Interview skills in the interview of top IT companies, how to prove that you are the best?

interview skills: how to prove that you are the best in an interview with a top IT company?

As we all know, all competitions in the world today are ultimately about people, and Silicon Valley is no exception. Many companies try their best to attract talents, but this does not mean that all companies want to get the best, and the way of screening is interview, so if you want to become a member of Silicon Valley, you must prove that you are excellent at the interview.

My interview experience

In May 1994, I participated in the interview for the first time. At that time, I was studying for a master's degree in computer science at Stanford University. Many top companies at that time, including Oracle, Sybase, HP and IBM, went to Stanford to do campus recruitment.

One day, I received an email from the department, which was Tandem Computers (tandem computers Company). They want to recruit a graphic user interface software engineer (GUI software engineer) who is programmed under the X Window GUI on the Unix operating platform. Three months ago, I just took a course in X Window and got an A+ grade. I thought I was confident enough to do the job well, so I applied for the position. Soon, their hiring manager wrote back to me and asked me to attend an interview in Tandem. I met five or six interviewers in Tandem. They were either engineers or managers. The questions asked by each interviewer were relatively simple, but on average, each interviewer interviewed.

The interview went very smoothly, and I got an Offer within one week, which seems to be relatively easy, because all major companies want to give potential students a chance to examine their abilities during their internship. If they are really excellent, they can get the advantage and get the moon first, and the cost paid is much lower than that of directly hiring formal employees.

But if you want to apply for a formal position directly, the interview situation is completely different. Before graduation, I participated in interviews with three companies: Microsoft, Oracle, and Tandem. At that time, Microsoft and Oracle were the two top companies that most software engineers dreamed of joining.

The interview process of the three companies is different. Tandem adopts a family-oriented interview style, because I have proved my programming skills and other work-related abilities through internship, so Tandem didn't spend too much time on technical details when interviewing me. They asked me more personal planning questions, such as: what is my life goal, what kind of person I want to be in five years, and how to realize my ideals and goals in Tandem. As you can see from this interview process, internship is very important for employment.

The interview with Oracle is completely different. In 1995, Oracle was already an energetic and rapidly developing company. Although I interviewed for the position of engineer, no engineer came to interview me during the whole process. On the contrary, Oracle arranged many senior managers from all over the world to interview me. These managers were too busy, so most of the interviews were conducted by telephone. A certain vice president in charge of Asia-Pacific business (I remember he was from China) interviewed me by telephone and talked for 3 minutes. There is a very strange tradition in Oracle. Those who have passed the interview must ensure that they can accept their Offer before they send an Offer. The reason is that even though Oracle has more than 3, employees at that time, every offer must be signed by CEO Larry Ellison, and once Larry signs the offer, the applicant must go to the post, otherwise the recruiter will be punished.

Next, I received an interview invitation from Microsoft. They provided air tickets and arranged hotels near Microsoft in Seattle. I felt honored and it was a wonderful experience. It was the second time in my life that I flew by plane. The first time I flew by plane was from Seoul to San Francisco in 1993 to study at Stanford. The second flight was from San Francisco to Seattle to attend an interview with Microsoft. At that time, I was so nervous that I woke up before dawn and didn't know what would meet me. Previously, I heard that the interview of Microsoft was very strict. The whole interview started at 9 am and didn't end until 6: 3 pm. I also visited the offices of every important engineer. Every engineer had a very difficult programming problem. They gave me a whiteboard and a pen, and had to write C++ algorithm on the spot to solve their problems. Every question is very difficult. I got some questions right, but some questions were not answered very well.

I got the offer from the last three companies. I was deeply impressed by these interviews. Although the interview methods of different companies are very different, one thing remains unchanged, that is, the high standard requirements for candidates' abilities. They will try their best to explore your bottom, explore your future potential, and ensure that real gold is left behind instead of gilded people.

How to interview

The following are my own important considerations and necessary preparations for the interview in Silicon Valley. Of course, this is only my personal experience:

1. Don't exaggerate your work experience in your resume. In Silicon Valley, if a person says I know or what I have done, but can't answer the relevant questions well, the interview will definitely fail. In Silicon Valley, reputation and integrity are always important assessment indicators.

2. It is best to have a resume of only one page, not more than two pages at most. Every hiring manager's time is precious. If you write too much, they may not be able to find the key points from your resume. In Silicon Valley, a concise resume is always more popular than a lengthy resume. Of course, the format of the resume must also be very clear.

3. Most interviewers would like to know why you applied for a job in this company, and how much you know about the company and its products, technologies and other relevant important information, which can show your real interest. Therefore, before the interview, instead of guessing all kinds of interview/technical questions that may be asked, it is very important to spend more time thinking about why I want to join this company and what I want to do for this company from the bottom of my heart.

4. Passion, optimism, clear thinking and team-oriented spirit are all important qualities that you need to show in the interview. Of course, creativity is also a very important value indicator. Employers in Silicon Valley like job seekers who are good at thinking and can think of solutions. They want to see your thinking process from understanding problems to solving them.

5. If you are an engineer and you don't have excellent educational background or work experience, it is also a good idea to demonstrate works (some projects designed by you independently) that can show your excellent programming ability or excellent creativity on the spot.

6. Don't play hard in salary/treatment. But pay more attention to what kind of work you want to do, how important these jobs are, and how to evaluate them. A work/project-oriented attitude will help you get the job. If you pay too much attention to salary than the job itself, you may not get the job, or even if you get the job, the salary will be lower than you expected. Because everyone knows that working for interests or ideals is bound to be more efficient, more dedicated and more innovative than working for money. ;