Discussion on:

Avoid these six common IT interview mistakes

Its refreshing to see a no nonsense but logical approach to the interview room. I am about to leave my current employment after a long old while and although most of the hints offered appeared to me (an interview layman!) to be obvious, I never would have written a thank you note! Thank you for the advice! By the way, I am still looking for work..........

If the salary for the job is not mentioned in the ad or job description, it should be discussed upfront, IMO. Full disclosure is important. Who wants to wait for a second interview to find out that the pay is well below industry standards?

Otherwise, if you already know the general salary range for the position, it can be negotiated on the second interview.

It seems like whenever the economy is doing poorly, we are loathe to discuss salary. Why is that? Also, many employers attempt totake advantage of a weak IT job market by offering ridciculously low pay combined with wild expectations.

-Adam

If you want to have your candidacy cut short, go ahead and ask about salary early. However, if the job is especially promising, if the company has a great future and if you'll work on challenging projects, salary is only one of many factors you'll be weighing in your decision. Why remove yourself from the "short list" before you get all the facts? Also, once you've hooked the company on your skills and expertise, and they really want you, you're in a much stronger position to negotiate. The pay structures in most companies are much more flexible than it first appears.

Before applying, call the HR dept secretary. Tell him/her you're interested in applying for the open position and wondered if a salary range had been established yet.
I don't think the hiring company intends for the pay to be a secret, it's just awkward to talk about at the first interview.
Call and ask, anonymously beforehand. That way you know if it's worth your time even applying.

Not asking about pay during the first interview isn't limited to times of poor economy. It's always bad taste, and anyone who asks deserves not to get the job.

As for employers taking advantage of a weak IT job market...that would be like when we took advantage of a strong one by expecting high pay combined with low expectations. It's the #1 reason the IT industry is in the state that it's in. It's not entirely the fault of the certified housewives or the papermills that pushed them out, but they did play a pretty large role. I've noticed a very sharp decline in the skillset of IT people in the last 5 years, with an almost equally sharp increase in the whining about pay.

I'd say the decline in the last 5 years is due to the decline in qualified HR people doing the hiring and management that has unrealistic expectations of how much change can be introduced into a company at one time.

I got in on the very end of the IT boom (I entered the market 6 months before the bust). The skills vs. pay vs. expectations route runs both ways. As a "newbie" to the industry I found it hard to get a job that offered "experience" even though I have all the prerequisite education & certs for the position I was persuing. Part of the problem was on the corporate side of the issue. Trying to get in on the ground floor I went the route of working for contracting commpanies (temp agencies for IT skills), I ran into several bosses (contracting clients) that were outraged when they discovered that my skills did not meet their ever changing need. For example one day I was verbally attacked by a supervisor because I did not know how to configure LDAP on MS Outlook. In his opinion, because I had been trained on and passed certification exams on Windows OSs (NT5 and Win 2000), that I should by default be expert on Outlook (software I had never encountered). By this type of corporate standard a person with a two year sociology degree should be able to handle the tasks of a Psychiatrist. Some corporations need to look at their new hires and then empoloy them in accordance with their qualifications or offer them training in the unique specifics of the job tasks desired. Quit trying to get off cheap by hiring an IT person certified on "Net+" and paying them accordingly, while expecting them to handle the same work as an MCSE.

As an employer of (senior) IT staff, particularly in a volatile market, I believe it's important to address salary in the first interview, even if it's to gauge the candidate.

Whilst I wouldn't what to settle on the final package, I would want an expectation of what the candidate is looking for.

... especially in the Job Ad (send salary expectations), if you are interested int he job you should be prepared to discuss the issue.

Generally, "Yes I am willing to work for 10 Indian Rupees an hour!" or whatever figure the interviewer indicates is company-appropriate for the position.

Well, the initial contact with the HR rep should be able to give you a "range" prior to the interview. This will give you the heads up if you even want to pursue the position. If so, I suggest you do not ask any of the interviewers about salary compensation. Never. If you are successful and you and make through all the interviews. HR will call you back, and make an offer in the "range" that was stated prior to the process. At this time, you can negotiate the offer to come to an exact number. So in short. 1-know up front from the contact HR rep to see if it is worth your time 2- never, never talk about salary to an interviewer, why? they may not even want you. so wait until they do and make an offer. hope this helps. and understand this is only from my experience.

While I admired the honesty of the individuals, when I asked about the applicant having any barriers that would prevent them from working the job in question, I didn't really want to hear about how you just got out of a lockdown psych ward and that as long as you took your meds, you'd be ok. I was asking because I had a desk job, and wanted to make sure you wanted the physically demanding one, not the desk one. And, by the way, if you are a felon, don't even apply at a facility that federal regulations prevents us from hiring you. And if you are going to tell me how you murdered someone and just got out of jail, why didn't you mark the felony on your application?

I recently read this post from Db daily (included in full) There is no link because it was included in an HTML e-mail and I have not bothered to find where it has been duplicated on the net.

I believe that many of the contributors of this site are getting drawn in the nitty gritty. The article was supposed to be about good advice for interview techniques. I found many of the postings to be flawed and misguided. It seemed to me that the focus was on what stood you out from the other candidates, but that the only answers presented was petty trivialities that would please the small mind.


I have been interviewed and been interviewee on many occasions. from manual labour right up to the present day and my consultant role. Whenever I am in the role of the interviewer, I am always aware of how it is, to be the candidate. We ALL know the tips and tricks and most of them are drawn from passed on knowledge. But let's not stupify ourselves with the thought that (without real thought or meaning) thank you notes will swing an interview for you.

Strong stuff. But I do not mean to criticise in any way. Honestley. It's just after reading all of the posts and then reading the article, my view on the subject became clearer.

There really should be several headings for the main post. Interview techniques for people who are out of their depth but really want the chance. Interview techniques for 'Bunny Hoppers'. Interview techniques for the out of work for six months and desparately want to work again. Take the basics, good manners, well dressed, politely spoken and then add a dash of yourself!

"There Is No Right Answer
And there is no Book-Of-All-The-Answers you need for life. My buddy Dean and I were driving around recently, talking about kids because, face it, when you have teenagers they consume a lot of time. And frustration, and stress, and annoyance, and many other things from parents. If they don't for you, then you are one of the very lucky ones.

So as we talk about the decisions we made, the things we wish our kids did better, or at least knew, etc., it struck me that my own life, and those of most people I know aren't much different from our kids. Sure the world has changed, but we are almost always operating with incomplete information.

That applies to careers as well. For most of us, we're looking for a new job and we apply to a few places. And if we're lucky, then we get 2-3 or more interviews in a short period of time and maybe 2-3 offers that we can actually debate against each other. More often than not, however, I've gotten one offer and I need to make a yeah/nea decision without knowing what may happen tomorrow or next week.

Now I do recommend that when you get an offer and you think you could get more, delay for at least 2-3 days. I've done this saying I need ot "think about it", which I do, but also to give someone else a chance to give me a better offer. Better doesn't usually mean more money, but it can. It's the total package that I want to consider.

For the hiring company, the situation is similar. They don't get the "best" candidate. They get the best of the limited responses they get within a short period of time and pick one. There might be a much better candidate that comes along a week after the acceptance from a candidate or they might have just missed one the week before. This is one reason that I recommend anyone of any size doing development work keep a requisition open all the time. You never know when you'll find a great employee.

So we're usually making a decision under some pressure and not knowing everything. Plus we make a decision based on what we know at the time. When we're younger, money is more important than when we're middle-aged. When we're older, security may be more of a concern. And we often look at people in a different situation and think they aren't making a good decision.

Look, we all make mistakes, but we do the best we can. And you need to have some confidence in yourself and your decisions. Accept them as your own, right or wrong, and keep looking to do better.

I guess the point of this editorial is to understand that the only things you really have in this life are your mistakes and your accomplishments. The things you yourself do. Not what you're told to do or given. And you need to enjoy the successes and accept responsibility for the mistakes and move on. We're not perfect, don't expect to be, but we do strive to do well. Whatever that means for each of us.

And I hope that is what my kids will learn someday.

Steve Jones"

Of course there is no right answer!

There never is. I don?t presume that these tips or avoiding these mistakes will land you the job in every case. But to suggest that person writing posts to these articles, especially when they are drawn from personal experiences is ?flawed and misguided,? is poor form. The average interviewer in most cases has not received formal training in conducting a good interview. Like you, the average interviewer conducts an interview based on his or her personal experiences ?in the chair.? A good candidate needs to be prepared for that. Avoiding the mistakes mentioned is a refresher of what to do when preparing for an interview.

The folks responding to the article are hardly misguided because they have offered their own personal recollections about what worked for them. You say you remember what it is like to be the candidate. You didn?t demonstrate that fact very well by referring to the posts of persons attempting to be helpful as as ?trivialities.?

Say what you like: I know of three experiences, one of them my own, where a Thank You note after an interview made the difference in landing really good jobs. When it comes down to evenly matched candidates with equally impressive stats and work histories, often it is trivial matters that help make the decision. The experiences relayed are hardly small when it makes the difference in a phone call that says ?you got the job!?

The "Thank You Note" What do you think?

I am never pleased by what I consider to be "efforts taken to stand you out from the crowd" which are as petty and insignificant as can possibly be.

But... In the real world . Many of the tips and trips put forward by contributors may well be helpful to interviewees who have not as yet decided how they want to present themselves.

In the early days we all need tips and tricks that help along the way... but only because in my opinion MANY interviewers are stuck in a corporate system that does not allow them to find the person required for the job.

I do not find anything really invalid in people's discussions. I, like many, wish we were not driven into this false charade of an interview process. It's almost as if it's a case of lie and lie well!

Without a doubt, most interviewers do not have any training in the process. And for many, the interview does indeed become a charade. In many cases when performed correctly, the process can be a very useful tool in weeding out poor candidates. As for lying, I never have and never will lie in an interview. I know many people that do and many that consider it a necessity. If lying is something that you consider a part of the process, I can understand why you find interviews to have no value.

As for standing out in a crowd... like it or not... in many cases, it is the thing that gets you the job.

You deliver some good counter point to the worldly system. You should consider writing them down and submitting them to TechRepublic for publishing on the site. I was paid a good chunk of change for this article. There's a contact page on this site; they pay for good work. Check it out!

Thanks for keeping the line going...



Thanks for the input...

Avoid talking about negative philosophies.

Don?t say that you hate something, say that you like something. It makes you look positive and gives an indication that you have a passion for your job. For example (I used this in my interview for my current job (network admin/system support))

?I consider myself competent with Windows and Linux servers but I enjoy working with Linux more?.

PS we are a Microsoft house:|

Use all available media to collect information about company, especially financial news and success stories. Otherwise answer on question ?What do you know about our company?? even for best suited person can turn into disaster.

This works all well and good if you happen to know where you will be applying at. More and more companies are using temporary services to screen out potantial permanent workers. When you apply at these services, you wait fro a phone call as to where you will be interviewing at so getting information about you future employer is somewhat stipend by the unknown. I have been asked at a temporary sent interview as to why I would like to work at the company. I usually answer that I feel my education and experience will promote the company's mission plus allow me to gain experience in a new field.

This question is often asked in relation to the personal attributes that you think you have and that would b of value to the organisation.

Make sure you can reel them off..Resourceful, Energetic, etc

Important part of the statement was how would you be of value to this organization. Either key in on job description in hand or current conversation of duties and use "your value to the organization" with one or more of the duties you would be expected to perform. This should show you are listening and you do have qualifications for the job.

One Should know enoug about one self so as to be able to speak either on one's personal or professional back ground to hold fr atleast 2-3 minutes with out too many gaps in the speech. Many a time, have I faced an HR person who is interested in knowing my family background and how I portray it for whatever reasons.

Hope this helps. The article is very good and I am proud to be contributing to it.

Srivas

The seventh mistake was a good addendum.

I think the more a person knows about the position they are applying for shows more depth but I will dismiss a resume almost from the gitgo if there is spelling errors. A resume should be a crowning glory to show your stuff. Having spelling errors tells me that person is not very detailed oriented and the resume must have been slapped together.