The job interview process carries a number of facets, and one part of that is the technical round. The technical round for a recruiter is his opportunity to identify the skill set of the candidate and check whether his skill set matches the qualities required by the company or not. The focus of these interviews is not only to check your technical aptitude but also to identify your ability to learn and the kind of enthusiasm you show for technical tasks. The employer, through these interviews, is able to identify your exact skill set and is in a position to check whether you have the desired qualities or not.
Technical interviews are often conducted by engineering, IT or research industries. As the first step of preparing for these interviews, you should be able to identify what the company is looking for. Make sure you review the company job description, and determine whether you have the skills as well as the strengths that are required to work in that particular area. Make sure you talk to your seniors about these companies and you have a rough idea of the kind of skills are being searched for by these companies. Identify the areas where you do not have requisite knowledge and make sure you work on these before the actual interview. For example, if you plan to apply to IT Company that requires you to be well versed with data-base management of C/C++, make sure these areas are well grasped by before the interview.
The second step in cracking technical interviews is about being well prepared for just about anything in the interview. A technical interview does not mean that a general question would be not asked of you. A question such as ‘what are the kind of technical skills you are looking forward to learn in this job’, though seems to be pretty innocuous, can be a wonderful tool at the hands of the interviewer to understand your motivations for the job and whether or not they are genuine. Make sure you are ready for any such question in the interview.
The third step in your preparation revolves around your favorite subjects. One question often posed to students in the technical interview is about their favorite subject. Students often bungle this question and the reason for this is very simple: instead of quoting their actual favorite subject, they quote the one they think would sound the best. This is a mistake you should not commit. Quote the one with which you are most comfortable and make sure you understand the concepts of this subject. Numericals are not all that common in these interviews but conceptual knowledge is checked for sure.
The last step revolves around making a list of common technical questions (we have listed most of these questions, area-wise, on this website). Make sure that you work on the answers for these commonly asked technical questions. We are not saying that a question would be asked from these areas only but there is a chance that a common question might be asked of you and if you do not know the answer to this question, you might find yourself in trouble.
In case you plan to appear for IT companies, make sure you go through the list of common questions posed.
In case you plan to appear for core companies, make sure you go through the standard textbooks for your main subjects, numerical solving is not all that important but conceptual clarity is, pick the books written by foreign authors. These offer some of the best explanations for certain concepts and lend you a great deal of clarity with respect to certain subjects.
The above form of the tips and strategies you can use to crack your technical interviews. Use these tips in the most appropriate manner in order to clear your interviews.
