Interviews – How to be not rejected ?

This post is about my experience with job interviews. Two months ago I have started looking for a job. As you know there is plenty of job offers for .NET Developer, but in the beginning I decided to reject working in big corporation, and focus at small / medium companies. I have participated in six interviews till this moment (15 May 2013).

Ardua prima via est!

My first interview was quite good and it was leaded by owner. My friend has recommended this company. There is 10+ developers. First minutes was terrible because I had been a little nervous but after few minutes I was relaxed. There wasn’t any test.

The first meeting where I had to pass test was a small company with department in other city. This time, before we met I had invested my time to prepare, unfortunately even with preparation I had got stressed Damn it! After presentation I had to pass a skill exam, but what was great we just had discussion about problem described on paper. There wasn’t need of writing code in a paper.

The worst interview was few days ago, I got call and immediately I decided to meet up in same day. I wanted to check how it goes without any preparations, and it went wrong! Don’t do it! Always schedule your interviews at least one week ahead. 

In six meetings I had to do three skills exams, so if HR or recruiter will call to you. Remember to ask him/her if there will be skill exam, because it’s the most important case! Prepare properly your knowledge
For basic and some intermediate issues try : C# 5.0 in a Nutshell, 5th Edition. Moreover you should know answer to this questions. Now I will list me skills question that I got.

  • Interfaces of LINQ.
  • Basic usage of LINQ.
  • Basic SQL queries (PL/SQL, T/SQL).
  • Difference between abstract class and interface.
  • What is interface.
  • Difference between ref and out.
  • What new technologies came up in .NET 3.5.
  • What is order of calling virtual methods.
  • Write a method that reverse string backwards.
  • Enum
  • Factory Pattern
  • How works MVC

In conclusion, here I am a little wiser than two months ago, so to the next interview I will focused on this next things :

  • More preparation in basic aspects of language
  • Practise with someone, it’s a great opportunity because it shows you “if I understand what I’m talking about? ” Let’s assume that you are talking about some kind of project, and your partner asks you what is mean that you use “abstract class”, or tell me what is “ORM”. Moreover it’s potential questions that you can get in interview
  • no more interview on the front of white board!! and writing the code on it. I get stressed and I forget about everything…
  • Schedule meeting at least one week ahead.

Codeguru and .NET community

For few days I’m official member of codeguru redaction. I hope the cooperation will be delightful. I would like to make some changes, if headmaster will agree with me, as many of you know, present codeguru died, and I think all of us can help to rebirth like a phoenix.

I think  the .NET Poland community is still small if we compare to other countries . Thanks for procent blogpost I can seen how he has got power of influence to people after his blogpost I got 10 more followers at twitter and I think there was more “coming out” due to his blogpost.

We need someone like Scott Hanselman here in Poland, someone who give kick, and it could be a starter for someone, also I think the cure for this cancer is better commitment of Microsoft PL. Because we all know that there is a plenty of .NET Group (Academical) and for once of a year Imagine Cup – it’s a very great event, well done! MS especially people from department in Poland!. Since 2012 they ran a “SNT” where young people (from high schools) learn about .NET technology. But it’s still not enough because after graduate when you go to company MS forgets about you, no events, no fun from coding just poor stagnation like a Chinese factory worker. In conclusion if MS give a example and commitment, I think we can change other companies or corporations, here in Poland, big companies, they need a lifeless worker and they get this because people agree with it.

So let’s change it TOGETHER! Let’s start rebellion against stagnation in our community let’s help weaker coder to come out and encourage them to participate in colourful life of coder 🙂

rebelion-francesa

As a student of second year of BSc, with help of my friends, we want to start frequently hackatons here in Wroclaw for every one, for every technology! More info about event will be in end of April or start of May.

This blogpost doesn’t recommend aggression 🙂 it’s just mine interpretation.

#asciihack Wroclaw

This event will stay in my mind for a long time, I met there fantastic people, projects but what was the important it was a lot of FUN!.

unfortunately I was late for event like 15 minutes, but when I came at the front of me @nedzynski ask me what I want to eat and give me card to write my name and stick it into my shirt. It’s nice idea when you are talking with somebody you just see his/her name, I have weak remember to names so for me it was great and I don’t have to worry about this.

Next was just coding, after 3:30 PM was delicious dinner, everything was OK. after dinner we came back to coding. There was over 50 people, the most used technology was Ruby there was also projects in other language like .NET, C++, JS, Java. Winner wrote his game in C++ and this game was named Invader++, second place project with a unique name “oddajcie mi sobote” 😉 and the third place was Angry Birds in console created in .NET named AsciiBirds. After voting we were invited to after party, where we were talking about your projects and We were drinking beer.

In conclusion, I think Wroclaw need that kind of events, and it’s shame for Wroclaw companies that they didn’t make like this events.I would like to thank @getbaselab, and in my mind stayed one word COME BACK 🙂

Some photos, if you have any photos from this event let me know via email that I could add to gallery.
gallery