Interview Techniques

I'm off for another job interview in a wee while, so I thought it might be helpful to list some of my more useful interview tips both for the interviewee and the interviewer:

1. Have the agency send you the wrong address for the interview, as showing up late and panicked always kicks things off to a good start.

2. If possible, make sure that your potential employers forget that they were supposed to be interviewing someone today. This is especially successful if the person who has to conduct the interview has decided to work from home.

3. The best place for an interview is in an industrial estate so new, no-one has it on their sat-navs. Try not to provide any directions on your website as that would be cheating.

4. Try to get so worked up about an interview that you forget any technical skills you may possess, up to and including how to spell your own name.

5. Technical interviews are best conducted in as confrontational manner as possible, with the interviewer deliberately going out of their way to ask questions about technical issues that quite literally cannot happen in the kind of programming the job is for. The interviewer should  pitch the questions at a level that will start a fist-fight.

6. Interview panels should always contain one member who has no reason to be there but still feels the need to make a contribution. This person should be as senior as possible to ensure that people hang on their every word.

7. Never, ever get a correct job description from the agency as that will spoil the pleasant surprise when you find you've travelled two and a half hours for a job that doesn't match any of your skills. The ideal job description for example would say something like "WANTED: Mobile application developers for Symbian/S60 platform with plenty of UI development experience!" whilst the job in question would actually be mine clearance in Cambodia.

8. Body language is important, so make yours shout out by eating plenty of starchy foods the night before.

9. If conducting a telephone interview, make sure to pick the noisiest place possible and check beforehand that your phone is properly charged by making lots of calls and playing that stupid 3D snakes game you like so much for a couple of hours.

10. Psychometric tests!