The IT industry has experienced a period of exponential growth both at home in Ireland and across the globe. This boom shows no signs of subsiding. As the complexity of the modern business environment continues to deepen, the relationships between organisations and IT and, by association, IT Professionals, becomes ever more entwined. We’re excited to share some of these insights to better prepare IT professionals to excel in their next job interview.
Competency based interview are common and will require you to provide examples of where you demonstrated behaviours or skills that you have. Therefore make sure to have prepared some examples in advance, it is purely not enough to state the skills you have and not talk about how you have shown them to be true.
Often in interview candidates will, with the best of intentions, boast about the great things they plan to achieve without focusing on describing the tangible results they have actually earned. Past actions are a strong determinant of future behaviour, when a business is investing in a new resource that will be crucial to decision making.
Created by the global leadership consulting firm Development Dimensions International (DDI), the STAR technique is one of the simplest and most effective ways for an interview candidate to communicate during an interview. By using STAR as a guide you can clearly demonstrate your experience.
| Situation | Outline the situation |
| Task | Your role in response to the situation |
| Action | The steps taking by you to solve the problem |
| Result | What was the outcome |
Many academic degrees and professional qualifications in the IT field will place a heavy emphasis on the hard technical skills necessary for the profession and as such it can be easy to fall in to the trap of only focusing on those hard technical aspects of competence in your interview preparation.
At a basic level the majority of IT careers will require some degree of interpersonal interaction, be it through collaborative work with colleagues or providing assistance to IT service consumers. This will require a base level of emotional and social competence to make for effective functioning in the role.
This only serves to becomes more prolific as ones move to consider roles in the technology leadership space where the ability to coach others, to influence multiple stakeholders, to persuade for change and to understand business as well as technology goals become paramount. At this level strong functioning in multiple emotional and social competencies is crucial.
Even in a world where massive strides are being made through Machine Learning (ML) and Artificial Intelligence (AI) to automate more and make technology more intuitive, the technology needs people who imagine, design, program and support it to think about their work in ways that are human like to thrive.
The morale of the story is that in preparing for an interview don’t focus on purely your technical tool kit to the detriment of a decision swaying differential that is emotional and social competence. Simply sticking to some interpersonal basics will go a long way such as having open body language, maintaining an appropriate level of eye contact, being polite and friendly to everyone encountered before, during and after the interview, and not forgetting to smile! In terms of more specific preparation be prepared to answer scenario and competence based questions on communication, team work, stress tolerance, outlook and flexibility.
Professionals who are highly knowledgeable and ingrained in the world of IT can often make the assumption that everyone else is just as well-informed as they are. In a job interview setting, this may not be the case. It is essential for job candidates in the IT field to do their due diligence prior to the interview in order to gauge the technical level of the interviewer. Many positions in the IT industry will involve a multi-stage evaluation process. It is possible that the initial step will involve an interview with representatives of a company’s HR department, who likely won’t be as technical as the candidate themselves. In such a situation, the candidate needs to demonstrate the capacity to communicate their technical knowledge and accomplishments in a simple, easy to understand manner which anyone could comprehend. A common mistake candidates make is bombarding the interviewer with industry jargon and acronyms, presumably with the goal of astonishing the interviewer with the amount of “buzz terms” they can articulate. This tactic rarely works and can often backfire. In reality, it may even expose a lack of technical knowledge. In the words of Albert Einstein, “if you can’t explain it simply, you don’t understand it well enough”.
Professionals in the IT industry must contend with an exponential rate of change. One cannot simply obtain a degree and sit on their laurels, they must constantly strive to educate themselves further, whether that be through formal or reputable informal means. IT companies are looking for a skilled and knowledge hungry workforce who keep their finger on the pulse with a burning desire to continually expand their understanding of the latest technological trends. In spotlighting your thirst for knowledge simply mentioning that you have signed up for a programme of study isn’t enough. While having a roadmap is important, interviewers will also seek evidence of what you have done in order to develop your knowledge to date. There are many ways to do this so don’t just rely on traditional educational undertakings. Mention industry podcasts your rate, newsletters you subscribe too, forums that you are a member of, or perhaps work experience you undertook in your desire to learn more.
“You’ll never get a chance to make a great first impression”. This is particularly true during an interview setting. The responsibility is on every candidate to put their best foot forward during the process. Some tech giants such as Google and Facebook have a casual dress code, however it would be ill judged to believe this is the case for the industry as a whole. Don’t expect there is casual wear and even if a business does have a casual dress code don’t take this approach for the interview. You should dress smart for an interview to show you are taking the event seriously rather than appearing careless. It may be important to you to express your individuality and you can do this without giving the impression you don’t care. Dress with a degree of formality to let the interviewers know you care about performing well, both in the interview and the eventual position.
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