Computing & IT Interview Questions & Answers

I applied through a recruiter and they forwarded my details to interroute, soon I had an interview call.

As a standard, the first communication was a phone interview. Within one week I received a call to attend a face to face interview. I had the interview at the Liverpool Street office with one of the senior managers. He was an easy going chap and created an informal atmosphere during the interview as I was very nervous. There were technical skills along with analyst type role questions. At this point I wasn't sure what happened as I applied for a technical role and wasn't really prepared for Business analyst type of questions. Then I raised this question and he said he will interview me on both of these skills and whichever I fit best in, he will put me in that role, provided I was good enough to be selected. I think they had a business analyst role available, may be the one I applied for was gone but they didn't reveal the secret.

When buying a bat and a ball, you have paid $110. You know now that the bat was more expensive by a 100. How much was a ball?

There are some tricky questions if you come not prepared, to check your behaviour under stress.

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My CV was submitted on my behalf by a recruitment company. The face to face interview was the first contact I had with anyone at Lockheed.

The interview was very centered around one's experience and items listed on their CV. Additionally, a presentation of an honors degree project had to be given.

There were two people present, the manager and team leader of the roll specified. The interview was mostly conducted by the manager. The questions were mostly all about what was written on my CV, asking about my experience in software development. Basic questions such as "What is Object Orientation?" came up along with "How do you define inheritance in a Java class?".

After the CV and questions were over, we moved onto a presentation of my honors project. As expected, they both asked questions to do with my project and asked me how I thought it was, did any problems arise, how was time management conducted etc...

There were one or two competency questions, where I had to explain a situation I've been in a group scenario, who was the group leader, how were roles delegated, what role did I perform etc... They also asked general questions such as "How do you stay up to date on news in security?" and "What do you do to improve your knowledge?" And then the last few questions were about hobbies and interests.

As it was mostly based around my CV, I didn't feel any question was particularly difficult. Personally to me as Java wasn't a program language I use, I couldn't answer how to create an inheritance class. Other than that, I felt every question was reasonable to answer.

If you arrive at an interview through submission of a CV, make sure you know every aspect of the CV and have a good answer for everything that appears on it. If you obtained an honors degree, make sure you have a 5-10 minute presentation prepared and can talk about it fluently.

I was given a sheet of paper that was apparently from a client, it was to do with cryptography. On a whiteboard, I was tasked to write a quick pseudo code program to try and decrypt the password shown in hex. I had to explain what I was writing down and talk about how I was expected to arrive at the solution.

My experience did not involve an interview other than the ones during the Assessment Center.
After the initial screening I was given a week to complete 2 online assessments; 1 numerical and 1 abstract reasoning.

Competency based questions were not easy. I was asked different types of questions which were very much indirectly related to my course.

Be prepared for your Assessment Center interviews and presentation; you have adequate time at your disposal.

Prepare typical Competency Interview Questions.
Regarding the Technical Interview: Research the company's Website about their technology and methods of production, this will hopefully get your thinking started.

After a long wait I was invited to an Assessment Center, which involved a Presentation, a Competency Interview, a Group Task, a validating Numerical Test and a Technical Interview.
We were split into two Groups and we were handed separate schedules covering the day. For my Group:
1)9:00 - Numerical Test first thing in the Morning; time allowed around 25mins for 30 questions.
2)10:30 - 10-minute presentation, which we had time to prepare before the Assessment (almost 10 days). Topic was about ourselves.
3)11:00 - Competence Interview. Standard Procedure but personalized to each candidate at that time.We were asked questions coming from a scenario booklet. i.e. Tell us a time when you were really stressed, how did you cope, how did you plan, etc.
4)12:30 - Lunch break. The opportunity to mix with the assessors and chat was given to us.
5)13:30 - Group Task. The task was to build a Tower, able to withstand the weight of a water bottle. It was required to reach at least a height of 1m.Materials available; A4 paper, A3 Carton Paper, Scissors, Sticky Tape, Pencils, String and Plastic Cups.
6)14:30 - Final Task: Technical Interview. The interview was personalized and adjusted to the level of knowledge and experience each one of us had. Questions started out easy but progressively became difficult reaching a point, from which onwards we could not answer. This is done for them to see how you react and think to something you have not seen before.

There are two interviews, the first one is more of a discussion about your skills on the CV along with some competency questions and a case study and lasts for 45 minutes. The second round interview is however, includes an in-depth interview of your skills, a presentation on a technical problem.

My first round interview was at Detica's headquarters in Guildford. The team lead himself came to interview me (as the other person wasn't feeling well) and went through the skills that were relevant to his team. Within a week I found that I was coming along for second round interview which was going to be in the coming week.
In the second round interview, there were two people one was a senior consultant and the other one being an ex-graduate. This time they were delving deeper into technical questions to see if I was the best fit for the role. This was then followed by a 20 minutes presentation including 5 minutes for Q&A. I was also given a vague idea on what the team does and how I would fit in it if I were to get this role. Towards the end, they left it open for me to ask any questions that I had.

Tell me about a time that you worked conveying technical information to a nontechnical audience. How did you manage it?

Make sure you know what you have on your CV and sell it as much as you can. There will be questions about the skills you put on your CV and in the second round interview, the interviewers do go into a lot of details. So don't put something on your CV that you are not entirely sure about. At Detica, people look for certain skills to see if you will fit their team.

You are given a training which depends on what team you join, so don't worry if you are not a master. They don't expect you to know everything as a graduate, but you should show that you are passionate enough and eager to learn.

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There are two interviews, the first one is more of a discussion about your skills on the CV along with some competency questions and a case study and lasts for 45 minutes. The second round interview is however, includes an in-depth interview of your skills, a presentation on a technical problem.

For the first round interview the team lead himself came to interview me (as the other person wasn't feeling well) and went through the skills that were relevant to his team.

In the second round interview, there were two people one was a senior consultant and the other one being an ex-graduate. This time they were delving deeper into technical questions to see if I was the best fit for the role. This was then followed by a 20 minutes presentation including 5 minutes for Q&A. I was also given a vague idea on what the team does and how I would fit in it if I were to get this role. Towards the end, they left it open for me to ask any questions that I had.

Make sure you know what you have on your CV and sell it as much as you can. There will be questions about the skills you put on your CV and in the second round interview, the interviewers do go into a lot of details. So don't put something on your CV that you are not entirely sure about. They look for certain skills to see if you will fit their team.

You are given a training which depends on what team you join, so don't worry if you are not a master. They don't expect you to know everything as a graduate, but you should show that you are passionate enough and eager to learn.

Make sure ato network with members of staff

The assessment centre was very friendly. I was given a tour of the office and introduced to staff in the department where I was applying to.
I then had a panel interview with three members of staff that lasted about an hour; and was then given 30 minutes to prepare a presentation .
I then had a 1-on-1 interview with the recruiting manager which was very informal and lasted about 45 minutes before spending 30 minutes delivering the presentation I prepared early.

My telephone interview lasted for approximately 25-30 mins. Initially, capgemini went through some HR material regarding my application for security reasons. They then went on to ask whether I could meet the rigours 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.

Give me a time when you have changed a process and what outcome did this have?

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.

Capgemini gave a brief interview of themselves and the programme upon the arrival of all the candidates. What followed next for me was a face to face interview with a senior member of Capgemini. 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.

The first interview was a telephone interview asking general questions, for example. What did you study? What skills do you have that will be suitable for the role? Why FDM? Why IT? It was a short interview no more than 10 minutes.

I was successful and then invited for an assessment day two weeks later. There were eight of us and we went into a room called a fish bowl, the offices were new and modern. We were first given a short introduction about the company from one of the recruitment team and then we had to stand and give a short introduction about ourselves on what we studied and where we heard about FDM. We.We then transported to another meeting room, where we stayed most of the day, and a member of HR gave a powerpoint presentation and a sample contract to look at. Followed by the numerical test (no calculator), it wasn't too bad but I did practise beforehand but during test situations it feels different as always, the test contained addition, factors, multiplication, percentages, fractions, simultaneous equations and Pythagorus. I was lucky to have a 15 minute break with another prospective, while the others started interviewing. We went to the kitchen and met someone who spoke well of FDM. He said the business pathway was 8 weeks and technical is 12 weeks (can also be paid whilst training).

I had three interviews back to back, they were short. My first one was about my degree and asked, what my degree was, my result, whether I was happy with it, my project, what would I change about my degree and what modules I liked in my degree. Second interview was a personality one and lastly one about why FDM and IT. The interviewers are friendly but do prepare to say as much as you can in a short time.

We then had another test straight afterwards the aptitude test, consisting of 50 questions. They were okay some questions were tricky they had some puzzles, personality questions, programming and basic IT questions, like what is SQL, what does a service manager do, why go from IP4 to IP6..

After a quick lunch of 45 minutes with the other applicants, we sat down for our final test on Venn diagrams and Set notation. There are four parts the last part was the hardest and the test was okay until the last part where you had produce a 3 set venn diagram and find quantities in each set. I did run out of time.

Do you like to work on many different projects? Is change a good thing? What would you change about your degree or modules in your degree? How do you balance your time and time with your friends?

Practise some interview questions with a friend. They email you information about your assessment day and supply helpful links to help you revise for the test. Dress smart. The environment is friendly and you wouldn't feel in competition with the other candidates when you are there, so try not to worry.

There were eight of us, we sat the numerical, aptitude and venn diagram tests together. Then split into groups of 2 when interviewing.

An email was sent to all the university students to apply for Bank of England through Sanctuary Search (a recruiting company). I applied through them, this entailed filling the online application form, I found it quite long and time-consuming but you have to do it. After my CV and the application form were accepted, the recruiting company sent me a link to the tests. I did my tests and after about a week, I was invited for the assessment centre. Until this point, all the communication was with the recruiter but on my interview day I got to talk to one of the employees who were also the senior manager in the team that I was joining.

What are the main issues facing the UK economy?

For the interview, think ahead of examples of when you had to use your organisational and/or analytical skills. Choose good real-life examples to demonstrate each of the skills that you claim you have. In terms of preparation, read all the publications that come onto the company's website and keep up-to-date with regulation changes, new bills, etc. Follow the markets (in particular debt and foreign exchange markets) and tailor your answers according to the job market and job needs.

The assessment centre consisted of two parts.
-Group exercise: It was really easy, just giving you some details of a project, each one of us was given a separate part of it and then we all had to agree on a decision together. Timing: 30min total.
-Interview: was also very easy, some standard competency based questions, about teamwork and communication mostly, and then some IT question from a person from that department, nothing too technical, mostly general questions about IT, your own opinions etc. Also make sure you know what bank does, they asked me questions related to banking industry and my comments on it, to which I had absolutely no answer. Lack of research. Timing: about 1hr.

My telephone interview lasted around 10-15 minutes, however it was cut short as I discovered that I would be required to be geographically flexiable and unfortuanly I can only stay within Manchester area. Apart from that, they sound a phenomenal company to work for and I believe that the interview went well, up until that point.

It wasn't a difficult question but I was asked what the graduate scheme included and what the company's past is. (typical telephone interview questions). However, with the correct research this should be easy to answer. Always do the revision on the company and the scheme.

Research as much as you physically can. Have about a page of notes ready and try to think of questions they may answer. Google 'Telephone Interview Questions' look through and figure out what you think may be right or wrong for the company and write the answer. If it doesn't get asked, no matter only a little time wasted, if they ask a question you are not prepared for, you may not get the job.

I did not attend so I cannot answer.

This was the telephone interview which was split into three parts; technology questions, competency questions and then logistics.
So for the technology questions I was asked about what I knew about Capgemini and why I wanted to work there, company values, there clients or 'alliances' and what were the latest developments or like current trends in IT and I would affect businesses.
Then for the competency questions I was asked about communication skills and a time I delivered good service. I was also asked about a time I worked successfully as part of a team. And then I was asked about when something didn't go as planned and what I did.
For logistics, I was just asked about being able to work in Worthing where that stream is based and how I found out about the role.

The most difficult question was about the current trends and developments in IT and how they affected business. Although I had done my research the way the question was worded (I can't remeber exactly,) really threw me off.

Just do as much research as you can on the IT industry, and the company and what they do. Also, because it is a telphone interview you can just write all your knoweledge on a word document and just read it when asked. But good research and knowledge of the IT industry is most important.

have not heard back as to whether I am going to be invited to the assessment centre. Wish me luck! x