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IBM Interview, didn't apply, just got invited.

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  • 28-05-2015 4:23pm
    #1
    arleitiss
    Registered Users Posts: 3,515 ✭✭✭


    Hey, so I got invited to Interview in IBM, I didn't apply, I think I got invited because of college project showcase (I just graduated).

    It's for Information and communications technology (ICT) role, I am wondering what should I expect to be asked?


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    #2
    counterpointaud
    Registered Users Posts: 403 ✭✭counterpointaud


    If it's like the one I got, it will be multiple choice with a time limit:

    -Core Java
    -Threading, concurrency in Java (what is the output of this code etc.)
    -Basic CSS, HTML, Javascript
    -XML
    -Basic data modeling / relational DB questions

    Test is pretty easy to be honest, interview probably more important. If you had a strong project and can talk about it you should be fine.


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    #3
    L.Jenkins
    Moderators, Computer Games Moderators, Technology & Internet Moderators Posts: 19,240 Mod ✭✭✭✭L.Jenkins


    Do you have any specifics as to what will be expected of you in the role. Is it development, testing, support etc?


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    #4
    Evil Phil
    Registered Users Posts: 7,468 ✭✭✭Evil Phil


    Did they give any kind of a job description? Don't post it here as they can be considered intellectual property, but you could summarize what's on it.


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    #5
    arleitiss
    Registered Users Posts: 3,515 ✭✭✭arleitiss


    Nope, no job description or anything that's the funny thing.
    We had project showcases in college, there were many employers coming up to me, but apparently none of them had badge saying they are from IBM.
    Yesterday I just got email asking if I would like to come for interview for "ICT SW" role.


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    #6
    Atomic Pineapple
    Registered Users Posts: 18,272 ✭✭✭✭Atomic Pineapple


    arleitiss wrote: »
    Nope, no job description or anything that's the funny thing.
    We had project showcases in college, there were many employers coming up to me, but apparently none of them had badge saying they are from IBM.
    Yesterday I just got email asking if I would like to come for interview for "ICT SW" role.

    Reply and ask for a description of the role and the requirements for the position, this should give you a better idea of what they will be looking for in the interview.


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    #7
    bpmurray
    Registered Users Posts: 1,275 ✭✭✭bpmurray


    IBM have an enormous range of product development & system test roles (largest dev organization in Ireland). When you turn up, you'll do the aptitude tests, i.e. the coding stuff, and then the face-to-face interviews with the hiring manager. As an ICT, there isn't much expectation of experience, so you'll chat with whoever needs folk. That's probably why there's no specific roles described in the invitation.

    Most coding is done in Java (C & C++ in DB2 and Domino) for the backend, and HTML/CSS/JS (using the Dojo Toolkit) for the client side. Get yourself a free Bluemix account and play with it - Cloud and PaaS are big things these days, so being able to talk about it will help. Since probably the biggest thing you've done is your final year project, be prepared to talk passionately about it, why you used X instead of Y, your choice of languages, platforms, etc.

    Be aware of what IBM do in Ireland - the scale and breadth of the dev work. It's quite understated so people don't realise the sheer size of the development effort, and it's all leading-edge hard-core development, not simply DevOps (although that's there too, along with support).


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    #8
    arleitiss
    Registered Users Posts: 3,515 ✭✭✭arleitiss


    bpmurray wrote: »
    IBM have an enormous range of product development & system test roles (largest dev organization in Ireland). When you turn up, you'll do the aptitude tests, i.e. the coding stuff, and then the face-to-face interviews with the hiring manager. As an ICT, there isn't much expectation of experience, so you'll chat with whoever needs folk. That's probably why there's no specific roles described in the invitation.

    Most coding is done in Java (C & C++ in DB2 and Domino) for the backend, and HTML/CSS/JS (using the Dojo Toolkit) for the client side. Get yourself a free Bluemix account and play with it - Cloud and PaaS are big things these days, so being able to talk about it will help. Since probably the biggest thing you've done is your final year project, be prepared to talk passionately about it, why you used X instead of Y, your choice of languages, platforms, etc.

    Be aware of what IBM do in Ireland - the scale and breadth of the dev work. It's quite understated so people don't realise the sheer size of the development effort, and it's all leading-edge hard-core development, not simply DevOps (although that's there too, along with support).

    Well Id on't know C or C++ or C#, they've seen my CV so they know what I can do, I am good at java and web development stuff so I can only assume they know what I know well and not.


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    #9
    bpmurray
    Registered Users Posts: 1,275 ✭✭✭bpmurray


    arleitiss wrote: »
    Well Id on't know C or C++ or C#, they've seen my CV so they know what I can do, I am good at java and web development stuff so I can only assume they know what I know well and not.

    Yes, of course -they's not daft. There was a time when they had folk do all the aptitude tests, even if they didn't know one of the languages, just to see how they did. I don't now if they still do that.

    BTW, while it's OK to lump C and C++ together, C# is completely different - it's a Java-like language, being Microsoft's response to Sun's tight control on Java.


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    #10
    Evil Phil
    Registered Users Posts: 7,468 ✭✭✭Evil Phil


    AFAIK IBM have a policy of not using Microsoft's languages (I could be wrong though), so not having C# isn't a problem.


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    #11
    bpmurray
    Registered Users Posts: 1,275 ✭✭✭bpmurray


    Evil Phil wrote: »
    AFAIK IBM have a policy of not using Microsoft's languages (I could be wrong though), so not having C# isn't a problem.

    Nope, they don't.

    However, IBM do have a policy of creating cross-platform solutions - C# isn't available on Linux, Mac, Mainframes, mobiles, etc. so it's rather unattractive from that point of view.


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    #12
    L.Jenkins
    Moderators, Computer Games Moderators, Technology & Internet Moderators Posts: 19,240 Mod ✭✭✭✭L.Jenkins


    bpmurray wrote: »
    Nope, they don't.

    However, IBM do have a policy of creating cross-platform solutions - C# isn't available on Linux, Mac, Mainframes, mobiles, etc. so it's rather unattractive from that point of view.

    You can build and run C# applications on Linux. Have a look for Mono Develop.


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    #13
    croo
    Moderators, Technology & Internet Moderators Posts: 1,334 Mod ✭✭✭✭croo


    Itzy wrote: »
    You can build and run C# applications on Linux. Have a look for Mono Develop.
    I was never something I used or followed but I thought I read the project was scrapped. A little googling lead me to this 2011 article.
    Well, that didn't take long. I had thought that after Attachmate bought Novell it would be keeping its open-source teams working. Indeed, Attachmate CEO Jeff Hawn had told me that, "Business will operate as usual." While Attachmate will be keeping SUSE Linux as a spin-off company, Mono, the open-source implementation of Windows' .NET, is being shut down and there have been hundreds of additional Novell layoffs. So much for business as usual.

    Did someone else pick it up?


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    #14
    counterpointaud
    Registered Users Posts: 403 ✭✭counterpointaud


    It's going strong. http://www.mono-project.com/

    Although MS are open-sourcing .Net anyway, and making it available cross-platform, so Mono is gradually replacing it's code-base with Microsoft's.

    You can now run ASP.net inside a Docker container, on Linux

    We may have veered a little off-topic, though. :-)


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    #15
    L.Jenkins
    Moderators, Computer Games Moderators, Technology & Internet Moderators Posts: 19,240 Mod ✭✭✭✭L.Jenkins


    croo wrote: »
    ....Did someone else pick it up?

    http://www.monodevelop.com/

    I know http://xamarin.com/ picked up Mono Develop


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    #16
    croo
    Moderators, Technology & Internet Moderators Posts: 1,334 Mod ✭✭✭✭croo


    Itzy wrote: »
    http://www.monodevelop.com/

    I know http://xamarin.com/ picked up Mono Develop
    I noticed Miguel de Icaza is the CTO. So I guess he's continuing what he started... I noticed too that they're targeting mobile apps rather promoting mono but I guess mono is their underlying tool.

    If MS ore open sourcing are there plans to merge the projects? Has anyone heard anything?


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    #17
    arleitiss
    Registered Users Posts: 3,515 ✭✭✭arleitiss


    So I assume if I can easily talk about:
    PHP, JavaScript, HTML, CSS, MySQL, Java, XML and Node.js I should be okay?


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    #18
    bpmurray
    Registered Users Posts: 1,275 ✭✭✭bpmurray


    arleitiss wrote: »
    So I assume if I can easily talk about:
    PHP, JavaScript, HTML, CSS, MySQL, Java, XML and Node.js I should be okay?

    Not much PHP, but otherwise yes. If you have C or C++ that helps too.

    But it's not all programming languages - what about build environments, continuous deployment, Jenkins, etc.? How did you connect to MySQL using Java? Using Node? What about creating REST APIs? Application of technology and integrating stuff is important.


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    #19
    arleitiss
    Registered Users Posts: 3,515 ✭✭✭arleitiss


    bpmurray wrote: »
    Not much PHP, but otherwise yes. If you have C or C++ that helps too.

    But it's not all programming languages - what about build environments, continuous deployment, Jenkins, etc.? How did you connect to MySQL using Java? Using Node? What about creating REST APIs? Application of technology and integrating stuff is important.

    Yeah I can easily explain how I connected everything and why I did it that way for my project in college, I can go into very technical stuff on that.

    I don't even know what build environments or continuous deployment is.

    I guess I will just go in for interview and see what happens, I doubt I can change anything right now.


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    #20
    L.Jenkins
    Moderators, Computer Games Moderators, Technology & Internet Moderators Posts: 19,240 Mod ✭✭✭✭L.Jenkins


    croo wrote: »
    I noticed Miguel de Icaza is the CTO. So I guess he's continuing what he started... I noticed too that they're targeting mobile apps rather promoting mono but I guess mono is their underlying tool.

    If MS ore open sourcing are there plans to merge the projects? Has anyone heard anything?

    This is a list of, I presume, their open source projects.


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    #21
    bpmurray
    Registered Users Posts: 1,275 ✭✭✭bpmurray


    arleitiss wrote: »
    I don't even know what build environments or continuous deployment is. .

    Automation, automation, automation and some more automation. The idea is that you make a change, check it into source control and the system then runs a build and all the unit tests and generates a report to tell you whether your changes broke anything. That's continuous integration - usually driven by a Jenkins pipeline. Continuous Deployment on the other hand is the idea that any changes are auto-deployed into production once the tests suites are all passed.


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    #22
    arleitiss
    Registered Users Posts: 3,515 ✭✭✭arleitiss


    Well I am back from interview.
    It went pretty well, but I was a bit stressed so I forgot a lot of code.
    During coding I was given 3 simple tasks but I had struggle with them.
    After that however, I was asked a tonn of technical questions and I was able to answer them all well and clear.

    So really I don't think I will get it.


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    #23
    Atomic Pineapple
    Registered Users Posts: 18,272 ✭✭✭✭Atomic Pineapple


    arleitiss wrote: »
    Well I am back from interview.
    It went pretty well, but I was a bit stressed so I forgot a lot of code.
    During coding I was given 3 simple tasks but I had struggle with them.
    After that however, I was asked a tonn of technical questions and I was able to answer them all well and clear.

    So really I don't think I will get it.

    Even if you don't the experience is pretty much priceless, just learn from it for your next interview.


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    #24
    dmc17
    Registered Users Posts: 3,728 ✭✭✭dmc17


    Atomic Pineapple wrote: »
    Even if you don't the experience is pretty much priceless, just learn from it for your next interview.

    +1 and if you're getting invited to interviews without applying, you must be doing something right and you won't be long getting hired!


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