Guide to Successful Preparation for a Client Interview

Is a client interview your nightmare? Read this article to know how to prepare effectively and get a client to hire you.

Yevhen Behen, a competence expert at the Software Development Office of SoftServe, has passed dozens of client interviews and now helps engineers to succeed in this tricky yet important step. On top of that such preparation benefits clients as well, as they can get all the needed information about a specialist and decide if it`s a perfect fit for the position.

Below he outlines the most crucial aspects.

How a client interview is different from a job interview?

A job interview consists of two parts:

• formalized technical interview — checks your professional level and has pretty much the same structure for all engineers within one profile.
• Project interview — checks if you meet the requirements of the project and the particular vacancy.

A client interview is similar to the second one. Though it is different because the mentality of the foreign interviewer is different and the focus will be shifted towards the needs of the client, and not an employer. I`ll dwell upon why it`s important below.

Two steps that are often missed while preparing for a client interview

1. Prepare CV

Don`t underestimate the role of CV. Refusals often happen at this stage. Reasons are trivial:

• Grammar mistakes — it looks as if the person is irresponsible.
• Poor stylistic design — it looks as if the person did not prepare for the interview properly and does not meet the level claimed.

There are two versions of this document:

• The advanced version containing the entire professional history (CV) — start with your latest projects and describe them in detail. Place projects that started your career, or irrelevant to the client’s technology stack projects only with a general description at the end.
• Shortened version (resume, or excerpt from CV) — the last few projects, or the most relevant to the client's needs.

In the general summary and skills description, focus on matters that will present you as a specialist best suited for a particular project. The rest is not of interest to this particular client.

When describing projects, check the NDA compliance with previous clients and do not disclose their confidential information.

2. Rehearse self-presentation

Self-presentation is an opportunity to promote yourself. Please use it. But impromptu speech (especially in English) is a tricky thing. Believe me, investing time into preparation is beyond important.

Simply writing a text is not enough. I strongly recommend having several rehearsals and deliver your speech. If you don’t have a listener to give you feedback, try to practice in front of a mirror.

3 key points to check here:

• Duration of the speech
• Sequence of facts
• Logic of presentation

While saying out loud the words you will understand what parts can be confusing or not present you in the best light.

Here is an example of a proper structure:

• Education (if you have a relevant one) because for Americans and Europeans it is important
• A general summary of your experience (how many years in the profession, what technologies you work with, what projects you have performed on, what methodologies you have worked with)
• Details on the last two or three projects (project ecosystem, team structure, responsibilities within the team, requirements) to make it clear that you have a helicopter view, and not just know your technical part
• The logical ending (to make it clear that you have completed your story).

How interview goes?

I distinguish three types of interviews:

• An interviewer is a non-technical person — they will check your soft skills. Usually, a conversation is built around common topics, whereas technology is brought up on a very high level.
• Classic technical interview — the interviewers often want to know about your latest projects and ask a lot of questions from the profile (what frameworks you have worked with, what approaches you have used, your code quality, etc.).
• In-depth technical interview — in addition to (or instead of) technical questions, you will be asked to solve tasks. This is the most stressful option since you will code in front of the interviewers. Even experienced professionals can get confused because it is hard to work when you are watched by strangers and expected to get the result as soon as possible. When we prepare a colleague for this kind of interview, we model similar sessions and go through them several times (starting with clarifying questions for the task in English, and then perform the actual coding and presentation of the result).

The best preparation here is to train and perform certain technical tasks while someone is watching you.

There are also homework interviews. In this case, the client sends a link to an assignment and an interviewee has from 24 to 48 hours to do it. In this case, you need to carefully analyze and code the solution that meets the basic attributes of code quality and is optimal for performance.

What non-technical questions you can be asked?

There is a pretty standard set of questions that interviewers ask most frequently. Something like:

• What are your weaknesses?

Of course, there is no need to list them all.

I advise you to answer in such a way that presents your negative traits as a side effect of the positive ones.

Example: “I am meticulous and very attentive to details, so my weakness is that I sometimes need more time to perform tasks”. In the end, it may be advantageous, for example for a QC engineer in the medical field.

• Share some examples of your failures (clients from America love this question)

It is perfectly normal to talk about it because failures happen to everyone. But you need to make it clear that you have drawn conclusions and know how to prevent a similar situation in the future.

What to do if you don`t know the answer?

If you cannot answer the question, do not say it directly. Instead, show your ability to find a way out of any situation, e.g. “I haven’t used this technology yet, but I know a similar one that performs this task. I assume that it has identical functionality, so I will be able to figure it out very quickly.”

Foreign clients expect a person to praise themselves and to show themselves in the best light. They will smile and not show that they are dissatisfied with the answer, little can be read on their faces. They ask more conceptual things — how do you see business, how do you develop (because they want to see a person within a broader competence).

Mentality difference:

• Americans tend to ask how you feel about working on the weekends. Since it is their pace of life, they often demand it from the people they work with.
• Europeans may have a different understanding of life-work balance, and they usually do not ask about overtime.
• The British clients are always very polite, but even their conventional complex language structures can confuse a person.

I strongly advise you to thoroughly study the information about the client, considering that questions like “What do you know about our company and why do you want to work with us?” occur quite often. It is essential for some clients that a person chose to work with them consciously.

Is it ok to ask an interviewer questions?

Not only it is ok, but it’s also can be extremely productive for both sides.

It shows your interest and gives you a bonus in the eyes of the interviewer.

In most cases, it`s better to do it at the end, after all topics of interest to the interviewer were covered. But it depends on the style of the interviewer though — there are people who are looking for a dialogue during the interview. Therefore, if you feel that the person is eager to talk, you can already start asking questions.

I`d recommend avoiding the following topics:

• religion
• politics
• sport (you cannot be certain what sport a person likes and which team he supports)
• operational matters that will be decided with the project manager (for example, whether you will have an on-site trip to the client country or salary issues)
• about the history of your company’s cooperation with the client. It is something the interviewer may not even know or be interested in.
• some basics about the client, that are easy to google. E.g. client’s history, how many years the company has been working, etc. Stay focused on the project: what are the plans for further development of the project? What is the structure of the project team? How are the processes built?

Last but not least ….. proficiency in English

It`s a must.

If you do not have regular speaking practice, it will be difficult for you to talk for an hour. Or if you use English most often at work, it can be difficult to talk about some general topics unrelated to technology.

Therefore, it is better to start preparing in advance and at least visit the language courses or conversation clubs a few times. When I prepare a colleague for a client interview, I also check how long a person can speak English fluently.

In conclusion, I strongly recommend that you prepare for the interview and start not a day or two earlier, but even more in advance to understand your gaps, so you have time to tackle them. The preparation benefits clients as well because they can get all the needed information about a specialist and make a better hiring decision.