Computing & IT Interview Questions & Answers

I had two face to face interviews. The first one was 40 minutes and was just a case of talking through my CV and talking about my current job and university degree, I was presented a selection of questions based around my personality and how I would deal with different situations.

My second interview was an hour long and the questions were based more around the job role. I had to answer competency questions based on the job I would be doing with the company.

'Describe your weaknesses' - This was the hardest question I was presented with, I found it's actually very hard to come to terms with your weaknesses and talk about them to a potential employer. People are always quick to point out their strengths but when the situation is reversed, its not as easy!

Make sure you read up on the company before the interview, know what its core values are and think about how you are suited to the role and what you can bring to the company. Make sure your personality shines through, my degree wasn't directly related to the role, neither did I have as much experience in it as other candidates, but I was offered the position based on enthusiasm and willingness to learn.

The assessment centre was located at the company head office. There were around 15 candidates at the assessment centre in my group (although 4 assessment sessions were being held). We participated in a group activity where we were presented with scenarios and had to talk through how to solve them while being observed. The atmosphere was very tense and stressful, with all candidates trying to out-shine one and other. The assessment centre also carried out a quiz that tested our general knowledge about the company and its history.

There were three five minute interviews that consisted of 4 questions each. Interviewers were all friendly but did not prompt you for anything on your answers to the questions.
1 interview was about my interest in the company/IT
1 was about my degree
1 was about my and my qualities e.g. is change always a good thing?

Would I sacrifice the quality of my work in order to meet a deadline

Be confident and friendly. They were all friendly so it's good to be relaxed with that to show your true personality. One guy pointed out a mistake on the presentation given by the centre manager...don't do that as she wasn't impressed.
Take lunch or take money to buy lunch from the station.

There were 13 of us but we weren't competing for a set number of places. 3 interviews, a 1 hour aptitude test, 30 min maths tests and 1 hour Venn diagram test, you were given a booklet on how to answer in the format of these. Lunch was not provided but got an hour to go out and buy something.

The interview was unique to any other I've experienced. With no prior warning or any real understanding of what to expect, I was placed into different rooms, completing mathematical exams and solving problems. The interview was not focused upon the role at all, nor were questions asked about myself.

In the UK, approximately how many lamp posts are there?

My advice to anyone applying to this company would be to have no expectations, because it is beyond anything I expected. I would say to 'think outside of the box' and don't expect a regular interview!

I was asked to complete a mathematical examination, within 15 minutes whilst someone watched.
Then I was placed into another room and asked to work out how many lamp posts are in the UK without any figures or materials.
Lastly, I was told that if I had 3 jars of marbles with green, red and red/green assortments, how many marbles would I need to remove to ascertain which jar was which if I knew that every label was incorrect.

It had three stages. First, we attended a session to take 4 tests. Then we were narrowed down for the second session to have an interview with managers. The last session was another interview with the directors. They mostly focused on my CV and asked about my skills and experiences and also what I know about the role.

What is so challenging about the job you applied? how would you overcome it?

Be well prepared before attending the interview session, make sure to ask them smart questions, they normally like it. Be confident, honest and do your best. In the test sessions, make sure you pay attention to time as well as being precise and follow the steps one by one. Best of luck! :)

It was very friendly. It took almost 3hrs. The questions started from easy to difficult.

A very relaxed phone interview with basic interview questions. Plenty of feedback and was more of a conversation than an interview.

Used the obvious interview formula of eduacation, work experience and general CV questions.

Some basic programming questions but nothing too technical. During the phone interview they take into account your knowledge of Java.

Explain object oriented programming to me as if I was a beginner.

If you have never used Java before don't bother turning up. I was assured that my experience in other programming paridigms would be fine... except it wasn't. The interview was 70% Java specific questions and the Java test was all about syntax and code specific questions. Considering from my initial application to assessment day I had 2 days to prepare, my crash course in OO programming failed. My advise would be make sure you know Java backwards and in the assessment day don't get exploited. I am good at video editing so ended up stuffed with 3 video tasks and a debate which was simply too much - I should have flagged this but was conducting my interview whilst tasks were dished out. I therefore had no time to prepare my part of the presentation and obviously it was far from polished.

When you arrive you receive a quick presentation about NetBuilder. Next stage is to conduct a technical Java test. After this you are handed a booklet outlining around 20 tasks that need to be fulfilled before the end of the day - past that you are given no guidance. The only requirements are that you need to elect a team leader and create a timetable to schedule everyone to have an interview. The tasks include creating a video advertisement and a song among other fun activities. However the clear problem with this system is that the only way to complete eveything on time is to split up the tasks and the two assesors are also conducting interviews in parallel. This means you are barely (if at all) assessed during the day, instead marked on the Java test, presentation and interview.

My initial interview was with a recruitment agency that works on behalf of Atos and it lasted around 30ish minutes. The interviewer was really friendly which helped my nerves. The questions were generic competency questions as I had prepared well with STAR model it let little room for the interviewer to ask me questions.
Also, there were questions regarding my interest in IT and why I applied for this company in particular, so make sure you are aware of competitors and what they are doing better this gives you room to show that you have done your research.

I don't remember any difficult questions

It is vital to prepare well and definitely follow STAR model. As far as your interests in the company go don't be generic be more specific about what you like about the company- it could be the way one department works to charity work.

For Atos it is important to see that you match their culture and drive to succeed

We had two interviews, a group exercise and a presentation. The day started with group exercise in a group of 6 ( all the people that attended A/C), all three assessors were present. After this, we had interviews which are split between two interviewers one asks 2 competency questions and the other asks you more about your interests and a talk through your CV.

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.

None

It was a series of technical questions along with questions of why are you interested in this job, and some questions based on past experience with networking. The questions were in groups, so once one set of questions were done you could tell that the what the next set of questions were going to be based on the next question.

Some of the technical questions were difficult coming from a Students perspective as they were questions that I never though that I would come across, and I had never heard of some of the technical parts that I was asked to describe so I really struggled on those questions.

I would say read up on a lot of technical information for the role you are applying for before considering this type of job. Definitely make sure that you are prepared to answer a number of different questions based on the job role(s). Read into a lot of information about the company and what they thrive to achieve.

I was not asked to the assessment centre.

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

The interview took place on the same day as the assessment centre at the company HQ in Addlestone near London - It was a work strengths based interview, which focused on softer aspects of work skills; I was asked to give examples of when I had worked as part of a team, when I had led a group or had to make decisions for people. I was also asked about times I had had to creatively solve problems and how I went about creating solutions. Another thing I was asked about was my work experience and what challenges I had faced.

My anticipation was that the interview would be fairly technical, however the focus was entirely on softer skills. Most of the questioning seemed to focus on getting me to talk about communication skills, group work, solutions-oriented thinking and professionalism (for example, I was asked about conflict resolution and if I'd ever had personal issues with someone in a professional environment; if so how I'd dealt with the situation etc).

The interview was about 40 minutes in duration and was quite tailored to the application I had filled out, in that my responses to the application had informed and flavored the interview they set out for me. It was a one-on-one session and fairly relaxed as these things go.

The format of the interview was quite traditional and favored the interviewee (me) in leading the discussion - the questions essentially served as prompts for me to try and bring up the things I felt were relevant and gave me a fair degree of freedom to direct the discussion.

Other topics included what had attracted me to the role, why did I think I would be well suited to the placement etc. We also discussed what sort of things I had been working on while at university and what my career plans were. There was also the standard questions section to conclude.

The questions were quite tailored to the responses to my application, so they weren't too bad. The hard thing was trying not to return to the same examples if I was asked a similar question to one I had already answered.

Firstly I'd advise candidates not to stress too much - I think I went to this assessment centre too stressed. I was anticipating a heavy focus on technical ability and as such spent the previous two nights revising pointers, memory management and design patterns. On the day, the focus was much more on group work, communication and softer work skills. As with anything like this, just make sure you're polite, well-presented and engaged. Try to be inclusive and come across well in the group tasks; it can be easy to accidentally come across as trying to dominate the group discussion aspects of the assessment, which is something you should aim to avoid.

I would advise just turning up well rested and positive. Remember to bring pens etc, but I wouldn't bother taking a notepad or the like - I went expecting to take notes but didn't really need to at all. Also if you're travelling a long way, I'd recommend staying somewhere the night before. They reimburse up to £100 of travel expense, so it's definitely worth doing to make sure you're fresh and ready on the day.

The format of the interview and the day in general was very favorable, as the candidates were given a deal of opportunity to show our ability and individuality. Approach it more as a way to find out more information about the position and whether you think it would be right for you.

At the assessment centre we were asked first to participate in a group task: We were given a scenario in which we were recently employed graduates at a hypothetical company which was trying to expand it's consumer base; we were presented with a variety of promotional ideas and materials and asked to evaluate them and provide a list of pros and cons for each.

There was also an hour long written assessment based on this same hypothetical company. This was a solo task, which again had the candidate review material for this imaginary company in order to create a list of issues, ranked by severity. The task also had the candidate pick the 3 most important issues, defend the picking of them and suggest means by which the issues could be solved.