Interview: 5 questions for IT professionals

Job interviews are not always job interviews. HR managers and decision-makers should prepare for each candidate individually. After all, you cannot ask a social media manager the same questions that the applicant for the position in controlling has to answer in front of him. Specific questions about training and further education, professional experience, but also understanding of the new task are required in order to be able to get an idea of ​​the candidate’s professional competence. However, some IT decision-makers like to get lost in technological shop talk and fail to get to know people and to assess their “cultural fit”. Here are some tips for Junior developers for their dream Job.

HR professionals are on the trail of motivation

“Ideally, the department manager and the HR manager share the questions,” recommends Jürgen Rohrmeier from the Pape Consulting Group in an interview with the CIO. “The manager is naturally more interested in the applicant’s technical knowledge. The recruiter wants to ensure the candidate’s career through his questions, i.e. to find out whether his information is correct. He is interested in the applicant’s motivation. ”For example, the motivation for the application, the motivation behind previous job changes or the motivation for choosing the course.

Avoid standard questions

It is also the job of the HR manager to find out something in the interview about the person sitting across from him – about the qualities and skills that are relevant for his tasks in the company and for dealing with colleagues. However, Pape thinks nothing of the popular standard question about strengths and weaknesses. “This is complete nonsense. What should one do with the answers to this question? Usually the applicant says he is impatient about the weaknesses. This answer almost always comes. “

Unexpected and revealing: 5 questions for IT experts

Instead, we give you five examples of questions that an IT professional might not necessarily expect, but that you should ask them anyway.

Which manager is your role model and why?

If the new employee is to take on personnel responsibility, the answer to this question can provide information about his management style and the way he interacts with colleagues and employees. Even if the candidate has not yet had any leadership experience, the answer shows whether he is willing to learn from others and what demands he has on his own leadership role.

How do you stay up to date?

The speed at which technology advances does not allow IT professionals to take a breather. The answer to this question reveals to what extent the applicant is responsible for expanding his know-how. He can hear between the lines whether the candidate is intrinsically motivated – in other words, would like to learn in his free time out of his own interest, or whether he “only” does this because the job demands it. IT executives who are less involved in day-to-day business need a strategy to stay on the ball professionally. In that case, too, the answer can be instructive.

How can you concentrate when you are stressed?

Most IT departments have traditionally been rather hectic. Nonetheless, employees must still be able to concentrate on their work, even with permanent unrest and sometimes urgent or even angry requests from other departments. Stress resilience is therefore a quality that gives the applicant significant plus points. As an alternative to the question formulated above, a short role play is also available in this case to find out whether the applicant can deal with stress and restlessness.

What could be the most important developments in the next ten years?

With this question you will find out whether the applicant has a comprehensive overview of his area of ​​responsibility and can give a spontaneous assessment of its development. You can also use this question to test his ability to recognize trends in this area and to differentiate between the important and the unimportant. You could add the question of how he would make the company fit for the future here. This is how you find out whether the candidate can think outside the box and is able to think like an entrepreneur.

What do you do to maintain your network internally and externally?

You are certainly not looking for a nerdy loner, but for a team-minded employee who, ideally, can fall back on a capable network that supports him in his work. Because hardly any IT expert is an all-round professional and the IT industry is also considered to be better networked than any other. For you as a HR manager, it is therefore interesting to find out whether the candidate is actively maintaining a network that always provides him with new ideas and suggestions. The aspect of internal networking is also important. Is the candidate able to network and work together quickly and easily with relevant colleagues and departments? Then you will gain not only a technically experienced employee but also a valuable team player.