IT Job Interview

If you believe you are a very strong candidate for this position, then make yourself a hot commodity.  Tell them you are interviewing with other firms and considering other offers, that would encourage a faster decision from this hiring manager.  Still, you need to explain that you want to work for their company the most..

Sample Answer:

“I have been interviewing with other companies, but my goal is to work for your company. I feel that I’m a great fit for your organization and I would love the opportunity to help your team to reach its goals. There’s no other company I would rather work for.”

It’s more likely a HR or manager question.  They want to find out what type of management style you like.  It is a good time to show your generosity to give credits to your favorite boss.   Say a lot of good words for your boss, which makes you look like a great person.

Sample Answer:

“Fortunately I had a quite some good bosses, they were very supportive and helped a lot in my career.  One of my favorite boss David mentored me and made me a better employee by offering great feedback on my performance, training me in areas where I needed improvement, and encouraging me to always do my best. He gave me opportunities to prove myself and asked for my opinions on important projects. He made me feel like a valuable member of the team.”

Making six figures at age 30 is a success, but you shouldn’t give a self-centered answer like this.  Try to link your success to the company’s vision or goals.

Sample Answer:

“For me, success is achieved by attaining goals, and my personal goals in my career are tied to the goals of the company I work for.  I know your company’s mission is to become the number 1 SOA software provider in financial industry, I am committed to help you achieve this goal. I consider it would be a big success for me when we deliver the best SOA software to the financial industry. “

Say something good in general, such as team work, good people, management support, etc., of just say that you enjoyed everything about your previous job. But don’t make it sound too wonderful or they’ll ask a follow-up question about why you left.

Sample Answer:

“I really enjoyed the team atmosphere at my last job. Everyone worked together and it was a very positive environment. However, the career opportunities were limited and I felt it was time to move on.”

This question may be asked by HR, management, or other non-technical people.  There are many good words to choose:

Hard-working, dedicated, energetic, diligent
Skilled, knowledgeable, trainable, Innovative, creative
Friendly, flexible, likable, fair-minded
Loyal, trustworthy, conscientious reliable, patient, discreet, observant
Communicative, organized, detail-oriented, effective, efficient.

To most of us, the dollar. But employers don’t want hear this, they look for self-motivators which means you could be motivated by intangible things that don’t cost employers a lot.

Sample Answer:

“Simply doing a job well is very motivating for me. It gives me a sense of satisfaction to know I’ve done my best in everything I do. I take pride in my work, and in overcoming challenges. I also find it very rewarding to work with clients in various industries.  I love being an IT consultant and help my customers improve their business by implementing state-of-art technologies. “

All Industry giants – IBM, Microsoft, Oracle, Sun, Bea, and other companies amazingly agree that web services technology will change the future. You don’t see this kind of agreement very often in this industry. Web Services technology is real now. People no longer talk it as another over-hyped trend.

What Makes Web Services So Hot

It’s the big promise – web services is able to transform the way companies conduct business and communicate. This transformation is significant enough to let this technology dominate the IT industry’s future. As Bill Gates of Microsoft stated, “Web services are the key to productivity that will span the entire economy.” The staging of web services will likely bring revolution and innovation in every aspect of business and communication.

Web Services – What’s Inside

Web services standardize the way of connecting disparate applications, systems, and devices over the Internet. There are 4 primary standards:

XML (Extensible Markup Language)

SOAP (Simple Object Access Protocol)

UDDI (Universal Description Discovery and Integration)

WSDL (Web Services Description Language)

Based on these standards, we can build the web services model with Interoperability, that means consumers, business partners, customers and others would all communicate and exchange data seamlessly, no matter what the device or platform.

Web Services on the Way to Mature

The web services technology, although has passed the early stages of development, is still a work in progress. It may take couple of more years to mature. There are more details in the standards to settle and interoperability issues to deal with. As IT vendors are investing huge capitals to build platforms, make development tools, and specify common interoperability standards, the web services technology will keep advancing in exponential rate.

Web Services in the Career Path

The evolving of web services will have a big impact on IT professionals and IT careers. For most of us – developers, programmers, architects, system administrators and others, it is a wonderful opportunity for career boosting. Very soon a lot of business systems will be built on web services technology, that means a lot of projects and a lot of jobs. The potential for long-term growth is very promising in this area.

IT professionals, especially developers, system integrators, and data architects should plan to get involved in Web services. In the near future, all major development projects will be constructed using the Web services paradigm. Thus, like it or not, you’ll have to face this technology. You’d better begin to prepare for it now. Here’s what you can do for planning your career path with web services:

1. Familiarize yourself with these 4 key standards. Get a deep understanding on XML and SOAP.

2. Obtain skills on web services platforms. You should specify your web service expertise on either .NET platform or Java platform.

3. Read couple of technical books in your spare time. There are tons of books on this topic – .NET web services, J2EE web services, XML, SOAP, etc.

4. Learn to use web services development tools and management tools made by leading web services vendors – IBM, Microsoft, Oracle, Sun, Bea.

5. Download and install one or two web services development tool kits from top-tier web services vendors and play with them to get hands-on experience.

6. Look for job opportunities in major web services tool and platform vendors and join their teams to build the web services world.

7. Look for job opportunities in startup companies with focus on web services related products and services.

8. Watch for new web services projects within your organization. Ask for joining the project by offering your knowledge and expertise.

Java or C#.NET, that’s an endless debate. Can you have both? that’s NOT a good idea because it is not necessary, and you cannot afford it. Project managers always debate the merits of one over the other in new architecture design and upgraded system implementations. It’s very odd to see a project being built on both technologies.

Programmers and developers want to become proficient on one of the technologies to enhance their value in job market when they look for new jobs or move up within their own organizations. A developer can learn both but it’s better to focus on one to become the highly valued expert. So, which one is good for you? keep reading and hopefully you’ll get the answer.

What’s in Common

For programmers and developers who build business solution systems in mid-market and enterprise level, both Java and C# are great languages to use. In fact, when you look at the languages themselves, you will find they’re extremely close. Both Java and C# tout features like simplicity, object orientation and robustness.

Java

Developed by Sun Microsystems Inc., Java is a platform-independent, object-oriented language. Java works with a variety of server flavors, including Unix, Linux, NT and others – a breadth that C# and .NET aspire to but have not yet achieved. Java programs are not compiled; they are interpreted as they run, that’s how it delivers the “write once, run anywhere” feature.

C#.NET

Microsoft describes C# as a programming language that makes it easier for C and C++ programmers to generate COM+ ready programs with type safety, garbage collection, simplified type declarations, versioning and scalability support, and other features. C# supports attribute-based programming, operator overloading and defining custom enumerations, among other functions.

What’s the Difference

What C# is missing is Java’s double dose – Java is both a language and a platform, while C# is the language that uses the .NET platform. Java platform works on both UNIX and Windows, but C#.NET is Microsoft Windows specific.

Java and C# run in very different environments. Each of them has very unique API structures. The knowledge required to interface to the APIs is very different.

Because Java deals with platform in the language, you may need more time to learn Java. For an average programmer it takes less than a month to learn a new language, but learning the underlying platform is a much harder task and can take a couple months.

Which One to Choose for Career

As I’ve pointed out, today’s enterprise business solutions are implemented with either Java/J2EE platform or C#/VS.NET. Both Java and C# target the same application development market. Thus programmers who know either Java or C# are walking on the same career path. Because Java supports multiple OS environments, Java programmers have wider choice in career growth. For those who program C# only, their job opportunities are limited to Windows environment only.

Currently there are more Java/J2EE projects going on than C#/.NET in the industry, although C#.NET is catching up. For the foreseeable future, Java will continue to be a significant driving force in IT for large enterprises. In terms of C#, we are seeing more mid-market pilot projects in the .NET environment.

For experienced programmers, I recommend Java as the primary skill-set. Java skill is more valuable because it covers platform knowledge. Java programmers can jump onto C# quickly if there is a need in current job or in a new opportunity. Moving from Java to C# is an easier transition to make. On average, it would take about a week for those fluent in Java to get comfortable with the C# syntax and three months to get familiar with the .NET platform.

The answer: Don’t ask questions until you are asked do you have any questions.

Some candidates spend a lot of time researching a company before interview and try to demonstrate this acquired knowledge during interview. Some of them are so eager to show how much they know about the company and they ask a lot of questions during the interview. That is not necessary and it doesn’t make a good impression. (more…)