What have your interviews been like in Ireland?

a fat guy

I've interviewed before at an entirely non-technical company before (Got the offer, but they looked desperate so I avoided it) and it was easy.

I've interviewed at a tech company outside Dublin and it was a normal strengths/weaknesses style interview, with no technical aspects and I got the job.

I've interviewed in Dublin before with a massive multinational tech company and had a managerial interview (Just info about the company), technical interview (Recursion and language-specific questions. It was pretty easy) and a cultural interview (Basically just a Q&A).

What have your experiences been like in the emerald isle? I imagine that the only real algorithm-heavy interviews come from Google, etc.

Elessar

I've had both technical and non-technical. The more tech focused companies had the tests, where the others did the regular talking interviews. I haven't had one in a good while but in general I find the tests challenging - moreso because I can never think straight when I'm on the spot (but leave me alone with the issue for 20 mins and I'll have it sorted). The interviews are normally fine.

One time I had to answer questions on a sheet. Another time I had to stand and figure out a whiteboard problem in front of the CEO and CTO of the company, in a small room at the end of a 2 hour, 3 part interview - at 6 in the evening. I didn't get it. I find the whole process gruelling to be honest, and it takes a lot out of me.

Berserker

The tech companies have all been much of a muchness, i.e. HR and technical interviews where I had to design solutions and/or write some code. The non-tech company interviews were more varied. The non-tech companies seemed to be more interested in whether you were a good fit for the organisation personality wise. As an interviewer in that type of organisation, the HR team always urged me to keep that in mind.

BrokenArrows

Elessar wrote: »

I've had both technical and non-technical. The more tech focused companies had the tests, where the others did the regular talking interviews. I haven't had one in a good while but in general I find the tests challenging - moreso because I can never think straight when I'm on the spot (but leave me alone with the issue for 20 mins and I'll have it sorted). The interviews are normally fine.

One time I had to answer questions on a sheet. Another time I had to stand and figure out a whiteboard problem in front of the CEO and CTO of the company, in a small room at the end of a 2 hour, 3 part interview - at 6 in the evening. I didn't get it. I find the whole process gruelling to be honest, and it takes a lot out of me.

The whiteboard coding stuff really gets to me.
Pressure is added.
Developers dont write code on a board, ever. So its uncomfortable from the very beginning. My handwriting is bad at the best of times, stress + whiteboard = i can barely read my own writing.
Standing up in front of a panel of people waiting for you to complete is nerve racking.
Standing close to a board writing makes it hard to get an overview of your work. Where as looking at a monitor you can see what you have as you type.

They should be handing a laptop with an IDE connected to a projector. Its a technical field, they should be able to manage this.

Creamy Goodness

First job interview: Three traditional interviews, 1. technical chat with CTO, 2. technical chat with co-workers, 3. general chat with CEO.

Second job interview: Two non-traditional interviews, 1. drunken chat with CEO at a conference, 2. cavery lunch interview, 3. Skype call to nail contract.

Interview I didn't take the job for: 1. Two online coding exams, 2. brief chat in their office, 3. technical interview with 4 different staff members including white boarding whilst they were celebrating St. Patty's (US company, Irish office) day outside whilst downing shots with the US office on Skype. Dodged a massive bullet here.

Third job: One traditional interview and job offer pretty much 6 hours later.

John_Mc

BrokenArrows wrote: »

The whiteboard coding stuff really gets to me.
Pressure is added.
Developers dont write code on a board, ever. So its uncomfortable from the very beginning. My handwriting is bad at the best of times, stress + whiteboard = i can barely read my own writing.
Standing up in front of a panel of people waiting for you to complete is nerve racking.
Standing close to a board writing makes it hard to get an overview of your work. Where as looking at a monitor you can see what you have as you type.

They should be handing a laptop with an IDE connected to a projector. Its a technical field, they should be able to manage this.

Yeah I agree with you up to a point. For the senior positions you should be able to illustrate & explain a design on a white board.

The only writing should be the labels really. And I don't even think what you write on the board is important provided you explain your thought processes as you draw or write

pauliebdub

Mine have varied wildly;

One interview was with an IT consultancy, one hour long strengths and weakness and scenario based interview, offered the job a few hours later.

Another for IT Dept of a bank, again another scenario based interview, lasted about an hour. Then a technical test which was rather basic. Then a HR interview which was also handy. Offered the job a few days later.

Third was with a marketing company, three hour interview, very detailed, head of development and head of testing. Wasn't taken with the head of testing lady, then a technical test, sql and Java and testing scenarios. Wasn't offered the job.

dublin_paul

Sometimes they have prepared questions for you to do to see whether you can think on your feet, other's pull up a few files from your github and ask you to walk them through what you're doing and ask questions from there. Then you have the technical non-coding questions.. usually OOP realted, or UNIX related. Then general questions on algorithms, design patterns and the like. The rest of the time is usually spent talking about stuff that's specific to you like projects you've done, or extra-curricular activities such as coderdojo and societies.