Tech Interview go badly..

Kelkin

Have you guys ever been on a tech interview and you totally freeze up and couldnt answer even the basic of questions? Just had this lovely experience.. I know they are thinkin I dont know what a router is at this point.. I am soo embarassed..

Daniel333

Haha, every time! I have never had an interview go well. Never.

Deep breath and don't dwell. it's the dwelling and regret they will hold you back the next time.

drew726

One time they told me to write a For loop in C++ to swap the integers in variable1 and variable2. I wrote in Java and I didn't even create a temp variable to hold variable1 into it. It was pretty embarrassing and it was my first interview. But in some cases, it was the best thing to ever happen to me because no interview has ever been as bad as that one. I'm not even sure why they asked that. All I said is that I took some programming courses and the job was an internship for help desk.

mikedisd2

Had a tech interview yesterday. It was the hottest part of the day and we're 3x weeks into a heat wave; I was exhausted on arrival.

The questions were mainly about troubleshooting broken DCs and Exchange. I think I got them right but because I'm conditioned to give paragraph answers I went "blah blah blah replmon blah.." So we'll see if conditional behaviour blows my chances.

There was a moment when my brain switched off but my mouth kept talking. I thought I better gain some mental alertness because the sentence is about to finish and...

mikej412

Kelkin wrote: »

Have you guys ever been on a tech interview and you totally freeze up and couldnt answer even the basic of questions?

Any idea why? Out of practice? Need interviewing practice? Bad day? Interview gauntlet in an auditorium with a 100 people taking turns tossing questions your way for 4 hours without a break?

If there is a lesson you can learn from this, do your best to learn it....

Daniel333 wrote: »

Deep breath and don't dwell. it's the dwelling and regret they will hold you back the next time.

Then grab a beer (or other beverage of choice) and follow this wisdom for the ages.

Kelkin

I think it was a combo of things.. I think the biggest factor is that I was fighting a nasty virus and during the interview I had a massive headache.. I would have asked for a reschedule but Ive already had to reschedule once before due to an last minute issue with my current job.. I didnt feel right rescheduling again.. I think I was just not ment to get this particular job.. Too many issues just getting to this point.. Oh Wells..

za3bour

Kelkin wrote: »

I think it was a combo of things.. I think the biggest factor is that I was fighting a nasty virus and during the interview I had a massive headache.. I would have asked for a reschedule but Ive already had to reschedule once before due to an last minute issue with my current job.. I didnt feel right rescheduling again.. I think I was just not ment to get this particular job.. Too many issues just getting to this point.. Oh Wells..

I had the exact same experience one day and the interview didnt' go well at all because I was sick and because all of those medicine I took just to survive the day.

I'm sure you will do better next time, we've all had bad interviews at some time.

Cisco Inferno

what was the position up for grabs and do you mind me asking what you do now?

Kelkin

I was interviewing for a UC/Networking Engineer position with a cisco gold partner.. I am currently a senior network anaylst at a managed service provider..

mikej412

Kelkin wrote: »

I was fighting a nasty virus and during the interview I had a massive headache..

Ah!! So it's not a chronic interviewing condition.

The lesson we learned is to try to avoid interviewing when sick -- or at least warn them in advance you're sick and use the possibility of passing along the plague to see if they'd want to initiate a reschedule.

Kelkin

So true.. its all looking up and up.. about an hr after the interview I got a call from a former manager with a possible opportunity within the same company Im with.. No voice work thou.. But I would get to play with Nexus.. might have to postpone CCIE Voice for now.

Turgon

Kelkin wrote: »

Have you guys ever been on a tech interview and you totally freeze up and couldnt answer even the basic of questions? Just had this lovely experience.. I know they are thinkin I dont know what a router is at this point.. I am soo embarassed..

Don't worry. That can happen to anyone.

Pratt2

I once listened to a guy interviewing right before me completely faceplant. Scary stuff.

Verruckt

The only questions I have a problem with or don't like in an interview are ones that aren't relevant to the position or duties or my experience at all.

Example: If I know in depth xxxx scripting or coding when it is a helpdesk job