TIPS FOR TECHNICAL INTERVIEW

Here is our List of Tips for Scoring well in Technical Interviews

1.) Knowledge of programming is very important. Sometimes at your interview you will be given a programming “quiz” where you will have to answer a short test on a language such as Java, for example:

• “What is the most basic element of a java program?” i.e. a class
• “What do RMI / JDBC / RPC stand for? What are they used for?”
• “Explain what an interface is in Java, and what it is used for.”

Revision of Computer Programming I and II modules would be perfect material to prepare for this.

2.) You could also be asked to do a problem solving exercise where you’ll be given a problem and you have to write out a solution on a whiteboard or on paper and show the interview panel your answer. The key to doing this successfully is not to panic and to make sure the panel know your logic behind how you come to your solution.

Another recommendation would be for students to practice their problem solving skills even in pseudo code as the other key part of an interview could consist of a problem which required a solution to be drawn out on a white board. This sounds like quite a daunting prospect but as long as you talk the interviewers through what you are thinking and do not rush it all will be good.

3.) It is important that you appear outgoing and friendly and stress team-working skills and give a history of group projects completed at Queen's.

4.) You might also be asked general questions such as:

• “How do you cope with difficult workloads?”
• “Name a difficult situation you've experienced and how you cope with it.”
• “How do you resolve a difference of opinion with a superior?”

5.) Browse throw some of the site listing Technical interview Question and answers..

6.) Testing questions:

You have a whiteboard, and are given a question along the lines of

"You have a method that checks if a triangle is scalene. It takes as parameters three integers representing the sizes of the sides. What inputs would you use as tests for this method?"

So you've to write down what inputs you would try to determine if the method worked 100% correctly, and for each state what output you would expect. So you have to put in sizes that are valid, sizes where the triangle is equilateral, sizes where it can not be a triangle (e.g. 5000, 1, 1), negative integers.

7.) Programming Questions:

You could be given a matrix (2d array) of letters, and had to write on the whiteboard, as close to java as possible, a method that would search through that matrix for a given word.

e.g.    Search for DOG in the following

|REGGDA|
|HUDOGC|
|PQOKCX|
|GFOMPO|
|POIREJ|

So you are writing a method like findWord (char[][] letterMatrix, String 
wordToFind) { ...

Another question might be to write a method that checked if a word was a palindrome.

8.) If you don’t know the answer to a question, don’t try and bluff your way through it because you’ll be caught out in the end. Admit that you don’t know or that you haven’t covered it yet in your course, it’s alright to not know the answer to everything.

9.) At the end of your interview it helps to ask questions and to seem genuinely interested in working at the company. Of course, don’t act interested if you’re not actually interested! There’s no point trying to get a place in a job you won’t enjoy and somebody else would have benefited from. Research the company beforehand and have a list of questions you would like answered.

• What languages they used?
• What IDE's they used?
• What sort of work I should be expecting?
• What the social life was like at the company?
All the Best to all you guys there. We hope these tips will help you in Interview.

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