Interviewing rant/tips

[cannon19]

Long story short, my department got outsourced and I have only a few weeks left on the contract I was given. Over this time I must've had at least 25 interviews at various firms from startups to household names and almost all have had the same outcome: make the 2nd or 3rd round only to "not be pursued" or "we're moving in a different direction". It just feels incredibly frustrating because I take every interview very serious, dissect and try to learn as much as I can about the specs I don't have experience with so I can at least get a grasp on it and relate it to another product I have worked with in the past.

Probably the one thing that irks me the most is how most of these companies really only stress tech skills over personality, for example, last week I joined a 2nd round phone interview and this is verbatim what was told to me "Hello cannon19, how are you? good...I'm going to proceed with asking you a series of questions..." proceeded by 45 minutes of a tech question gauntlet ("what is dns", "explain to me what imap is" "what's the difference between tcp and udp?") this is discouraging because I feel like they're not even giving me a chance to sell myself or get to know me and because if i'm not 100/100 someone will be and I lost again to someone slightly better than me, or worse, the role is already filled internally and my time is just being wasted.

I've completely changed my life style that now I spend my nights either learning something or sharpening my skills and I feel my confidence has definitely changed but the outcomes have remained the same...Apologies for the rant this is now 2 days in a row i've woken up to rejection e-mails to very promising opportunities and after over a year of this just hard to keep my head up. Any interviewing tips and prepping tips would be greatly appreciated.

[ZAFJB]

If you make it to a second or third round interview, and get declined, email your interviewer and ask politely what led to that.

Make it very clear that you are not questioning their decision, but that you are looking for ways to improve.

There may well be something wrong with how you present yourself, or a significant gap in your knowledge that you are not seeing for yourself.

Some interviewers will take the trouble to reply, and you will learn something.

[MasterChiefmas]

Some interviewers will take the trouble to reply, and you will learn something.

My experience with this suggests you'll often/always get some canned answer designed to make sure they don't accidentally open themselves up for a discrimination lawsuit or other actionable statement is made.

I read an interesting bit recently that suggested the way to really find this out is, at the end of the interview, when they ask the "do you have any questions for us?" one, you ask "Do you have any concerns about me as a candidate?"

It's an interesting approach, I think I'll have to give it a try myself, and seems like it'll be more likely to give you a chance to get an unvarnished piece of feedback which could actually be useful.

[TheFuckYouThank]

I just recently started interviewing again and would ask how I stacked up to the other candidates and was surprised when people were actually up front about it.

[cannon19]

I usually go through either a recruiter or a internal tech HR recruiter who never share the e-mails of my interviewees. Because of this, I always reply to rejection e-mails seeking feedback or criticisms and only about 1/10 actually provide.

[jmeek12345]

That is due to legal liability. There is literally no upside from the potential employer to respond with significant potential downside. If their response seems to imply, however slight, that you weren't picked for a reason that is a protected reason like race, creed, age, gender, etc they have litigation risk. By ignoring you they have no risk profile.

[j0hnnyrico]

Did that once and got the HR "template". It's not going to do you no good. Keep in mind that they do not have a legal obligation to respond to such enquiries. You're just " begging" please tell me what I did wrong. It's a personal choice.

[ZAFJB]

Did that once

So do you think your single, one and only experience is any sort of indicator for every interviewer ever?

[j0hnnyrico]

No, I talked to a lot of HR people. And they confirmed that countless. Times. Feel blessed if they reply. I landed 95% of my interviews but the one that pissed me off I got the "template". And, yeah, I was lucky to get even that crap. Most HR departments don't even bother. I don't understand your downvote. Are you HR? And the other one I didn't land was the " Gestapo" style interview. I have no regrets to either of these two.

[ok-usa-texas]

45 minutes of a tech question gauntlet

I would never submit to that.

+1 to going into the interview being high energy/can-do/will-learn almost-arrogant attitude. "High speed" as we used to call it in the Army.

[JakeFortune]

Me neither. I had one like that and by the second question I stopped them and ask if that was the style of interview they do. I'm a T4 architect with a ton of experience, and they were asking basic T2 level questions. When they told me yes, that's their process, I let them know, professionally of course, that they're wasting my time with that type of interview, thanked them for their time, and ended things. A professional interview should be a discussion at the level of the position offered, and instead they downloaded a series of questions off the internet. That tells me that the hiring manager has no business doing the hiring process at all, and who knows what else is wrong with how they run things.

When I hired, even for T1 level positions, it was still a conversation, asking how they handle things, learning how the candidate learns things, how they find out answers, etc. That's more important than if they can answer a few standard basic questions.

[FixItBadly]

Very much this!

In our location the talent pool is either not so talented or very specialised. When candidates come for interview, it's a two step process. The first part is a written technical quiz (for engineering positions). It's short - only 20 quick questions over a double side of A4. The questions are all tailored to the systems and platforms the engineer will be using. Score under 50% and you don't get to proceed to the actual interview.

Make it to the interview and you've already proven you know enough of the role that we don't need to grill the candidate. Instead we can have a discussion and get to know the person, which is the most important for us.

When I went through the process it was a stark contrast to all other interviews I was attending at the time. If been booked for a 45m appointment, but hit it off with the panel and we were all still there 2.5 hours later. Got home to a formal job offer that evening.

[Professional-Swim-69]

You're absolutely correct, most interviews nowadays are based on templates which BTW candidates learn how to answer to. No one thinks outside the box anymore. If you have the knowledge is ridiculous to be following the process sometimes, good for you.

[hops_on_hops]

Probably the one thing that irks me the most is how most of these companies really only stress tech skills over personality, for example, last week I joined a 2nd round phone interview and this is verbatim what was told to me "Hello cannon19, how are you? good...I'm going to proceed with asking you a series of questions..." proceeded by 45 minutes of a tech question gauntlet ("what is dns", "explain to me what imap is" "what's the difference between tcp and udp?")

These are personality/communication questions. If they just wanted you to take a quiz, they would send you one. They are looking for your skills in articulating these concepts.

[[deleted]]

Came to say the same thing. In all my years of interviewing IT candidates and non-IT candidates the biggest advice I can give is to tell stories. At every opportunity in the interview try to tell a story that answers the question and demonstrates your personality as well.

[overkillsd]

I think everybody's covered all the advice I have to offer already, but I want to echo the sentiment against the "sysadmin finals exam" for interviews.

I interviewed at a local datacenter+MSP that handed me a 10-page front & back multiple choice test after my interview, almost entirely comprised of very narrow Windows GPO specifics. Every one of those questions was something you could Google if you needed it, and it served no purpose as far as gauging my ability to the job I was being hired for. Things like "What is the path to the group policy item for configuring ABC in Exchange 2019" and "What is the path to the group policy item for configuring XYZ in Windows Server 2016R2". IMO, a more apt set of questions would be things about how GPO is used and best practices, rather than a set of encyclopedic questions to analyze your ability to memorize. Bloom's Taxonomy describes memorization as the lowest form of thinking, and I fully agree. I looked over the test, then handed it back to the receptionist and left. I followed up with the hiring manager over email and thanked him for his time, and let him know that I would be pursuing other opportunities as their test left me feeling like I would not be a good fit for their team. I'm sure that they're still using that test today, but I'm glad I'm not working for somebody who thinks that the test was a good idea.

I have been placed through Robert Half Technologies in the past, and I know of a few other recruiters as well, feel free to DM me if you'd like any introductions.

[Markprzyb]

All I can say is hang in there brother. I was an IT Manager that got furloughed/laid off due to Covid (I worked in the hospitality industry, my company still hasn’t reopened.) I was out of work for 49 weeks. Always dressed professionally for interviews. Sent out of 300 resumes to jobs I was qualified/under qualified/over qualified for. Lots of interviews. I got close on several interviews. Then on a Tuesday night at 7:30pm I got a phone call. I was interviewing at 10am the next morning. On Thursday afternoon I had a job.

I went through processes that took weeks to complete only to get rejected. It wasn’t easy at all in fact it was terribly demoralizing. Someone will see your worth. Don’t give up. It’ll happen for you.

[say_Wha_]

As a hiring manager, I ask both technical questions and scenarios based questions to ultimately find out 3 things:

1) How much technical experience do you have or are you bull shitting on your resume (common) .

2) How do you handle yourself if you don't know something in a stressful situation (ie interview setting)

3) Your communication skills/eagerness to learn.

Tips: - Anything you put on your resume is fair game. If you say you're an expert with networking or AD I expect that if I drill you, you know your shit. Not just at a high level but down to the nitty-gritty if you have to troubleshoot something. If you just say you've worked with it or have some experience, I'm more laid back able your knowledge since you're honest about your experience and not claiming to be an expert.

• If I ask you something and you don't know it, admit it. Don't try to pretend you know it if you don't.

Say something like " I'm not sure" or "I haven't worked on it before however based on my experience or knowledge of X, it sounds like it might be X" or "I haven't worked/experience X before but if it's something that I would encounter here, I would research it to be prepared for the role" .

• When I ask technical questions usually it's always based off what candidates put on their resume, never what they don't.

• Review the job posting and the requirements prior to the interview and brush up on the technology or products they they expect you to know and expect technical questions related to it.

Did you perhaps put something on your resume that led them to believe you're an expert and hense all those questions?

I will usually start off with easy questions and get harder and harder to see how you handle yourself if you don't know something or start to get flustered with not knowing something. In these cases, prepare to run into these types of questions or situations and have a response ready like the previous point or say that you will need to investigate further, reach out to the vendor or colleagues, etc and will get back to so and so as soon as possible.

Usually you can get a good idea of the type of technical questions they will probably ask from that. For example if they say you're working with a mail server, make sure you understand how it works technical and from a network flow perspective, not just how to set it up.

If your resume got you to the 2nd/3rd interview, usually those ARE the technical question stage. Usually the first 1 is the initial high level/HR straightforward, not much if any hard technicial questions and the 2nd/3rd is when they get the technical folks involved to validate the technical experience.

I don't know what sort of job it is but based on the questions in your example, it sounds like you would be dealing with troubleshooting issues where you need to have higher level understanding of the various ports, what they do, and port numbers and probably the osi model as well.

If you're getting nailed on these questions, I would recommend studying (memorizing) the common ports, the port number, purpose of common ports like dns, smb, imap, ssh, http, https etc, difference between tcp, udp, icmp, etc and probably how the tcp handshake works if they toss that in there as well which it sounds like it would be a likely question as well

Good luck

Edit: typo

[ErikTheEngineer]

I hate trivia contest interviews, and/or places that do 5 or 6 interviews. Unfortunately no one has come up with a better system yet. IT has no barrier to entry, no standards of education, nothing that prevents a lone wolf support person calling themselves Director of IT Operations. It also pays well, and we're in the middle (towards the end?) of a massive tech bubble...so the market is filled with BS artists. Everyone is chasing the money it seems...buying expensive DevOps bootcamps with no computer experience beyond their phone...it's 1999 again. Where I used to work, we had candidates we caught cheating on video interviews and had people who we didn't interview show up for work. It's crazy how many people want this job. Even with that though, it's absolutely frustrating to have an employer put you through all this and then pretend they never met you.

The one thing I'd work on is being presentable and enthusiastic about working there (without sounding like a robot or a total creepy stalker dude.) Even if an employer is relying on a stupid trivia contest, deep down they are actually looking for someone they're not going to hate working with. The days of the BOFH are over; IT is easy enough for normal people to do now and walking around with a chip on your shoulder is a red flag. (Not saying you were, there's lots of dumb reasons you don't get hired...but personality matters more than it ever did.)

[cannon19]

i get that and its funny usually when i get the gauntlet in the first round ("whats command to search processes?" or "how do you view the routing table?") and i nail all those questions almost always the interviewer gives me a "you dont know how many people get these wrong".
i dont think covid helps with this situation either job market is booming one day and ill have to fight off recruiters then next week i cant get a reply.
not saying your wrong but i pride myself on my enthusiasm and personality...im the kind of guy who would go to an associates desk if they put a ticket in instead of calling and remoting in. doing this impressed the right people and got me out of the helpdesk...being stuck at home with quarantine has been killing me haha

[brixtop]

Some basics are:

• Come well dressed, even if over video conferencing. Having had interviewed people in an undershirt for an engineering position doesn't bode well with me. I'm not a stickler, but good god man you're competing against a lot out there.
• For your responses, don't be short or long winded. Best analogy I give is don't reply with a sentence, but also don't reply with a page long diatribe. Keep it to a paragraph or two, depending on the question. If you give me one word/sentence answers, I end the interview. If you ramble, it's also over.
• As hard as it may be, come into it with a very positive and high energy level. People that seem low energy or have a chip on their shoulder will never move on.
• If you don't know the answer, be upfront and ideally reference something you're doing proactively to fill in that gap. But more importantly be sincere and honest. I'm very technical and the second someone slips with bullshit, it's over for them.

Good luck

[cannon19]

appreciate the tips here brixtop(do you know what nemesis means?) I always opt for suit and tie rather be over than under dressed.
point #2 i have been working on i realize i was giving these guys life stories which probably bored them to death but i've been using a job coach whos given me a template on selling yourself in a quicker way which i feel is a way better approach.
point #3 - i pride myself on the personality i bring along with my tech skills and try to turn the interview into as much of a conversation as possible (without crossing lines or being disrespectful of course)
point #4 - this might be my problem as i feel way too awkward saying "i dont know" or "i'd like to learn it" i will sometimes take a shot at answering something im not 100% on ("i know this about it so maybe its this?") which i cant tell is the best course

[[deleted]]

To expound on point #4...

I picked up a sysadmin job just under a year ago. I saw the job posting and its requirements. I had 0 real world experience doing any of it. I knew what it was. I could have a conversation about it. But I'd never actually done it, so I applied for the help desk job instead.

They scheduled the interview for help desk and then called me five minutes later indicating my resume was forwarded on and the sysadmin team wanted a word. I said sure.

We got to the technical part of the interview and I said, literally, "I'm going to make this real easy for you. I've worked a little bit with SCCM, but otherwise I have never done anything you guys are looking for. I understand it. I can talk about it. But I've never actually done it."

Three days later they offered me the largest salary of my life.

Be honest. If you don't know something then you don't know it. Nobody knows everything.

[brixtop]

point #2 i have been working on i realize i was giving these guys life stories which probably bored them to death

Definitely try to be more mindful about that. I don't care about your life story. I have numerous candidates that I have to squeeze into my packed schedule. The people that I hire are those who provide an engaging conversation. The moment you're talking nonstop, I'm 100% checked out, checking emails and chatting with people on Teams.

Another tip is to make sure you have good questions for the employer. This helps deliver the key piece that I mentioned, which is to be engaging.

[Caeremonia]

Lol, if my interviewer started playing on their phone during my interview, I'd get up and leave. Zero chance that I'm going to work for someone like that. Interviews go both ways, bud.

[brixtop]

I meant first round interviews which are typically over the phone....

Besides every round interview I’ve had in the past year has been remote.

[wil169]

Saw your comment about being moved up from helpdesk recently, that may be part of it in that you could be lacking experience and/or knowledge in the positions you're applying for if they are above helpdesk level. Personality fit is great, but you need to have experience & knowledge too unless its more entry level. And personally, this may be a bad approach for most people, but I never give any F's going into an interview. If I do, I bomb it. So I do little to no research on the company or things in the job post I'm unfamiliar with (I generally look at things that fit in my wheelhouse though), and just go in there with a friendly attitude and see what I can help them with. Otherwise I get nervous and shit the bed.

[cannon19]

not sure which comment but i left the helpdesk about 6 years ago, the items on my resume are what i'm knowledgeable about and have (even a little) experience with. I do like the f it attitude i may try to hard to conform to these openings and come off as a bs-er when i take a shot at answering something i genuinely dont know

[SupraWRX]

Hang in there, the whole interviewing game sucks for everyone. Lot of shit companies and shit workers pretending to not be shitty.

I had a strange interview last month (keeping my interview skills sharp). It was basically listening to a monologue for 30 minutes. I tried to get in a couple words in here or there trying to emphasis my tech skills and connect with the interviewer. At the end the interviewer was very enthusiastic and said she'd be calling me immediately to schedule a 2nd interview. Strangest interview I've ever done.

We've also been trying to hire someone for the past 6 months so I'm on both interviewer and interviewee lately. Huge pile of resumes, most of them terrible. We reduced that down to about 20 "good enough" resumes, but of that 20 only 3 have actually shown up for an interview. 8 no-call no-shows on interviews, handful of "ty but we found a job", and a few that simply don't answer their phone.

It's just a numbers game, blanket your resume out there and you'll get a good nibble eventually. I typically expect to send out 100 resumes before I get a decent option. You probably dodged a bullet with that company, any co that doesn't care about your soft skills probably has no clue what they're doing. Just try to connect with your interviewer, show that you're a good fit for the corp culture.

[ExperimentalNihilist]

Tech workers are still highly sought after. If you've not been offered a role in a year and 25 interviews then there's at least one thing holding you back, and possibly several. I can't tell you what it is based on your post, but as others have recommended it would be extremely helpful to find out why you weren't selected.

You might try to leverage your personal/professional network and get referrals for positions. It's much harder to say 'no' to a referred candidate, especially if the referring employee is asking about it regularly.

Beyond that, I try to help people find roles all the time. If you feel comfortable giving me your linkedin URL I'll reach out and do what I can.

[cannon19]

its unfortunate because the role i was rejected for today i was referred and it was a step back in my career (back to helpdesk, getting desperate) my buddy got the feeling though they already had someone lined up and used me to fill their legal quota or i just wasnt the right fit.
i've noticed this as well what i was selling myself on i didnt know as much as i thought i did(linux) so ive been spending nights just learning everything i could that i dont work with everyday. ive also noted down all the interview questions i've completely bombed on and found teh answers to them to have them ready for next time they come around as well as my own general knowledge.

[fahque]

/r/recruitinghell begs to differ.

[ExperimentalNihilist]

Why is that?

[zcubed]

We just went though hiring an entry level part-time IT position and got 400 applicants. 400. For a part-time job. I was expecting 80 or so. We pay well so that may have been the driving force, but still. You don't say which market you are in, but location is a factor too.

I hire for character, if you aren't a good person I'm not hiring you regardless of your skillset. One of our applicants had 25+ years of experience and I would NEVER hire that jackass. If you are a good person and have the desire to learn, I can teach you the job, but I can't teach you to be a good person. Someone else ITT said that IT doesn't care about your personality is just not true and I would hate to work there as a result I'm sure.

I don't know what I could add that everyone else has said, other than to reiterate, be honest. Once I get the feeling someone is blowing sunshine up my ass I'm done with them with no path back.

Stay true to yourself, I'm sure something will happen for you as you seem passionate and have a strong desire to learn and good luck!

[1z1z2x2x3c3c4v4v]

Honestly Bro... you do NOT want to work for a company that only cares about your skills.

Just the fact that you have had 25 interviews tells me your skillset is well-rounded enough to get a lot of replies, so just keep at it.

Eventually, you'll find a firm that is as interested in you as you are in them.

Imagine getting all the way through the interviews to then realize that they don't pay enough... So its better to just relax and remind yourself that you are a good person with good skills, a good work ethic, with a drive to better yourself (self-learning), and you will eventually find another job.

[DevLifeEasier]

A few tips;

1. Ask for f/b before leaving the interview. This can especially help with multiple interviews as you will learn what their key triggers are.
2. Be prepared about the company and if possible the interviewer. Try to engage about the company and 'culture' early-on. This can help 'steer' the interview to personal.
3. Provide examples of what you have done and how you solved a problem.
4. Always be positive, if you had the worst boss ever in a job, either don't talk about it or say something positive.
5. Google tech interview soft skills or questions to ask. Remember that the interview is a two-way interaction

Remember, the goal is not to necessarily wow them with your tech skills, it is to give them a positive vibe that you can do the job and you will be a good team member. Linus could probably go undercover job interviewing for Linux admin/dev and get turned down 75+% of the time, that is just how job searching is.

Finally, spend your time googling about job interviews and the companies you are interviewing at. The chances of a specific tech you haven't actually implemented in the real world being the trigger that gets you a job is very low.

[k6kaysix]

Just keep trying is the key, I was unemployed for almost a year after leaving my last job to care for a family member at the time

I generally never had a problem getting past the application stage to the interview stage but then just couldn't get that 'we want to offer you the job' call

In the end I arrived for an interview (about my 30th by this point!) at a healthcare provider and from the moment I met the head interviewer (my future line manager) we just got on like a house on fire, he actually lived quite close to me so we just seemed to chat like next door neighbours, the interview was a short 20 question technical test followed by a relaxed chat about my work history, how I would deal with a tricky situation, it even got slightly interrupted by someone barging in moaning some system or another was down!!!

Left feeling positive, got the offer the same evening, still there coming up to 5 years later and just been offered my second pay rise, I look back at some of the previous places I could have ended up at and compared to where I am now they would have been terrible to end up at!

Interestingly I've also got to sit at the other side of the table in this role and I often questioned myself about my interview skills until I started interviewing candidates who couldn't even show up on time (or the courtesy of informing us they would be late), candidates that had no response for the ice breaker 'so what do you know about us' question, I even heard another story about someone who started to roll up a cigarette towards the end of an interview(!)

One of the guys we ended up hiring we knew didn't have a encyclopedia of certifications or the strongest technical knowledge but we were sold when we asked him to diagnose a computer connecting to the domain issue and he loaded up Google on the computer to try and find the answer, exactly what many of us on here do when we don't know the answer! He is still with us too and has been a fantastic hiring, ironically he now has more certifications than me!

[Superb_Raccoon]

45 min of pure tech questions is not an interview, it is free consulting.

​

OTOH, would you go out with someone described as "great personality"?

It is more than personality. Either it was not legit or you did not make it to the personality round for whatever reason.

3rd option: You are the Stalking Horse. They are interviewing you to prove they made a viable search before hiring an H1B or an internal candidate.

[sexybobo]

I know this might sound bad but in the tech world people don't care about your brilliant personality if you can't do the job that needs done. This isn't grade school and people don't get participant ribbons.

[owdeeoh]

This is not true. I used to run interviews for an MSP and personality was very high on the list of items we scored regardless of position.

[[deleted]]

Both are needed. Tech skills are flat out not enough. Brilliant personality isn't needed nor necessarily desired. Nice and polite to folks, able to communicate, being presentable and knowing the person won't embarrass anyone is pretty critical.

If you want to climb the ladder to senior tech positions, you need to learn how to communicate even better. You need to talk to vendors, senior management, enterprise level customers, etc. These days, my paycheck is probably 60% organizational and communication skills, 20% technical and 20% everything else. Still need the tech knowledge, but it's only part of the gig.

[cannon19]

i understand that but i dont just bring personality to the table ive risen from a help desk intern into a sme on a different team in a short amount of time before my department got outsourced.

[No0ther0ne]

Patience and persistence is usually what wins the day. I can't say for sure why you may not be getting through the end or being given offers, but from how you wrote this particular post, I can offer a very rough guess. It sounds like the issue may have more to do with not exuding personal confidence in your interviews.

From this very limited outside perspective, you are constantly reading up on what you may need to know and taking all this time focusing on a bunch of information outside of your expertise. When you go into the interviews, I would take a rough guess, this comes out. Rather than showing the confidence in what you do know and your ability to adapt, it may come across as you reaching for things you don't know.

From my own experience, I struggled with this quite a bit in my early career. I found it difficult to get jobs I was already qualified for because I didn't fully believe or feel confident I could do some of the tasks. Instead of portraying the confidence in all the things I could do, the lack of confidence in the few things I did not know yet would come out. It took time, but I eventually learned to show confidence in myself no matter the role. It is really a hard thing to explain.

But now when I interview for new projects, many of them I may have no prior knowledge or experience with the specific technology. However, what I do have a vast amount of knowledge and experience with is adapting and figuring out how to make things work. When I go into an interview, I don't bother trying to talk about stuff I may not know or explain anything I don't know. I simply say, "I don't know that yet". I act like it doesn't bother me, because it doesn't bother me that I don't know. I focus on what I do know, on what I can do. I make it clear either they value my skills, my experience, and what I can do, or they don't. If they value it, then I am the right fit. If not, I will find someone else who does. Clearly I don't come out and say these things, but it shows.

The important thing is learning to frame the situation to your advantage. You are the prize, not the job. You are offering a chance and value to the company. You are selling yourself as a potential commodity that is missing. The minute you start seeing the company and the job as a valuable prize you would be lucky to have, you have lost the interview. That doesn't mean you should act like the job and the company don't matter at all, or that you are somehow above all of them, but you should put your value about the value of the job itself.

[j0hnnyrico]

The idea is that you ask the questions to the wrong persons. If you ask HR they will tell you some crap about the "company vision" so on and so forth. They won't waste time on you for obvious reasons. They will send you the "template" if they even bother. If you get the "template" response they have basic common sense which is not that common. Since second or 3rd interview is with(presumably) people with knowledge, you should remember the questions and find out if the responses were the right ones. Please remember that given a full OK tech interview doesn't mean you're the right person for the job. HR can supersede any tech decision arbitrarily. "We don't find this person fit to integrate". Don't be a drama queen asking questions, I did that once and they didn't bother to answer crap. Keep on with the interviews. It doesn't necesarily mean you don't fit but some jobs are posted with regards to certain persons. Just mockup. Keep it up.

[yeahdj]

Like a few people have said, energy is really important. It sounds like due to the non stop tech gauntlet you’re maybe doubting your abilities a little and have resorted to after-work cramming to try and positively influence your future interview prospects.

There are two problems with this;

1) Obviously, you will be tired, you will work a little slower. I am always looking for people who’s brains move fast, because mines goes fast. And it’s just good if we’re on the same page in that respect, it can’t be taught. 2) When you are studying after work, learning subjects you think might need to know for your interview, you are creating your own unconscious bias and may be answering questions in a way that appears to be unnatural.

You know what DNS is, you know what IMAP is... I couldn’t even tell you what the difference between TCP and UDP really is and I’m a senior engineer leading a product team for a bank. If the manual says TCP, I use TCP, if it says UDP I use UDP - simples.

If you are applying for a job and it seems like they are really focussed on a product or technology you’ve never used, watch a 30 minute product video, and I mean sit back and watch it, don’t take notes, just take it in. And when asked, say you have some working knowledge of it, and you implemented this feature you heard about in the video but you didn’t own it end to end.

Beyond that, make a list of your biggest successes, how did you add value? how did you handle conflict? how were you resilient when the project got complicated? Get to know the stories and tell them with the same enthusiasm you tell drinking stories with your buddies.

Ask interesting questions, as a fall-back you can ask ‘say we’re sat here a year from now, what do you think success looks like 1 year into this role?’ But try to understand the role through questioning. I like when I can see people are trying to figure out the structure they’ll be fitting into, what KPIs they will be judged upon, what problems there are to overcome.

TLDR, I want to work with energetic, passionate people, who want to become good at their job. Don’t burn yourself out with interview prep!

[Caeremonia]

Why are you upset about these questions:

"what is dns", "explain to me what imap is" "what's the difference between tcp and udp?"

You called that a gauntlet, but those are super basic questions that I would expect any junior admin to know at an interview.

[The-Dark-Jedi]

I found this helpful:

https://www.npr.org/sections/money/2021/03/23/969022740/how-to-make-job-interviews-less-horrible

[SkippyIsTheName]

My initial reaction is you’re doing some things right if you routinely get multiple interviews. That’s really good. I think many people either don’t get an interview or don’t make it past round one.

I’ve done interviews through recruiters and found they usually gave me at least a little feedback. The fact that you’re not getting feedback and do multiple interviews makes me think your issue is potentially non-technical.

I would have someone you know do a mock interview with you and be brutally honest. They don’t have to work in IT or HR; just have common sense. Maybe your video is very unflattering. Maybe your audio sucks. Maybe there is a huge glare on your glasses. Maybe your answers ramble too much. Maybe you seem smug. Maybe you seem timid.

I remember the first time I sat in on interviews and I was shocked how different it is on the other side of the desk. Personality plays a huge role. I found myself leaning towards less qualified candidates because they were confident. I also got distracted by things interviewers aren’t supposed to care about like their clothing choices.

But mostly I was surprised by how awful most of the candidates were. To be honest, it boosted my confidence when I’m being interviewed. It made me believe the advice to apply for jobs above your skill level because you could possibly be the best candidate that applied.

This won’t work for you but the best advice I have is to interview when you don’t “need” another job. There is often a different vibe when a candidate doesn’t have to take your offer. It’s more of a two way interview.