Programming Interviews Exposed: Secrets to Landing Your Next Job, 3rd Edition

The Interview Process

If someone is sufficiently impressed by your résumé to want to talk to you, the next step is one or more screening interviews, usually followed by an on-site interview. Here, we prepare you for the stages of the interview process and help you dress for success.

Screening Interviews

Screening interviews are usually conducted by phone and last anywhere from 15 minutes to an hour. You should take the interview in a quiet room with no distractions and keep pen and paper handy to take notes. Screening interviews may also take place on the spot at a job fair or on campus as part of a college recruiting process.

The initial screening interview is with a company recruiter or human resources representative. The recruiter wants to make sure that you’re interested in doing the job the company is hiring for, that you have the skills needed for the position, and that you’re willing to accept any logistical requirements of the position, such as relocation or travel.

If you make it past the recruiter, there’s normally a second screening interview in which a technical person asks you a few knowledge-based questions. These questions are designed to eliminate applicants who have inflated their résumés or are weak in skills that are key to the position. During the technical interview you may be asked to write some code using some kind of cloud-based document-sharing tool such as Google Docs. This gives the interviewer a firsthand look at your coding skills.

You should treat ...