What I learned from a phone interview
Last week I had a phone interview with a local company. They’re looking for a programming intern and posted a job opening through MATC where I’m going to school. Well, I couldn’t pass up the opportunity: part-time and programming all at the same time. I’m only 1st semester but I can only get rejected or ignored, right?
They emailed last Monday and set up a phone interview! I was shocked. And scared. Thursday rolled around and they called. Until that time I filled my waking hours thinking about what kind of questions they would ask. One of my friends suggested I google some interview questions based on the languages they were looking for.
However, their questions were less about technical points of ASP and C# (neither languages I know yet) and more about motivations. They asked why I’m going for a degree in programming when I already have one in chemistry. And they asked if I have already completed any programming projects. I could answer these questions, but even so I wanted to give them more satisfying answers. It’s the last one that bugs me the most: do I have any actual working code to show them? Not really. I played with TADS once upon a time, but didn’t complete anything major. It didn’t fit it with day-to-day stuff at the time.
What I would have really impressed them with is work with an open source project. Something on Sourceforge, something I’m interested in. They could see I like programming and it’s my hobby as well as a vocation. So the moral of the story is: I gotta get me a project. It would provide practice AND a portfolio I could show a potential employer.
I haven’t heard back from them yet. I’m cautiously optimistic. I’m sure I could give them good intern work. Hire me, okay?
