Onsite In sight?

Hey guys,

I was wondering if anyone had some on site interviews coming up. Getting invited to an onsite interview is a wonderful opportunity and a clear sign that things are going well for you and the particular job. Getting invited to an onsite interview can also be pretty scary. So I thought I would share my most recent experience to help put things in perspective.

Not too long ago things started falling into place for me. I had completed a phone interview with one company and a few weeks later I got invited onsite for one of the most interesting interviews I have ever had. I was scheduled to meet with 8 people and required to present a technical presentation. It looked something like this

http://www.businessweek.com/articles/2013-03-22/how-to-stand-out-in-an-mba-group-interview

That’s unreal right? Here’s the breakdown:
1 HR person – very informative
1 Lunch guide- just happened to be the person I had the phone interview with
3 engineers/ program managers – asking questions related to my resume, my interests, etc
3 other engineers/ program managers – with technical questions some of them were straight from tests I had in classes.
1 small group as the audience for my presentation.

I have had other onsite interviews and I have had other technical interviews but something just made this feel different. I felt really well prepared because I brainstormed my presentation very thoroughly and took my time to prepare what I would say with each visual. I also tried to provide enough background so that most of the questions that would probably come up regarding the topic would be answered in the presentation. I remember one of the engineers told me that the main thing they are looking for is communication. So if you’re ever asked to give a presentation for an interview, I suggest focusing more on your delivery rather than the technical details. Especially considering the people interviewing you may know a lot more technical details than you’ll ever know so dropping big words to pretend that you have a great understanding on the material could very possibly blow up in your face. As for the technical interview questions, anything on your resume is fair game so if you don’t like a class or don’t like a certain topic be prepared to explain that or just don’t have that stuff on your resume. Also develop a pretty effective elevator pitch. You never know when someone will ask you to “tell me about yourself”. In my experience, the more prepared you are the better things go and the more calm you are. For other interview help check out some of these blogs: Technical interview, elevator pitch prep and everything else

Thanks for stoppin’ by
–Sam