Commonly Asked Interview Questions and How you should Answer them as guided by Olawale Adewoyin

When I was starting off my software development journey the first advice I got was to join tech communities and not to be on just one. Since then I've been trying to be active on tech Twitter and also joining a number of coding communities through mentorship programs this has openly shown me a number of things that there are several developers who are thirsty to learn like me, that they experience the same circumstances I go through and that the tech community is full of supportive people.

Like a few months ago Olawale Adewoyin a Software Developer Consultant through his Twitter account tweeted

Asking for a way he could help young tech guys to sell themselves on their resumes and answer famous interview questions. He said he had been seeing a number of resumes and was wondering what could be the problem and since he's been there before he was willing to share what helped him up to his game. He shared an email on how one can request for Resume Help (as email subject) and interested parties would have one on one calls or group with a limited number of people calls.

I was interested in the Resume Help session since I'm actively job hunting and trying to hack through the interview process, which isn't easy so I reached out and ended being reviewed as a group. He would ask us an interview question let us answer our way then he would answer on his way or how best. After that, we had a chance to ask interview related-questions that we had a challenge to answer or how to tackle.

Here are some famous interview questions with its possible answers that were covered:-

1. Tell me about yourself?

You should give a summarized point that takes 45 seconds to 1 minute at most in regards to your past years of experience, where you work presently, where you see yourself in 5 - 10 years and tell them how you're working to achieve that goal e.g:

"In 5-10 years I'm seeing myself as a cloud engineer or machine learning expert at the moment I'm taking some certifications in Azure & cloud computing ..."

Also, add something about yourself e.g hobby or family

"One last thing about I'm a fan of good music and I have one kid or wife ..." et al

• This will have answered where you see yourself in 5 to 10 years and giving a story about yourself is how you pull the interviewer into your past, present and future

2. How do you improve your skills

The interviewer wants to know if you try to improve your skills. Here you mention the:

• websites you visit
• tutorials you use
• podcasts you've subscribed to
• youtube playlist
• game development video

You give something nice you're adding to your skills that aren't in the resume

"Someone in the panel could be also learning and he/she could relate and engage back"

• Be truthful in all your answers "Honesty is a fair game"

3. What was your experience at place you mention on your resume

You will mention:-

• the good scenario
• what you gained
• how the company impacted you while you were there

Do not bad mouth the company or mention anything bad leave the scandals that happened while you were there

• Interview questions will be picked from your answers

4. Incase your Supervisor doesn't go along with how do you react to this

• Here the interviewer wants to test if you respect authority. You should answer by giving a scenario from the past job or task you were working on with colleagues
• action plan you took and your reaction
• your discussion with the supervisor or someone who has authority over you
• reason why you got along finally

Telling a story will pull the interviewer(s) into your world.

5. Tell us about your strengths and weaknesses

strengths

You should talk about what you're passionate about and make emphasis on it e.g: teamwork and collaboration

I'm passionate about my work I take ownership of my projects and I present myself well to my team.

weakness

• Here you talk about your weakness and end with what you're doing to improve your weakness to prevent them in future

"I worry more about little details in a project that might not be within the scope "

• how you prevent it from affecting your task or team

"I discuss with my team lead about little pros n cons and agreeing how to fix it"

• Always tell a story to let them see you and marvel

6. How much are you willing to have as pay at the end of the month

The best to answer you're gonna tell them

"I would be happy to talk of the remuneration package, I understand the market is within sources of range(research about it earlier and give the range of payment) and apart of that your benefits that will. If I compart it into remuneration (giving some figures)"

If interviewer still presses for specific figure or answer

• Give the average of the range (upper-bound & lower-bound) you found during your research

• Best option give a range if the company wants you they'll do whatever it takes

7. What technical skills do you have?

Your thought process at this moment is faster than now the best way to be good is to practice the likely question and answers prior.

"I'm software developer proficient with databases, C++, PHP code, a little bit of Vuejs, ETL process and I'm getting my hands dirty on Azure, database i.e MySQL, game programming, mobile development with flutter. I also believe Test Driven Development is the best instance, I write my tests before I write any piece of code"

• mention something that will sound good.

8. For a case of the remote job that has a Timezone difference

here you need to assure them that:[-

• you're going to be available on calls all the time
• going to reserve time with their timezone
• it's working you're getting paid to attend a meeting or work with your team at a given timezone

  "I can align myself with any timezone ..." "I'm a night owl ...(if you like working at night)"

How are we going to get updates

"I will be giving updates at the end of the day"

• Just be honest (no storytime here)

This marks the end of the interview questions if you're having an interview coming up and you need someone to coach you or practice the interview questions to build confidence and now the proper answers to give you can reach out to Olawale Adewoyin via his contact on the tweet.

Thanks for reading article and comments are open for where I can improve on or any other feedback.