landed an interview, now what?

binarysoul

So, after some hard work, I have landed an interview for an excellent position. I badly need a job and don't wanna do something silly that would knock me out of a potential job.

The job is about building and maintaining servers in a Windows environment. That's all I know about the job. Please let me know what things I need to brush on for the interview? I've worked with servers, but it has been a while.

skrpune

congrats on getting the interview!

So have you been able to glean anything else from the job ad (or from the recruiter or from whoever/wherever you applied for the job)? If you have time, I would say contact whomever you can at the company or recruiter and get some more info. It's going to be hard to adequately prepare for an interview for a job you have that little information about.

Without knowing too much more than just that you'd be building & maintaining servers...I'd say just be prepared to answer questions on what your experience with that has been in the past, what types of things are your strong points, any out of the ordinary situations you encountered & how did you handle them, what mistakes you've made and what you've been able to learn from them...employers don't expect to hire someone perfect, but they do hope that you'll be knowledgeable and able to recognize your strengths and weaknesses and where you've messed up so that you can learn and grow. (Of course, they also hope that you do the bulk of your mistakes at other prior companies so that you've already grown by the time you get to them! )

GAngel

Have a general understanding of what the company does not just what the position does. Assume you have the same technical knowledge as the next 10 candidatesso what will make you different is the soft skills.

GAngel

Have a general understanding of what the company does not just what the position does. Assume you have the same technical knowledge as the next 10 candidates so what will make you different is the soft skills.

Remember your basic dns/dhcp troubleshooting and cmd prompt commands like traceroute,ping, checking the sys logs etc.

AlexMR

Be yourself. Sometimes it is hard to not try to try to be whatever they need because you need to put food in the table, but in the long run, it will be much better if you just show your strengths and be open about your weaknesses, and try to find a place with a culture that praise your aptitudes and where they'll be potentiated.

I am coming right now from my best job interview. I am excited because it happens to be my first IT job interview and I went there with nothing more that a little Server 2008 Active directory knowledge, my two cisco CErtifications and my incredibly weird and diverse background (win98 support, sales, project management, engineering, engineering management, general management) with practically none IT experience and 0 cisco experience.

Apparently my drive, passion and enthusiasm are a big part of the culture there and experience is seen maybe as a handicap. A CCIE congratulated me because of my determination to start a new career and the HHRR manager was very praiseful too.

HAppens that experience is a problem if you want to work for Boston Consulting Group and/or Mckinsey and Company. Both of this companies happen to be among the top companies to work for in the whole world, and the see experience as a handicap in most cases. With this I am only saying that even on extremely rare circumstances, what you really are and what seems to be a weakness to most eyes, can get you to the best place for you.

Peter Drucker said that eliminating weaknesses brings us to mediocrity, at the most. Greatness come from potentiating strengths.

I hope you find a great job!!

Hyper-Me

What i wouldnt give for a job building VM and VM templates of different server 2008 stuff all day long in SCVMM or vCenter.

Good luck!

binarysoul

Thanks guys, really good points were made here.

RomBUS

Dont forget to have a couple of questions regarding the job as well. During some point (most likely the end), the employer will ask you if you have any questions. Employers see that you're interested about the position if you are inquisitive about it.