then the question would be how he interacted with the team, how their process worked. If a person does not yet have commercial experience, they may be asked “where did you study”, “what sites do you use to study”, “what books do you read”, “what technologies did you study”, or “what conferences” and what I have already mentioned. There might be questions about the university, your future plans for life and development, and so on.

English will also be discussed in the interview. Sometimes it comes before the technical part, sometimes after. My preference is after since I can ask what I asked technically in Russian and see how the person answers in English. All of this takes about 15–20 minutes.

Technical part

Now comes the technical part.

So, if you count, you can understand that a Junior level candidate, or an intern, will spend about 40 minutes or an hour on the technical part. For a person who has already gained some experience, the time can be around 1 hour 30 minutes, but, of course, everything is different.

I’m focusing mostly on the candidates experience in terms of the tech part on the interview. Most often asked for the most challenging task, or the one you’re most proud of, or the most difficult one. I’m asking them to have a dialogue and not just ask questions, as at the university. This is how I begin the interview.

We have the candidate profile we need. Likewise, there are gems like people who have an interesting experience, and it is clever to focus on it. Because checking a candidate’s main stack for a project can be done in a relatively short period of time.

If you are interested in more details about what we ask regarding social and technical aspects, then I will definitely write an article about it, which you can read.

Ending

I mentioned that we ask questions in English at the end. At the end, among other things, I will ask about main stack related things, for example, if a person is applying for the backend, I ask about devops. Furthermore, I want to know how the team interacted and what processes they used. Assuming the recruiter asked these topics in the first social section, I will ask for additional details. This is roughly speaking not “how did you move your task from accepting requirements to production” or “about your team’s interactions”. I would like to know what was the methodology, did you do these ceremonies or something like that. This helps me understand a person’s understanding of the process and how theoretically savvy he or she is. The candidates’ questions are answered at the end.

Candidate questions are also crucial. You should ask questions about the company if you get an interview with them.

What questions might be asked? There are questions like: “what are your benefits”; “do you have insurance”; “do you have any health care programs?”. These are valid questions for people to ask, and I understand why they do so. Likewise, they can be interpreted in different ways. However, this does not mean they should not be set. You just need to balance it and do it right. A candidate who only asks “how much is my salary”, “do I get a raise after my probationary period”, “how much will my salary be in a year” and “how often can I raise it”, “what are your benefits”, “do you have insurance”, “what is healthcare”, and then “I have no more questions”, of course, it will be perceived as financial motivation.

There is no harm in asking questions you are interested in. However, if these points are relevant to you anyway, it might be a wise idea to dilute them. You might be able to include some questions that might be of interest to the company. In general, “what domains do you work with”, “is there a project with this technology”, “what kind of team will I be on”, “who will I be with?”. It shows that you want to go where you want and get what you expect from the company if you ask these questions. That’s great. It means you are a person who is trying to make a wise decision, and not simply a selfish individual looking for profit only for himself.

Feedback & offer

Even here, the interview does not actually end. After that, they’ll tell you that they’ll give you feedback, make a decision, and send you an offer.

Whenever possible, we try to do all of this quickly. It usually takes a few working days, but I personally do not make a decision on the same day. It is better to think things over, sleep on them, perhaps consult with someone and then decide. At least one day must pass.

Waiting too long doesn’t help either. Many people say they’ll make a decision within six months. Some people have said, “I need this as soon as possible after the interview because the deadline to accept an offer elsewhere was an hour ago.”. We adapt to the candidate, but, in a positive way, it is wise not to make a decision on the same day. After the manager has reached a decision, the recruiter informs the candidate of the results. Either you passed the interview, or there was no offer.

A quick and simple case if there is no offer. Here, you are told that, unfortunately, we cannot offer a job at the moment, and here is the feedback.

Feedback, again, is extremely crucial if it is well written. If this is useless feedback, you can still talk about it because it matters to you. This can help you learn from your mistakes, correct your development, and generally assess the quality of the interviewers. An interviewer is not always right, and a candidate is not always right either. That’s not how it works, of course.

The second situation is more pleasant — this is when you have an offer. This does not mean that they will notify you as soon as possible. As soon as you were told “we will reply in two days” and now a day has passed — “they don’t answer, then they don’t make an offer after all, since my friend was told the next day”. Different factors can explain this: people can be overwhelmed, they may simply need more time to think, or the person who makes the decision may simply be on vacation. Therefore, you should not become stressed out if you don’t receive an offer for a long time. I would recommend recalling it if it is longer than the number of days you were promised to reply. Additionally, if your situation has changed and you need an offer now, remember that companies often meet halfway. As an example, I took action in this case.

If the outcome is positive, we will schedule a meeting for you with a recruiter, manager, and employee. We talk again about the offer. We answer the questions again, for there may be new ones. As part of the offer, there could be some misunderstanding or understatement in the wording. Once all this has been discussed, which is usually a 20–30 minute meeting, everything is focused on the candidate, who already receives an offer by email or wherever is convenient for him.

Autro

This is how the interview process works. As I said, if the topic is interesting, then I will elaborate: what happens in a technical interview, what I personally ask, what are the social and general questions on soft skills, what are the questions in English and how to prepare for them, how to create a CV, and how to answer these questions in general.

The topic of the interview is quite extensive, so I decided to break it up into several articles. There is a lot more to say about the interview topic and about IT generally.

Thanks for reading. I am always glad to receive feedback or answer any questions you may have. Thank you very much for reading and have a great day!