Tuesday, July 1, 2008

Page 461

IT Job Interview Questions And Answers

The surprising fact of IT job interview questions is that the most important questions that you will be asked don't have anything to do with the technical aspects of the job. For many companies looking for IT talent, the technical knowledge of the candidate is something that can be easily assessed. Training, experience, qualifications, certificates and other items found on the resume provide about as much of this information as the interviewer needs to know. Consequently, he or she does not need to spend a great deal of time or energy going over these factors in the job interview. Instead, it's very likely that the interviewer will focus on the managerial, organizational and leadership skills that you bring go the IT job.

These IT interview questions focus less on the actually IT work that you do and more on the way that you have interacted with your coworkers, supervisors, clients and other personnel in your career. The motivation for this emphasis on management skills is that IT work does not take place in some sort of idealized technological realm of pure technology. Information technology equipment, programs and systems are designed to do something, for other people, with the help of other people. As a result, once a candidate is determined to have the required skills, the next issue is whether they will be able to use those skills effectively with the other people he or she has to. For example, these questions might probe a candidate's experience managing a team, taking feedback from clients or presenting technological information to investors.

Preparing for IT Job Interview Questions

For someone expecting IT job interview questions focused solely on the technical aspects of the job, these questions might be a surprise. Fortunately, the same process that you might have used to prepare for technology questions can be used to prepare for any other kind of question you are asked. Just as in any other test, the first thing you want to know is what you will be covering. In the case of a job interview, the best way to figure that out is to research the position and company until you know what the organization is looking for. Once you have that information, then you can predict both the questions that you will be asked and the answers that the interviewer wants.

Developing answers to the IT job interview questions is a matter of giving an answer, then being able to prove, reinforce, dramatize or explain that answer using experience and examples from your job and personal history. For example, if you were asked if you could bring in a project on a tight deadline, you could prove that you can by describing a project that you brought in under a tight deadline. As you give your stories and examples, a good strategy is to make them sound as much like the job's environment, actions and results as you are able. That allows the interviewer to imagine you performing and succeeding in the target job.

Keyword: IT job interview questions

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