Computing & IT Interview Questions & Answers

Initial steps were to send in my CV and cover letter, followed by two online tests; numerical and verbal reasoning. I was then invited to a face to face interview with two managers within the company. The interview consisted of a 30 minute presentation about introducing social media into Siemens, and then a 30 minute interview about my CV and about what I could bring to the role.

Explain how you can use your previous leadership experiences to assist you in teaching new computing techniques to older staff members, who may be quite stubborn in wishing to not pick up this new skill.

Lots of research into the company. Know the job role you are applying for, and link how skills shown in your CV can apply to this role.

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The process started with filling in an online application which had standard personal, academic and previous emoployment questions. It took about 25 minutes to fill in the form as at the time I only had my education and personal information to fill in.

Once I got through to the face to face interview, I was given a call to see what day and time the interview was for. The interview was at the Hammersmith office just next to the location. The person that came to interview me was the person that became my manager. He began with asking me what I know about the company and then gave me a brief overview. He asked my compentency questions around my team working skills, group project at university and why did I apply for that particular role.
He then asked me about my technical skills and my interest in learning new skills. The interview lasted for 45 minutes and at the end he left it open for me to ask any questions.

We then started talking about cricket as we both seemed to have an interest and it became a somewhat informal chat.

Have you had an ocassion where you were leading a team but people won't listen to you? How did you manage that situation?

Make sure you ask a lot of questions, even if you sound dumb like what are the office timiings, where will I sit etc. Just ask as many questions as you can, it makes you look thirsty and eager for the role and leaves a good impression. Also make sure you conduct a research on the company like Disney, we always see Disney as cartoons and teddy bears but there is a lot more to it, don't go by the perceptions.

I got the offer straight away, the process was online application, then first round interview, then job offer.

This was a telephone interview, and it lasted about 45 minutes. I was given a call on my phone to let me know that they will call me on Skype. Then the person went through my personal details and started the interview process. It began with competency questions followed by questions on the knowledge required for the job role.

Competency questions such as, "Tell me a recent technology that can be beneficial to our company, "seemed as if these were the key questions they assessed me on. I was also asked some pure software engineering questions which i think were asked because they wanted to see whether i will be a nice fit for the role. I wasn't expecting these sort of questions as the email said there will be core competency questions to see if I am eligible for the final assessment centre.

One on One interview was completely based on Data Structure and programming which was quite difficult for me.

Ensure that you know about what is required from the role you are applying for. E.g. Being a software engineer what are the core responsibilities and what is the knowledge you would need to have.

I didn't get through to the assessment stage, but I was told if I did get through the telephone interview I would have been given a call to attend the assessment centre at the London office

My telephone interview lasted for approximately 25-30 mins. Initially, BT went through some HR material regarding my application for security reasons. They then went on to ask whether I could meet the rigorous of IT consultancy, as there is a need for a huge amount of flexibility. After, I was quizzed about my CV and academical background. What followed next was standard competency based questions in relation to the organisations values, which can be found on the website. My questions were based around team-working and problem solving.

The tasks in the assessment centres were quite challenging. I was not sure about some of the questions which were completely based on technical knowledge.

Go through the companies values on their website and this should give you a good indication of the competency based questions that are likely to come up. Make sure you give a professional presentation of the case study.

BT gave a brief interview of themselves and the program upon the arrival of all the candidates. What followed next for me was a face to face interview with a senior member of BT. Again, this was similar to telephone interview, however, before attending the assessment centre you are given a case study in which you are to present to your interviewer. Next i completed a numerical test (SHL). Finally, a group exercise was last on the agenda. I got a group size of 4 people, although the other team had a size of 5. You are given a case study, in which you have to decipher the relevant information and make a decision with your team about an outcome.

I had a phone interview with someone from recruitment which was just a really relaxed chat about my motivation for applying for the job and my knowledge of the company. It only lasted about 15 minutes and I asked loads of questions at the end. I thought that the interview went really well but got rejected a couple of days later.

I asked for feedback without much hope because people don't normally feedback after the first round but was called by the same person who interviewed me and she went through every single question and told me how I could improve. This was so helpful. The main point I took from the feedback is that they are looking for people who are really involved in the technology community, so if you have a blog or go to Girl Geek tea parties or even post on twitter about technology a lot I think this will help, otherwise I think there is a very small chance of getting past the first stage.

No difficult questions.

Really research ThoughtWorks and have specific examples of why you want to work for them.

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The initial telephone interview lasted 30 minutes and consisted of general questions about myself and why i wanted to work for the company. This was with a member of the graduate recruitment team.

The assessment centre interview was conducted on a one on one basis and included several different topics of questions. The topics ranged from management styles to how I would/have handle a variety of situations. The interview lasted roughly 45-50 minutes. This interview was with a member of the hiring department.

Describe a time where you solved a problem creatively and the steps that were involved with this.

- I found this questions quite difficult to answer as I have not had much experience in the I.T industry, which made it difficult to think of an answer that was relevant.

Mainly to be yourself as this is what they want to see the most, how you would handle things. Be confident in your answers and don't be afraid to take a minute to think about what you want to say before you start to answer the questions. Also the assessment center and interview are not scary, so don't worry about how it is going to go. It is a very friendly atmosphere/people and the interviewer i had was quite informal with his interview style (which i preferred)as it allows you to relax a little more.

The assessment center consisted firstly of group work. We were split into 2 groups and given a 35 minute group task to complete. It was a challenging task as at random intervals they would introduce new problems which you had to factor into your answer. There was then a short break after this in which time we were able to talk to staff from HP and members of staff that were currently on the graduate scheme that we were there applying for. The next stage was one half of the group did a presentation on a random subject that you were provided with on the day. You had 10 minutes to prepare for a 5 minute presentation of just your own words no slide show was necessary. The other half of the group were then taken individually for their interviews. Once you had completed both the presentation and interview we were given feedback and information on what the next steps were and that was the end of the assessment center. We were then notified within 2 weeks whether we were successful or not.

I applied in January and my application was deferred to March. First of all, I had my phone interview which was based on my knowledge of FDM and the IT industry, my academic history and some personal competency-based questions. Having done a bit of research on the company, it was fairly easy to pass that stage of the interview. It lasted about 15 minutes.
I was fortunate enough to get an invite to the assessment centre in the Manchester academy on 31st March. There was a group of about 8 people attending, I was the only girl, although in the IT industry a minority of girls is common! The day started off with presentation of the company and the graduate scheme, each candidate had to give a short introduction about themselves, and the route they were interested in applying to, i.e. Technical or Business. I recommend researching your preferred route in advance to the interview! The unpaid training process of 2-3 months was also explained. We then had three separate 5 minute 1:1 interviews based on the same general areas as the phone interview. In preparation, I had a look at YouTube on how to answer interview questions, which might sound a bit daft but it really benefited me as someone who has not experience in professional interviews. I also developed a SWOT analysis of FDM for an insightful overview ot the company.
We then had three tests: 1) IT and Aptitude (1 hour), 2) Maths - Mental arithmetic to GCSE standard (1/2 hour), and 3) Venn Diagrams (1 hour). My advice on these is to put a good amount of revision in using the information they send by email. As someone who doesn't come from a strong IT background, I definitely recommend doing a bit of additional research on the basics, such as common IT abbreviations, e.g. http. The Maths tests was pretty straight forward, know your basic long division and multiplication, fractions, ratios, Pythagoras, etc. I've never come across Venn diagrams until this interview either, and yet again, they're not complex providing you do a bit of a brush-up on them, although they do provide a booklet on them to support you through the test. Whilst these tests do sound daunting, I was advised that only a 50% pass mark is required.
The assessment centre started at 9am and finished early at 2:30pm. We were told that we would hear if we were successful or not by email within 48 hours. I heard back the next morning on 1st April with good news. I'm now awaiting a phone call to arrange a start date.

What do you think of organisational change? What is the best way to learn?

Perhaps I'm stating the obvious, but prepare!!! Know the company, and know what you want from the company. In your responses to the interviews use your experiences and give suitable personal examples!

Introduce yourself in morning presentation.
IT and Aptitude test
Mental Maths test
Venn Diagram test

My telephone interview was with a member of their graduate recruitment team. They asked questions about mv CV, skills in web analytics, social media, website creation and increasing search engine optimisation. They asked why I was interested in this role and what skills I could bring to their company. Following a successful phone interview I was invited down to their company office in London. They asked me what I knew about their company, their industry and competitors and competency based questions. Examples of these included; describe a time when you head to lead a team, how do you cope with boring repetitive tasks, explain how you would increase SEO and target specific markets on social media. There was no overall format. The senior management were friendly and made you feel welcomed.

The hardest questions were when they asked about how I would carry out specific tasks such as, How would you approach segmenting large amounts of data in the CRM database. Also how would I cope with tedious tasks?

Have experience and good knowledge of the industry and show how passionate you are about fitting in and working with the team. Give strong examples which demonstrate your ability for the role. If you can, try and answer their unanswered questions.

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I attended an interview at The Hut Group headquarters on 19/06/2013 with the Service Delivery Manager (Andrea) and the IT Manager (Neil) which lasted around 35 minutes. The room that was booked for the interview was still occupied when we arrived so I got a chance to have an informal chat with Andrea which was nice as it gave me a chance to calm down. When we sat down, we discussed my CV, previous employment, my education, achievements and skills. I was asked a series of questions including what I could bring to the company, why I applied for the role and what I thought the company could offer me.

The interview was a lot more relaxed than others that I have had and I felt very welcome.

If two high ranking employees submitted an urgent helpdesk ticket at the same time that needed to be addressed immediately, which one would you do first and why?

Prepare! I was asked to give my impressions and to give some information about the company that I wouldn't have been able to answer if I hadn't done any research beforehand. I looked at the company's website, my interviewer's LinkedIn pages and recent press releases/financial information which turned out to be very useful. Also, look into the common interview questions that are asked and practice giving your answers to another person so it doesn't sound like your reading from a script. Bring along a copy of your CV as well, as the interviewer may not have it with them. Arrive early, as it may be difficult to find a parking space (I had this problem at my interview).

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The first stage was a one to one telephone interview which lasted an 40 minutes. It was a normal consulting telephone interview in the format:

- Motivations. (Why do you want to work at Accenture/be a consultant..)
- competency questions (describe a time you worked well in a team...)
- case study (just a short one. They read the case twice and you have to name 3 problems and give a solution and the whole thing doesn't take longer than ten minutes)

After this was the assessment centre so they make you jump through a lot fewer hoops than some of the graduate schemes.

They really grill you about your project plan and add complications in the one to one interview at assessment centre.

- Learn a lot about the company
- Be one of the main speakers in the group exercise
- Be able to talk about what you did right and wrong
- Be able to talk about what you did right and wrong
- Learn about the industry

There were 5 people in my assessment centre. We were first given a presentation by a senior member of staff about his career. Then we were presented with a video which described a case study. We had to as a team find the best solution in each of four different categories and it had to come under budget. It shouldn't be too hard to find a solution to this. The hr people ask you some questions at the end. My feedback said that I didn't defend my opinions enough during the exercise so if you disagree with someone do say something but just don't let it turn into an argument.

We were next given a project planning exercise based on the solution youve cone up with and you have to list risks and dependencies. You then have a one on one interview which is mainly focussed on defending your project plan and then they go on to ask about your knowledge of Accenture. They also ask you about how you performed on the exercise, it's important to go into a bit of detail here and I think they want to know that you're aware of your strengths and weaknesses.