Episode: 78
Title: HPR0078: Interview Tips
Source: https://hub.hackerpublicradio.org/ccdn.php?filename=/eps/hpr0078/hpr0078.mp3
Transcribed: 2025-10-07 11:05:54

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Hi, this is Ken Fallon and this is a very very different episode of Hacker Public Radio.
Tonight instead of talking about modems for the Lynx Professional Institute certification
exam, I'm going to instead talk about another topic largely because I don't want to talk
about modems because I hate the things I hate them under HPUX, I hate them under
the veil, I hate them under those two warp, I hate them under windows, I hate them under
Lynx, so I'm not a big fan of modems per se, so if there is anyone out there who is a
big fan of modems, I want to do the LPI certification exam section on modems, please please
please feel free to do one you have my blessing and I need if you want to do any other topics
feel free feel free to do so, and recording this on crappy mp3 player largely because I've
got a whole golf stuff in my head and I want to get it down in my modems as an episode
and if it does, I truly apologise for the crappy audio but I hope you forgive me, okay
the topic I want to talk to you about tonight as I walk home from Zoom pool is about job seeking
not so much job seeking as the interview process, what you can expect when you're going
to an interview, what you should and shouldn't do, so first of all let's assume that you've
gotten a job, I've gotten an interview for a position, now what normally happens is companies
will get a free space for a position and they'll have a budget in their head, the reason
I know this is I've been on both sides of the interview desk and have hired several
people, been on one to technical interview board where with several people who have been
hired so I have a fair idea what's going on both sides of the desk, this applies to
my experience and may your mileage may vary as they say, maybe different in other countries
and in my experience, this is Western European experience, what tends to happen is I at
least will go to somewhere like Monster Board, look for type in something like Linux for
instance, type in my location and select how far away I want to be and what's kind of
handy with Monster Board is they do an RSS feed so you can put that into your feed reader
and every day you get a list of new available positions, now this is something that probably
everybody should do anyway because I can open past people here and get very strange looks
but then here, this is something that you should do anyway to keep yourself up to speed
with what's going on in the market, what the going away for your position is, what potential
employers are looking for so it'll keep you eye open for what sort of training you should
be doing, what direction you want to take your career and so if you see a lot of companies
looking for Microsoft Exchange for instance, you might think that's something you'd like
to do, you might be able to get your employer to send you off on Microsoft Exchange course
or get the MSGN CDs and have a play with it, okay so what will typically happen up
with the Monster Board or one of these employment job seekers or whatever is they, the company
will have farmed out the job application to employment agency and the employment agency's
job is to sit there and basically weed through the crap and they will be getting somewhere
between 10 and 20% of your first year's salary, so whatever your salary is in the first
year, they will be getting 10 or 20% of that, now you don't have to pay that generally
your employer will, so this is from the point of view an employer hiring a person is
extremely extensive, the general trend in every company I've worked for recently has
been to try and lower the number of FTEs, full-time employees as much as they can, so you
got to bear in mind that when they do get a budget to hire somebody they really want
to make sure that they're hiring the best person, not just technically but they don't want
to hire a complete asshole who's going to come in and disrupt their team, they're looking
for somebody who will fit into their organization, now they've got one chance at this stick, especially
over here in Europe where employment you can't just fire somebody, you have to have reasons
three formal reasons in rising and then the union gets involved and bloody, but it's very
very difficult to get rid of people over here, so it's equally difficult to, it's equally
difficult to convince your employer, your potential employer that you're the right person
for the job, and you've got to understand from their point of view they don't, you know,
what they've got at stake, also whatever you guess in salary, whatever you earn they
will be paying double that, the general rule of thumb is whatever you earn in health benefits
in parallel social insurance, not all the rest of it in pensions, a lot of the good stuff
is about double what you're getting, so it can get extremely expensive hiring full-time
employees which is why the whole trend of outsourcing looks very good on paper at least.
Adieu, so you're going through Monster Board, you're going through your feed reader and
you see a nice position that you'd want to apply for, so the first thing you should do
is have a good CV, your CV, the last general rule, the structure of your CV, a CV for Americans
is a resume, your structure of your curriculum, vitaire, a resume, varies from country to country
and you should do your, I'll call it a CV, okay, you should do your CV to the style of
the country that you're in, the last school of thumb that it should only be two pages
long, but I think it should be as long as it needs to be. I've seen some very, very short
CVs which tends to be the thing in the States, keep it short and I've seen applications that
have gone to 18 pages or so. And you're going to realize that what's the normal rule of
when you're doing your curriculum vitaire is to have a story, and when you do an interview
as well, the thing to have is a story, you have education, you have training, you progress
into a job that was probably fairly crappy, you've got more training, you've got more experience,
you've moved on, you've moved on to the next thing and the reason you, and the should also
in your head for the interview reasons why you moved on to the next thing. Okay, so you've
got your education in there, in there and you've got your work experience in there, you've
got some courses in there. Now what's very good for the search engines and stuff is that
if you put in very hot topics, if you're looking down the list of jobs, the monster board
or whatever, and you see, they're looking for somebody with TCP, IP experience and somebody
with DNS and somebody with whatever. So you look for the buzzwords and you make sure that
they are in your CV, and that will help the search engines. When their employment agencies
have your CV on file, they'll go down there and search for those and your CV will come
up. Okay, so the next thing that will happen is you apply for the job and your cover letter
you'll say, I saw your interesting job, the subject should be the title of the job, ideally
with the job number so that they have a reference to it. And then it's a dear whoever it was.
And yeah, I'm walking in the middle of Heathers. You should reference the job by name. You should
then clean up. You should reference the job by name. You should say, dear sir, I read the application
for, I saw the advertisement for this position wherever you saw it so that they know who to pay
because they have to pay these boards or whatever. Very interesting position. I think I'm ideally
suited and very shorting why you're ideally suited to the position. If you'd like to contact me
about this, please find my CV attached and contact me on the following number. Make sure you have
the number in the body of the email so that if your CV gets lost, that they'll be able to contact
you again. Okay, so then if your resume looks okay or CV looks okay, what chances are they're
probably going to call you and they're going to give you a little bit of a, they're going to walk
through your CV and they're going to ask you where you want to work, where you wouldn't want to work,
the reason you're leaving your current job and all these sorts of things that you will typically
be asked in an interview so I'll get to that in a minute. Okay, so then they will say, oh, I have
this wonderful client who wants to bloody, bloody, bloody and you now think, okay, apply for that job.
So they go and they will ring up the company and they'll say, we've got this fantastic person
and then with Ali look you'll guess called for a first interview. Now they will get into the
meat of this show. The first interview, it's sort of important to know a little bit about the
company and what sort of dress you should do if you should have on. You can never be too far
wrong with visual business casual. Usually slacks, a pair of no runners or trainers, whatever you
call them, proper shoes, a pair of slacks, a shirt and a tie. Probably don't need a jacket,
but a coat or something. You need to be presentable and not too presentable, whatever you've got
a ponytail well combed hair take a bat. Make sure after shave or perfume not too strong. If you've got any
jewelry or piercings or whatever, I would say leave them in. Try and tone it down as much as you can
to studs, but you don't want to lose your personality either in this if you're going to a position.
And for a lot of IT positions, it doesn't actually matter what you look like. They seem to be very
flexible. However, you want to look at you put a bit of effort into coming out for the day.
Also try not to have any distinguishing marks or jewelry or big watches or
funny hats or things. Because the only thing you matter how good your CV is after that interview,
all that they will remember is, oh there's a guy with a funny hat or there's a guy with a big watch.
Okay, so try and be presentable. Make sure you know where the interview is.
Make sure I'll repeat that again. You know where it is. You know how to get there.
If you know how to get there and how long it's going to take, allow at least a minimum of 45
minutes beforehand to get into the area, into the neighborhood. Also bring the address,
the name of the contact person and the phone number of the person that you're going to be
having to interview with. And if you went through an agency, you also will need the phone number
and the name and the agency name of the person who arranged the interview for you.
The reason you need all this is if you are delayed, you know you're going to be delayed.
You ring up the company and you talk to the person if that's possible and you tell them,
I'm sorry, there's a, there's a whatever reason for the delay. I'm delayed.
I understand that if you want to postpone the interview, but that will be, you know, 15 minutes later,
whatever. Okay, so, see you arrive there. You should not enter the building.
You know try and go have a coffee. Go walk past the building and make sure you know where it is.
Go have a coffee or two or something. If you need a smoke, try and smoke before, so you're not
thinking of smoke going into the interview. Leave enough time between your last smoke before
you go into the interview. You should go in to the interview 15 minutes before you do to go in.
So if the interview was at 2 30, you should be there at 2 15. You go up to reception and say,
I'm here to see whoever you're here to see. They'll take a coat. I'm going to make you sit for a while.
You will have to wait there 15 minutes. Now, what I like to do in those 15 minutes is look around
and case the company out. Have a look at the chairs. You get a good feel for what the company is.
And at the end of the day, this is going to be a company that you're going to be working for,
for at least two to five years. You don't want to leave a company. It looks suspicious if you leave
a company before two years, unless you've got a very good reason, unless you're working contract.
I'm talking about permanent positions here now. If you're working in a position along with five
years, you're heading into the OE. He was very stale. You know, too long in the position is never
good too. It's okay if you move from one department to another department to another department,
but if you get into sort of 10, 15 years, you need to have a good story backing up why you stayed
and how you kept yourself refreshed in those positions. Okay, they will offer you a cup of tea
coffee. That's fine. You can accept those. There's no problem. You might also want to avail
of the toilet before you go into the interview and wash your hands. The person, so you've out
there reception or wherever and then the person who's going to interview will come, you'll stand up
and you give them a firm handshake, not too hard, not too soft, practice on a friend. Study handshake,
not with wet hands, sort of rub your hand on your clothes as you go off your hands or sweaty or
have a, if you're having a cup of tea, you have a tissue in your hand and just make sure your hand
doesn't clammy. And then they will bring you to an interview room and now you think they're all
allowed to get me or whatever. But what you have to think of is these people have been, are in the
middle of doing their work and their agenda has come up. Pop, I have this interview. Okay, we have
to drop everything we have to go out and check out this person. So you stand there, if your coat
is already at reception, you stand there and you wait for them to do whatever they need to do.
You do not sit down until you're offered a chair and then you sit down. Try it up to fidget,
get comfortable in the chair, be relaxed. We're probably also a few coffee, that's fine as well
because you're now going to be talking for an hour or so, so you need something to drink.
Okay, the interview will start and they will typically introduce themselves. I'm Joe Blog and I'm
John Doe and this company is whatever and the position is this. Usually they won't go too far into
what the position is so much because they're, they sort of want to social out and they don't want to
give you any clues as to what the position is going to be about. So they'll start off usually with,
tell us a little bit about yourself. Now, more than likely, the second person that's there,
the first person who's leading the interview will have read the CVs because he or she will have
gone down through the CVs during the selection period and a friend of mine who was very long
in the industry once told me that when times were tough they had a job opening and there was over
800 applications for the position. What he did was he took the pile of 800 applications and he
took the top half and threw it in the bin and when my friend says, what are you doing? He said,
well, you don't want somebody working for the company that's unlucky, do you?
So the selection might be for any reason, you just don't know. But you're in the door,
you've got your foot in the door now, what you got to do is sell yourself. What that means is you
don't tell other eyes, absolutely not, tell no lies. However, omitting the truth, omitting
turning a different life on certain things might be in your benefit. So say, we'll come to that
in a minute. So, be honest, if they ask you, well, let's start off with the first thing that they
will ask you is, can you go through your CV? Now, you will go through your CV and what I tend to do
is to do my education first. I started as a mechanical engineer and then I was, I got a bit
but computable, yeah, yeah, yeah, give them a story and then I went off to work for my first job
in wherever. Now, you have to look at them and see whether they're kind of okay with you continuing
on or whether they want to ask you some questions about your education. So, if they're okay with
you going on, you will go then and I was there and now here's the thing, when you're looking at
your CV, you got to have a story. Your whole life was leading up to this job, to job that they have
God in her many forms has destined for you to have. So, even if your first job, your flippinburg
is in McDonald's, you noticed that the cash register was whatever and you worked yourself up and
it was good experience because I was working with people and I learned a lot about management and how
time keeping and that's what forward and you know, first-rated employees came in and that helped
me later when I was working on the help desk in my second job. So, now you have and then you stop
talking there and you give them the bridge to get off your own comfortable first job onto your
second job and then your second job, you give a little two-minute little spiel about your second
job and then you have again and that's why I went to you know, I realized there that I was very good
at this and I wanted the opportunity to whatever. Now, you might you stop there because they may want
to ask you questions about particular jobs and if they do, you answer them and as best you can.
Try not to be negative about the company, it reflects very badly on you because
someday you will be leaving their company and you don't want them back, you don't want somebody
back stabbing you or your boss. So, you say, you know, I realized that you know, there were
a better suited heaven somebody who was a less experienced than me or we were quite happy to
you know see me go on and offer to my next position. But be nice about the company and say,
yeah, I finished all working with them and I'm still in contact in all the rest of it.
So, where are we now? So, you will continue on through your CV and the question will come up,
why do you want to leave your current job and it's okay to have a reason. You probably
better have a reason. Some of the reasons I've used in the past is I've met, yeah, I got married
and I've just moved over to this country. I love your country. So, that's one and other one is the
company has decided to change the focus of their business and you know, I would be fine on the
company but I want to leave on my own terms and I have discussed this with my boss and whoever
and they're happy with my decision. Okay, but here's the thing. You might not always be
happy to to your boss might not be happy with you leaving. So, it is also okay to say,
yeah, I feel, you know, I so I wasn't actually thinking of leaving until I saw your application
and it seems so suited to me. I thought it was too good an opportunity to pass up, you know,
how can anybody refuse your job if your brown nose and that much. Okay, so now comes to
the park. They're sitting on the other side and thinking this guy could be good or he may
just have listened to a podcast to figure out how to be good. And what they'll now do is try and see
if what you said on your CV actually matches. And this is where dude number two comes in typically.
Oh, by the way, you may have a HR person there as well. I actually won't, especially for,
I didn't interview one time with the semi-state body where there was actually 13 people, count them,
13 people in the room interviewed. It was not the head, somebody from the union there,
somebody from the management, somebody from headquarters, somebody from the canteen.
Honestly, anyway, so we prepared for that sort of thing, go and let us throw you. Also,
try and find out the gender of the people who are coming in the culture background if you can.
Ask your recruiter that, you know, so you are prepared for
I know when I was interviewing with my boss when we were interviewing together kind of,
some of the interviews coming in or just shocked that she was a woman and completely through
their interview. And yeah, you just can't hire somebody like that. Okay, moving on.
Now we get down to the, do you know your stuff? Questions. The whole point of this section
is to find out what your limits are. And they will start off something easy questions get
sequentially harder and harder and harder until you get to a point where you don't know the answer.
And the correct answer to that question is, sorry, I don't actually know that, but I'm guessing
it might be and give a good guess as to what the answer might be and also give you reasoning as
to why it might be. So if they're asking, I don't know about,
to a good example, I can't think of a good example. And if they're asking about how to flip burgers
and McDonald's, well, I've never actually flipped burgers, but I've seen people do it. And I think
this is how long it should be done. Because for the other guy across, it's important for them to know
that if they give, if you're given a task outside the CV and outside the interview arena,
so you come to work for them and you may have written on your CV that you can do this. And they
assume a level of knowledge that is in there, you will do more harm than good. So it's far
better for them to say to know what your levels are. And it's also important for them to know
that if you don't know something, you may come and ask them before you make a freaking hands of it.
So yeah, be sure and do that confidently. Okay. Which is also why when you put stuff in your CV,
make sure you know about it. And there's also no excuse for not knowing about it. Just get a book.
If you don't, if you can't afford a book, get download software via my images or whatever,
and play with whatever the technology is. And it's also cool to say, well, we didn't use this
technology in work, but I downloaded this and my test network and played with it for a while. They
absolutely really love that because that is you take an initiative and outside of paid hours,
you're working to better improve yourself. Okay, so that is that. I'm looking very much like a
weirdo here walking around the heat in the middle of the night talking into an MP3 player. But anyway,
we will continue. Where we now, it can go several places now. And the thing during the whole
interview is ideally what you might want to do if you've never done interviews before is have
set up a video camera and go in and have as somebody who has interviewed before to interview
in front of your video camera. And you will see that you're visiting and you're you're every time
you don't know like you've got nervous ticks. So you got to try and keep them under control.
Sitting down with your hands folded is fine. It's okay to use your hands slightly to give a
little bit of expression, but don't overdo it with your hands going all over the shop. Okay,
where are we now? Yeah, the technical questions might get a bit hairy, but again,
they might also ask you stuff where there's no right answer. They might ask you
now they will ask you other trick questions and you can search the internet for all
go of trick questions. If you're really hit your person, they will guarantee to ask it is.
First of all, what's your worst? What's your best quality? Well, my best quality is
a bad bad bad. Make sure you know what it is. Pick a best quality. That is your best quality and
and say it. What's your worst quality? Well, now what's your worst quality as well? I like to
freaking pick flow out of my navel in the middle of lunchtime. No wrong answer. You pick something
that is actually a good quality and you turn it so it's a bad quality. For instance, I like I get
sometimes so involved in my projects that I stay too long and work too long in it or sometimes
I get frustrated with people who are slacking off and then you must always qualify it, but I'm
trying to improve myself. So I found, so with the first example project management, I found that
I've done some project management course and I've found that I'm now slowly improving and
that I'm better able to. Well, project management is a bad one because everybody has to project
management, but okay, the other example about a team is say I never have a problem with somebody
who's willing to learn, but somebody who's just coming in day in day out with no motivation
brings down the motivation of the team and you have to try your best to keep the motivation of
the team up. And you're always a team player and a matter of what and you're always willing to
to work on your own if necessary. Okay, where do you see yourself in five years time?
You stupid question, I'm stupid, I'm disgusting in the whole world because any tech person knows
that in five years time, some radical new technology might have come out and completely
obliterated off the world, but resist the temptation to smack the person about their face
and sit down, come up with some good bullshit answer for that. I'm not going to give you one
because mine is patent pending. And usually I say I want to be a technical expert in my field is
pretty, pretty standard answer to that. So it's the third term going past. Yes,
where goes all the new gear list from Germany?
Anyway, where are we? Yes, stupid other questions you can be asked. Why would you want to work
for us? And that's a simple one, you go down to, you give the real answer to your real question,
that was about the CV, about the job application that they do want to apply for the job in the
first place. I am desperate is not a good answer. Things like you're well-known in the community
for being a good employer, see the position here seems exactly, it seems to match my skill level,
I'm looking forward to working, whatever's written there, you just give them the answer back.
There will be more HRA type questions. You really don't know what that can be, there's a trend now
to ask completely off the wall. If you were to meet the who in the world would you like to meet
most and why? Okay fine, try not to slap them about the face as I said before and just try to
come up with a reasonable answer. They will deliberately, they're just trying to know if you're going
to get panicked under under pressure, basically the red some HRA book and they're trying to impress
everybody else, but hey we all, when you get in the company you're never going to see HRA again
or hopefully you're not unless you do something stupid anyway, well that's a subject for another
podcast. Okay, where are we now? Now after that uncomfortable bit, you know, you should also
get a few for what they're, what they're, the people employing you are like, you should also try
for yourself. You know, to have a look around the office and then they will say, do you like,
do you have, right, that's fine and they'll probably go on to explain more about the job
and more about the company. They will if you have impressed them up until a point. This is where
the interview you can tell if the interview has gone well or gone badly. If it's gone well,
they will start telling you about the job and they'll probably give you a short spiel anyway,
even if you know in your heart hearts that you know everyone will employ you and then they're
just going to try and get you out of the building as quickly as possible. On the other hand,
if they really start explaining the job to you in detail and if you have questions about it,
now is the time to ask them like how many people are in the team, what's the, you know, if there's
something like, you do want to work support. You know, you don't mind working 24 hours support
and they haven't asked that. You say, is there 24 hours support? And they go, oh yeah,
do you mind working 24 hours support? No, enough to tell them my previous job. And that's a good
point for you. Or they'll say, no, you say, and they will probably go why and you make sure,
if you bring that up, you make sure to explain why that you don't mind.
And if they, if they like you, they will probably, if you're thinking about hiring it,
they'll probably bring you in to see the factory floor or whatever they're most proud of.
The computer room or I don't know, the server under the desk or meet the other people,
you know, quickly walk around the office. If they're likely, if they don't, they will give you a
call on them on the golf. And they will probably ask you about, do you have any questions?
The number one question you should never, ever, ever, ever ask is how much money is there on
this job? Do not ask that. There will be plenty of time in the second interview for all that.
You only answer that if they ask and you start off the answer to you, that question is, well,
I, this move for me is more about the position than that it's such an idealistic position.
However, I am currently earning this and I would expect to earn that. And you should know these
numbers beforehand going in. Don't bring them up in the first interview again to reiterate,
do not bring them up unless you've been asked to ask the question.
Now, the next thing is the finish up. You should have a few questions lined up. If you can't
think on your feet or if there was anything in the interview, if you're not sure whether it's a
good question or not, you should have a few two questions lined up about the job. Is there
much of that? Make sure that the questions are something that is going to be positive if they ask
you more questions about it. And you should then end off with, well, do you have anything else?
Well, just one other thing is, what is the next, what is the procedure if I'm lucky enough
to get invited for a second interview? What is the procedure? And then they will explain
that your blog will contact you blah, blah, blah. You will stand up. You will thank them for their
time. Shake the hand, the left scorch to the door and you go out. And you do not jump into the air.
You do know whatever. You're a steer in the interview until you get a kilometer away from
wherever it is. You should act exactly as you would be nice, calm and collected.
And then the first thing you should do is with, oh, by the way, your mobile phone off,
join in if you turn it off. Then what you should do is when you have the, when you're that far away,
you should pick up the phone and you should contact the employment agency and speak to them
and give them feedback on the interview how it went. Where there's some tricky questions,
who was in the interview and all that sort of thing. Anything else? That more or less will be the,
you should hear back pretty soon, all not, however long it takes. And then that should be
more or less it for the first interview. If you get called to a second interview, the same rules
apply, be there on time, make sure you have your mobile phone off, be dressed correctly. Second
interview can go anyway. It can be a very technical interview. It can be with a HR person.
It might even be, it might be just a walk around. Second interview is as much about,
this is much about them selling their company to you as it is about you wanting to work for them.
Because now they have shown their hand, they've shown that they're interested in you and
that you're not interested in. The case may be that for the second interview, there may be a
short list of people in which case you do need to continue selling yourself. The technical questions
might get harder. They might have thought of a lot of questions that they hadn't asked before.
So all of these things might come up in the other hand, you might walk in and it might be
walk around, meet the managing director, meet the lady in the canteen and don't underestimate those.
Because a lot of you, a lot of a lot of thought are considered to be
andcillary workers by most people are made in there since the company was founded and
no more about the company than then anyone else and maybe also asked about
to give the opinion of a candidate and I've known people who if the cleaner didn't
like the look of the person and they weren't hired. So anything else? I don't know,
if you are looking for a job and going for other positions, remain calm, don't panic.
One thing I've always noticed when you're looking around is if you have a look at the
the types of chairs in the mission room, if they're all matching and comfy and
honest chairs, then yeah, it's a company who's got a shit together. If there's one chair from one
type and another chair from another type, it might be a more dynamic company or they don't have
money or cash to spend on stuff. So yeah, probably questions that
questions that you may be allowed to ask would be you should discuss them with your interview
with the consultant job consultant before or after one second. Two seconds. Like for instance,
if they say, oh there's a great position because there's loads of greenhouse training and they're
very proud of that, well then you go, is there much training for this job? Okay, well that's my
episode of Hacker Public Radio. Again, if somebody has something about modems, not when modems
just analog, ordinary analog modems, can you please do an episode and send it in. Thank you very
much and have a nice day.
