Once you've started interviewing, you might encounter plenty of interviewers who don't know how to interview. That's ok -don't discriminate against these folks just because they don't know how to interview. They might know how to build great software. If you build your interviewing skills, you can still present yourself in a good light, *and* help the interviewers learn whether you are a good fit.
First, do your homework. When you think about the job you're interviewing for, think back on your career so far. Have you worked on similar products? Maybe you've worked in a similar environment? Maybe you've worked with people on the team before? Think about your accomplishments in the context of this particular job.
Now, think of the qualities, preferences, and non-technical skills you want to showcase as your expertise. (Yes, I'll get to technical skills later.) Maybe you're great at considering multiple options for architectures. Maybe you're great at driving to a finish for a project. Maybe demos are your forte. Maybe you're great at asking questions about the product that make everyone think about what they have to do as developers, analysts, testers, writers. Think about times when those non-technical skills shine. If you need to, make a note of the projects where you shone.
Now, think of your technical skills. I find it easiest to think about the four dimensions of technical skill:
- Functional skill: what you know about development or testing or analysis or writing or project management or whatever your role is. You started learning these skills in school, and have increased them on the job.
- Domain expertise: solution-space domain expertise is how well and how quickly you learn the insides of a product. Problem-space domain expertise is how well and how quickly you learn about the problems the product solves.
- Tools and technology: what tools and technology you know: Eclipse, Ruby, Java, C#, Unix, any of the unit testing frameworks, and more
- Industry expertise: the expertise people assume when you've been in an industry for a while. For any application involving a database, maybe it's about how you organize and reorganize a schema. For financial transactions, maybe it's security. For online applications, maybe it's performance and security.
Think about how you've succeeded with these skills in projects.
You've got some projects where you've been successful. You've got non- technical qualities, preferences, and skills, as well as technical skills. If you do your homework, you can actually think about how to interview.
