Re: Number 1 mistake to not avoid during an interview

[Abigail-II]

Having recently went through a series of interviews (as the inverviewee, not the interviewer), I can only give you one piece of advice: be yourself. I don't dress up for an interview (although I scrape the mud from my boots) for instance. (If they want to hire shiny clothes, let them buy a dress-up doll, that's cheaper). Just be honest in what you like and don't like, what you know and don't know, what you want to do, and what you don't want to do.

As for interview questions, one of the best questions I ever got was (I was interviewing for a Perl position): So tell me, what don't you like about Perl, and how would you change it, after which we had a nice conversation about the object system in Perl. Another inverviewer (for the same position) came with a whiteboard and said write me a program finding files with <some criterium> (and don't use a module that does all the work for you).

Abigail

[dragonchild]

While I respect your thoughts, I have to point something out - there are those who have stature and those who don't. I'm almost 28 years old. I have been programming professionally for almost 10 years, but only graduated from college less than 5 years ago. I know Perl practically inside and out. I have added value to companies even if I've only been there for 3 months.

Yet, I have a lot of trouble getting interviews. Why? Because my resume seems junior cause I am so relatively young. I need every little advantage I can get. If wearing a suit and tie gives me an extra percentage point in the interviewer's head, I need it. I'm going up against people who have 20+ years in the business.

That's people like you, Abigail-II. You have the luxury of wearing business-casual to an interview because you have a resume longer than you are tall. I don't, and I suspect most people here don't, either. With the IT job market the way it is, I'm lucky if I get an interview. There are thousands of people with 10+, 15+, and 20+ years of experience. They get the interviews, not us young guns.

Now, I don't blame the hiring companies. If I could get a 20+ year professional at a 3-year price, I'd do it in a heartbeat. But, I cannot afford to seem young, brash, and unprofessional for those few face-to-faces I can squeak into.

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We are the carpenters and bricklayers of the Information Age.

The idea is a little like C++ templates, except not quite so brain-meltingly complicated. -- TheDamian, Exegesis 6

Please remember that I'm crufty and crochety. All opinions are purely mine and all code is untested, unless otherwise specified.