I’m looking for a job after my business failed. Three have been selected (two public companies, one to go public) and all have reached a critical juncture. I wrote down some of the questions I was asked in the hope that they would help me in future interviews and inspire others.
My experience and current situation are closely related to the questions I am asked, as follows:
I graduated in 2002. From 2002 to 2005, I worked as after-sale technical support. In 2005, I resigned and transferred to software development. In 2009, I started to work as a project manager and later as a department manager, during which I still focused about 50% of my energy on technology. Oct. 2014 ~ Nov. 2014, Project director, focusing on management, without technical details. From November 2014 to December 2014, I returned to the development position and entered C3 Company. December 2014 ~ November 2015 left C3 and started a business with my friends as a technical partner, technical director. On November 25, 2015, he disbanded the team and started looking for a job again.
The following I interview three companies of the key nodes and questions listed in a review, maybe also helpful to you. The unit I will eventually work in will come from these three. If you can’t wait to read the interview questions, you can also skip to the end and read my summary of how to prepare for the interview.
First, interview the r&d director
The first company I consider is a listed company in the security industry, call it C1, there is a branch in Xi ‘an. HR in Beijing directly invited me to consider it, and I learned that the position was r&d director.
After two rounds of interviews with HR and HR director, I had an interview with THE R&D director in Xi ‘an and talked about the following questions. The general order is the way I listed it, and some of it might be a little bit different.
1. Introduce yourself
This question is commonly encountered, technology will ask, human resources will also ask, a company interview process, may introduce themselves 2 times or more.
I’ve been introducing you since I graduated from college. It will include work experience and key projects and products, and if you have experience related to the target position or the company’s products, highlight it.
2. Do you know anything about our company? What products do you know?
I browsed the official website of C1 for several days, studied the products, and learned about other two listed security companies.
When I was asked this question, I forgot the information about the product line I had read…
3. Are you familiar with this position?
HR told me that I was the R&D director, and later the R&D director told me that I was the head of the product line, corresponding to the DEPUTY R&D director, there was some deviation.
I don’t know much about it. The interviewer introduced the position, including responsible products, functions, basic work and so on.
4. Why are you applying for this position?
I said HR came to me. It didn’t really unfold.
Now IT looks like I gave a very bad answer. In the future, answer these questions based on your experience, business value and future positioning, as well as your understanding of the job’s functions, and focus on the fit between you and the company.
5. Tell me how you understand the position
The product line leader will be responsible for r&d, testing, UI/UE technical team management and product research and development, which are directly managed by the product line leader.
C1 is matrix management. The sales platform can sell products selectively. The market and sales should be regarded as the customers of the product r&d department. The R&D department and the marketing and sales departments are jointly responsible for the annual performance targets.
Sales, pre-sales, and technical support teams must also work together.
I used to do similar things in product development, so I don’t have a bad understanding of this.
6. What industries are you looking for a job? Why is that?
I mentioned three: security, enterprise applications, and the Internet. Simple from the industry development cycle aspect of understanding, also talked about the relationship between the industry and enterprises, enterprises and individuals.
In the rising stage of the industry, in the rising stage of the platform, the individual has a greater possibility to have a great development.
That’s probably true.
7. In terms of your technical accumulation in C++, our team prefers Java, is there any obstacle?
I answer from the point of view that the technology accumulated to a certain degree is the same, AND I have used Java myself. In addition, FROM the perspective of team management, I also explained that WHAT I control is the technical direction and plan related to the product, so I don’t need to know the detailed technical details.
How do you manage your team?
I talked about two things: empowerment and engagement.
9. This position requires traveling, is it acceptable?
I made it clear that if YOU travel a lot, we don’t need to talk.
Then we discussed what counts as frequent travel, such as “two or three times a year for one or two months”, “two or three times a month for two or three days”, etc.
C1 has nearly 20 offices across the country, responsible for sales and technical support. Product line leaders visit all offices every year to maintain various channels and relationships. Frequent business trips are unavoidable.
This question looks from the other side, my attitude is obviously not happy to accept.
10. How do you manage up?
I’ve only heard of “managing up”, but I don’t know anything about it, just management by objectives.
Is poorer.
11. How to avoid project delay
This question comes out of the last one.
I talked a lot about the rationality of goals and delivery dates, and the need for an iterative perspective to understand that delivery dates themselves are dynamic.
When rechecking, I found that this kind of understanding from an objective point of view, not bad, but obviously not the other party wants the answer.
12. How do you plan to conduct your first month on the job?
This is probably a question that is often asked. I had a tripartite interview about knowing the goal, knowing the team and surrounding teams.
13. What are you good at?
I have worked for more than ten years in a variety of technical and management jobs. Faced with this kind of question, it is a little difficult to answer.
Generally speaking, a person must have a clear understanding of himself, and then have enough understanding of the target company and the position. In this way, he can choose the points he is good at to expand, which can improve the job-matching degree and increase the chance of passing the interview.
I chose a point on the technical side.
Not good.
14. Do you want to do client development or App?
This question should have come out of the last question. Looking at the trend of the mobile Internet, I exchanged a few words and told each other that I preferred apps.
The R&D director who interviewed me later explained that there was no point in asking this question and that there might be a job opening in the company in a while.
After I said goodbye to C1, I knew there would be no more. And I know what the R&D director is saying — I’m better suited for development. Yes, and that’s what I found in my own analysis.
This was my key interview at C1, lasting 90 minutes. The interviewer is the r&d director, the head of Xi ‘an branch, and the head of two product lines. I am not good at “do YOU understand the company’s products”, “can you accept business trips”, “manage up”, and “how to avoid project delays”. Later, I took the initiative to tell HR that frequent business trips for the target position were not suitable for me, and we could discuss it if there was a development position.
Second, video interview with the technical director
The second is referred to as C2, it is the listed company of building software, xi ‘an has a branch. I applied for the position of senior software development engineer through headhunter.
In my experience, there was a very important issue: moving from management to software development. Be sure to be asked in an interview.
On the one hand, he was the technical director of the target department in Xi ‘an. He was nice and had a smooth conversation.
The interviewer of the second interview is in Beijing, is a higher level of technical director. We went through QQ video link. He can see me. I can’t see him.
I have tried to list the issues mentioned below in order.
1. Introduce yourself
Why do people still ask you to introduce yourself even if it’s on your resume? If you ask, “It’s already on your resume, isn’t it necessary?” you have a 90% or more chance of getting passed on.
By introducing yourself, you can tell a lot about yourself, such as your logical thinking, presentation skills, summarization skills, on-the-spot grasp skills, values, your self-awareness and adaptability. Of course, there are also interviewers who haven’t had a chance to look at your resume and will skim it while you introduce yourself.
This time, I mentioned why I started my own business, paving the way for the future. I expected that when I came back from management to do development, a few questions would definitely be asked.
2. Future positioning?
This was a question I expected to be asked by others looking at my work history, because I was applying for a software development position, from a conventional perspective, which was not good for my career.
I talked about my career orientation through some experiences and feelings, and put my orientation on the point of being a “professional and technical person”. Taking the technical route will be my future direction, and I will give up management.
3. Accomplishment events
I talked about a few things, such as writing Qt on Android Core Programming and Qt Quick Core Programming, and successfully developing set-top box products.
4. What technical problems have you encountered in developing multimedia products?
I described three problems I encountered without going into detail about how they were solved, which is bad.
5. Compensation at your last employer
I started my own business, and I didn’t have to say anything about my salary. I told the truth about my previous salary at C3.
6. Do you have any questions?
This is a question that is often asked and an opportunity to shine.
I asked three questions:
- The impact of the downturn in the real estate industry on the company
- The plan of the branch company moving to the high-tech zone (I am in the high-tech zone, the company is not there, and the journey is very long)
- Promotion channel for technical personnel within the company
Each of them answered. The answer to the first question was excellent, with three points:
- Internationalized, real estate has regional relevance globally. I applied for the international department
- From selling software Licence to service rental, the threshold is lower, customers will become more
- Develop financial related services based on the characteristics of real estate customers
After the interview, I was told that HR would give me feedback within 5 working days. I think I can pass the interview. Of course, my feelings are sometimes right and sometimes wrong… We don’t really know what the other person thinks, but we can only analyze the performance of each other during the interview. However, if you perform badly, you can feel the results.
I went back to my interview at C3
I made a decision to see if I could go back to C3, the company I started before I left. I reached out to my former colleagues, which led to an opportunity and these interview questions.
Interview question from VP
I had a remote interview with VP using C3 cloud conferencing system, he could see me, I could not see him. The VP is very nice and the whole interview process is like a chat.
1. Where do you see yourself in five to eight years?
This problem is similar to another one we discussed earlier: positioning for the future. I talked about career orientation and the age and future of technicians.
2. What technical direction are you best at?
C++ and Qt, a must.
3. Where do you see yourself?
My vision for the future is as an application technology expert. Sophisticated algorithms and all that. It won’t work.
4. Did you use Qt or Native to make apps when you started your business?
Android and iOS are developed in Native mode.
5. Why not Qt?
There are two reasons why Qt was not adopted in our start-up products. First, part of the development work was already under way when I set up the team, and I directly used Java to develop Android App. Second, the large size of Qt will improve the threshold for our products to reach users.
6. What is the accumulation of technology?
This kind of open-ended question, everyone has their own version. I made some introductions around specific technology, technical experience and experience.
7. Introduce the four teams he manages and ask which one I’d like to work on
That means VP has accepted me. Knowing that C3 has no plans to hire, I expressed my opinion: If there are no plans to hire developers, don’t bother me. I didn’t know if it was good or bad, but I did it naturally, because of my personality.
Interview questions from the human resources director
A day after the TECHNICAL VP, THE HR at C3 told me that the HR director would have a chat with me, which was by remote video. Or they can see me. I can’t see them.
I looked back at the questions I was asked, and they were a little more pointed than the technical VP questions, but from a corporate perspective, they were normal for a returner like me. I would have asked a similar question in a different position. So, I’m not upset about any of this.
1. Introduce yourself.
This seems to have been asked by the VP of technology.
I gave a brief account of my personal experience, with a little more detail in two places. One was when I switched from tech support to software development, and talked about the impact of the companies and bosses that accepted me. The other is my relationship with the person I co-founded when I left C3 to start my own business, who introduced me to software development at that time.
I’m going to go back to C3, and these questions are inevitably going to be asked, and I think it’s good to clarify them by explaining them to myself.
2. Why did YOU choose C3?
Well, let’s do the next one together.
3. Why did you leave?
Ok, this question and the last question actually echo each other. I chose C3 because I believed in C3 products and my skills could be used here.
What about leaving? It’s already been mentioned there. It’s a natural progression here.
4. Will you leave just because your friend invites you to start a business?
After you answer “Why did you leave?” the question comes naturally. I talked about what I would be good at, clarified my thoughts, and gave an answer.
5. What problems do you think C3 has in the past time?
I brought up a problem with the low productivity of a development team working in remote locations.
6. Why did you come back? What did you see?
Although I worked at C3 for only one month, I felt quite good about technology, products and people. That’s why I want to go back to C3 again.
What I see is the development of the enterprise and the positioning of the product. I talked about my views on the industry and the enterprise, and discussed my views on C3’s three main products in detail.
7. What have you learned in this year?
The harvest is mainly personal experience, growth, and the clarification of self career positioning.
8. Where have you accumulated all these years?
To be honest, I’ve forgotten what the answer to that question was… Should be around technology, experience two points to talk about.
9. What do you see as yourself? Does C3 satisfy you?
I started with my management experience before ENTERING C3 for the first time and my feelings when starting my own business. I have derived my function positioning — professional and technical personnel, and will develop as a technical expert.
After the interview with C1, I was more sure of this, without any hesitation.
I talked about my matching problem with C3 from my understanding of C3 company and products.
10. Which position do you think you are qualified for, or what are your strengths?
Because I am not familiar with the specific job responsibilities, I talked about my advantages from two aspects of technology and product awareness.
Do you have any questions?
Because it’s coming back again, I don’t really have any special problems. But I am not quite clear about the following interview process, so I asked about the process.
12. Your salary expectations?
The last question brought this up, and my answer is: pretty much the same as before.
How to Prepare for an interview
Although I have interviewed and been interviewed by many people, I personally am not particularly good at interviews. This time, because of my older age, I thought a little more carefully. I paid attention to the interview process, did some introspection, gained some personal experience, and share with you.
The following points are important for an interview:
Look at my experience, every family can not escape this aspect of the problem, if the self-positioning is not clear, the interview will be a problem.
This aspect of preparation is necessary, you apply for a position, to understand the requirements of the position, to see their own knowledge, skills, experience and the requirements of the enterprise where the point.
Most enterprises consider person-job matching first when recruiting. If you can’t find a match, chances are your resume won’t pass muster.
Learn as much as you can about the company, its industry, its products, its culture, its competitors… The more the merrier, don’t be afraid to put in the effort. I forgot some product information when I interviewed C1…
Interviewers are more likely to accept candidates who know something about their company, which shows that you are willing to know, and that you came back after learning, which also shows that you are a relatively good match for the company.
Appearance level cannot change, dress material stand or fall is not important also, accomplish clean, neat on the whole can. Remember, no one has the obligation to look beyond your messy exterior to see what’s inside of you, and no one has the patience of your parents.
There are two aspects to mind tuning.
One is the expectation of how long it will take to find a job. Because of the pressure brought by the economy or other people’s expectations, job seekers tend to be anxious, lose their usual state of mind, and have the idea of looking for a job at random. At this time, a straw in front of them may be regarded as an olive branch, which is easy to lead to careless choice and harm others. It is easy to separate a husband and wife, and the price is very high. My idea is to settle down, take my time, and trust that it’s all too late and that wonderful encounters are waiting for me.
The other is about the relationship between enterprises and job seekers. There is no one who is strong and who is weak, enterprises and job seekers are two-way choice, do not have to be nervous and do not have to worry, keep calm and calm in order to better show themselves.
For programmers over 35, like me, there are age-related issues to debug. I believe that experience is as valuable as experience, and technical experts can be as valuable as old Chinese doctors.