Hack Your Next Tech Job Interview

I usually have trouble explaining my technical expertise during job interviews. It’s not that I don’t have the experience. It’s that I am usually too general. When asked what I do, I would answer with a “I installed and configured x” and leave it at that. After getting rejected many times, I started to learn that the people that interview me usually do not have any technical skill whatsoever. These people want details and want me to sound like I do a lot. So I decided to make a list of things I could say in order to hack my next job interview. I applied for a job as an IIS Security Admin. This time I was ready. A quick search on Google with these terms yielded me a ton of information:

• IIS security checklist
• IIS white papers
• IIS duties
• IIS responsibilities

I dove deep into the documents I found with these searches. They gave me tons of ideas for phrases I could use during my interview:

• Monitored security logs.
• Configured and supported VB.NET application environment.
• Assigned permissions to users and groups.
• Backed up configurations and web applications daily.

It’s phrases like these that hiring managers want to hear. They also got me a job!

Even though you may know technology very well, you may not necessarily know how to explain what you do to the average Joe. Use bulleted lists and rehearse them to yourself before the interview. Break things down into details and hack your way to the next high paying gig.