IT Job Interview Questions

By Alison Doyle, About.com Guide

When you are interviewing for an Information Technology (IT) job, in addition to the standard interview questions you will be asked during a job interview, you will be asked more focused and specific technical questions about your education, skills, certifications, languages and tools you have expertise in.

Review this list of IT interview questions and take the time to prepare responses based on your qualifications for the job. When responding give specific examples, whenever possible, of how you have handled a project or situation. Providing details will show the interviewer how and why you are qualified for the job.

Information Technology (IT) Interview Questions

Questions About You and Your Technical Skills

• What interests you about this position?
• What are your technical certifications?
• What do you do to maintain your technical certifications?
• What automated-build tools or processes have you used?
• What development tools have you used?
• What languages have you programmed in?
• What source control tools have you used?
• What technical websites do you follow?
• Describe a time when you were able to improve upon the design that was originally suggested.
• Describe the most innovative change that you have initiated and what you did to implement this change.
• Given this problem (problem is based upon job requirements), what solution would you provide. Explain your thought process.
• How do you handle multiple deadlines?
• How do you keep current on this industry?
• How do you troubleshoot IT issues?
• Tell me about the most recent project you worked on. What were your responsibilities?
• Tell me about the project you are most proud of, and what your contribution was.
• Give an example of where you have applied your technical knowledge in a practical way.
• What is the biggest IT challenge you have faced and how did you handle it?
• You are working at a client site and the CTO of the client company has asked if she can see you. The CTO wants to know how much it would cost to bring in five more people on your team. She gives you very vague requirements of the job she is looking for you to do. What would you do?
• You have been asked to research a new business tool. You have come across two solutions. One is an on-premises solution, the other is cloud-based. Assuming they are functionally equivalent, why would you recommend one over the other?
• You have submitted a piece of code that has broken the client's website in production. You have found this bug while you were testing, and nobody else knows about it. What is your next move?
• You have learned that a business unit is managing a major component of the business using Excel spreadsheets and Access databases. What risks does this present, and what would you recommend be done to mitigate those risks?

Questions About the Job and the Company

• Describe the skills you have that qualify you for this job.
• Do you prefer to manage people or ideas?
• Describe your production deployment process.
• From the description of this position what do you think you will be doing on a day-to-day basis?
• Have you worked with software vendors? How do you handle vendor relations?
• How important is it to work directly with your business users?
• How would you rate your key competencies for this job?
• If hired, is there anything you would change about this IT team?
• What challenges do you think you might expect in this job if you were hired?
• What companies do you see as the biggest competitors to this company?

Technical Questions

• Compare and contrast REST and SOAP web services.
• Define authentication and authorization and the tools that are used to support them in enterprise deployments.
• Describe the difference between optimistic and pessimistic locking.
• Describe the elements of an in tier architecture and their appropriate use.
• Have you used Eclipse?
• Have you used Visual Studio?
• How did you manage source control?
• How much (what percentage) of your time do you spend unit testing?
• How much reuse do you get out of the code that you develop, and how?
• How would you describe the ideal working environment?
• If you know you aren't going to make a project deadline what will you tell your manager and/or the client?
• In databases, what is the difference between a delete statement and a truncate statement?
• In network security, what is a honey pot, and why is it used?
• What are the most important database performance metrics, and how do you monitor them?
• What are transaction logs, and how are they used?
• What did you do to ensure quality in your deliverables?
• What do you consider documentation and why is it important?
• What do you do to ensure you provide accurate project estimates?
• What do you expect in the solution documents you are provided?
• What elements are necessary for a successful team and why?
• What have you done to ensure consistency across unit, quality, and production environments?
• What is a cross site scripting attack, and how do you defend against it?
• What is a SAN, and how is it used?
• What is clustering, and describe its use.
• What is ETL and when should it be used?
• What is most important - quality or quantity?
• What is structure?
• What is the difference between OLAP and OLTP? When is each used?
• What is the role of continuous integration systems in the automated-build process?
• What is the role of SMNP?
• What is the role of the DMZ in network architecture? How do you enforce relational integrity in database design?
• When is it appropriate to denormalize database design?
• When is the last time you downloaded a utility from the internet to make your work more productive, and what was it?
• Which do you prefer; service oriented or batch oriented solutions?

How IT Shapes Top-Down and Bottom-Up Decision Making

What determines whether decisions happen on the bottom, middle, or top rung of the corporate ladder? New research offers a surprising conclusion: The answer often lies in the technology that a company uses.

Information-based systems, such as Enterprise Resource Planning (ERP) software, will push decision-making toward the bottom of the corporate ladder. Communication systems, such as e-mail and instant messaging applications, will push the decision-making process toward the top.

And that means developing an IT strategy isn't all about deploying the best technology, says Raffaella Sadun, an assistant professor of strategy at Harvard Business School.

"If a CEO can trust his senior managers, he will be more willing to decentralize decision-making"

"The bottom line is that whoever is in charge of the acquisitions and the IT strategy, they obviously cannot just think about the technology side, they also have to think about the organizational side," she says. "Traditionally, technology is thought of as a tool that enables empowerment, but that's not always the case."

Sadun discusses the issue in "The Distinct Effects of Information Technology and Communication Technology on Firm Organization," a paper she cowrote with Nicholas Bloom of Stanford University and Luis Garicano and John Van Reenen of the Centre for Economic Performance, London School of Economics.

"Technologies that make the acquisition of information easier at the lower level of the hierarchy are associated with a decentralization of the decision-making process," Sadun says. "On the other hand, we have the communication technologies, which actually do exactly the opposite."

IT's different roles

Companies, however, often fail to consider the disparate roles of their software systems, let alone their effects on organizational behavior. Rather, they lump "information technology" into one amorphous idea—the "IT" department—which encompasses all the technology in the organization.

"Technology tends to be dumped into a single category," Sadun says. "The reality is that IT is a huge, heterogeneous set of technologies."

Similarly, when examining issues such as organization and productivity, industry and academic studies historically tend to treat information and communication technologies as "an aggregate homogeneous capital stock," according to the paper. To that end, Sadun and her fellow researchers set out to show how—and why—managers need to consider the very different organizational effects of communication and information technologies.

"This difference matters not just for firms' organization and productivity, but also in the labor market, as information access and communication technology changes can be expected to affect the wage distribution in opposite directions," their paper states.

The researchers looked at non-production decisions such as capital investment, new hires, and new product plans. Such decisions are either centralized near the top of the corporate ladder or decentralized and delegated to the top of a particular business unit. And the decision makers often depend on ERP software, which facilitates the dissemination of information throughout a large company, enabling detailed coordination among various operating units.

Next, they looked at production decisions, which involve figuring out the tasks necessary to meet the goals and deciding how to pace them. These decisions are generally the bailiwick of either a factory floor worker or a supervisor. For those cases, the researchers studied the role of Computer-Aided Design (CAD) and Computer-Aided Manufacturing (CAM) software in decision-making.

In both instances, the researchers hypothesized that the information software would lead to decentralized decision-making. Because the software eases access to the information necessary to make important choices, both the ERP and CAD systems would increase the likelihood that plant managers and production workers would make decisions and act on them without having to consult an executive at headquarters.

On the other hand, the team hypothesized that a rise in leased lines and corporate intranets would lead to a rise in centralized decision-making at the top of the corporate ladder.

Enabling micromanagement

In the past, communication often depended on faxes, overnight delivery services, "snail mail," or site visits. Even with phone calls, it was difficult for anyone at headquarters to make educated decisions and communicate them to branch offices. In those cases, it was natural to cede control of daily operations to a local manager.

With today's networking technologies, it's easier for top executives to keep a constant flow of communication with branch offices. However, the network may actually deter innovation. When technology makes it easier to communicate, erstwhile independent workers may find themselves pestering their bosses with e-mailed questions throughout the day. Micromanaging executives find themselves making all the decisions and constantly sending mandates down the corporate ladder.

"Whenever there is a reduction in the cost of transmitting information, it's easier for the person down in the hierarchy to communicate with the CEO," Sadun says. "And the CEO can monitor constantly what this person is doing and just give orders, rather than rely on the judgment of those below."

The research team evaluated data from some 1,000 manufacturing firms in eight countries, including detailed technology rollout histories and surveys that gauged the relative decisional autonomy of plant managers and floor workers. (In gauging the factors that determine whether a firm adopts any given technology, the researchers considered geographic variables that might affect the cost of acquiring the technology—the firm's distance from the Walldorf, Germany, headquarters of ERP market leader SAP, for instance, and the fact that telecom industry regulations vary from country to country, which means networking prices vary, too.)

The findings were consistently parallel with the hypotheses: An increase in the penetration of ERP systems led to a substantial increase in plant manager autonomy. A CAD/CAM deployment raised the likelihood of floor worker autonomy. But communication technologies served to lower autonomy, meaning more decisions happened at the corporate level.

"I was reassured and surprised at the same time that these results were holding across countries and industries," Sadun says.

The importance of trust

That said, Sadun notes that technology is hardly the only factor that determines whether a firm allows decision-making both up and down the corporate ladder. Another major factor lies in cultural differences across and within countries. In a separate study, Sadun found that otherwise similar companies showed huge differences in decision-making tactics, according to their geographical location. In the paper "The Organization of Firms across Countries," coauthored with Bloom and Van Reenen, she documents that firms located in areas with high levels of trust tend to be systematically more decentralized than those in areas with low levels of trust.

Sweden and Portugal, for example, seem to be on opposite ends of the trust spectrum. "There's huge cross country heterogeneity in the way even apparently similar firms decide how to allocate decision rights within the firm," Sadun says. "Take Swedish manufacturing companies, for example. You see that they are completely decentralized, and the middle manager is basically a mini-CEO with loads of decision-making power. And then you take a firm that produces exactly the same good, but instead of in Sweden, it's in Portugal. And there, the middle manager doesn't decide anything and is completely dependent on the authority of the CEO.

"In our research," she continues, "we argue that different levels of trust are a key determinant of these differences. If a CEO can trust his senior managers, he will be more willing to decentralize decision-making. For example, there might be a lower concern about the fact that managers will use their power to pursue their personal interests instead of those of the firm." 

Hot Entry Level Jobs For Recent Grads

By Young Entrepreneur Council

What are some hot entry-level jobs that recent grads should be seeking out this year and why?

-- Jennifer E., Philadelphia, PA

The following answers are provided by the Young Entrepreneur Council (YEC), an invite-only nonprofit organization comprised of the world's most promising young entrepreneurs. The YEC promotes entrepreneurship as a solution to unemployment and underemployment and provides entrepreneurs with access to tools, mentorship, and resources that support each stage of their business's development and growth.

Social Media Management

Businesses are still slow to responding to the social media movement. Therefore, a lot of the best jobs for young graduates are those that haven't even been formed inside of organizations yet. Take a meeting and tell a local company how you and social media can benefit their bottom line. Better yet, apply for a different position altogether and blow their minds with your social media insights.

-- Logan Lenz, Endagon

Information Technology

The IT field is a hot sector for entry level jobs in 2012. Dice.com reports a shortage of IT workers in 18 states including New York, New Jersey, Texas and California. Additionally, entry-level workers don't need to worry about previous work experience, because most employers provide on-the-job training,

-- Anthony Saladino, Kitchen Cabinet Kings

Sales, Sales, Sales

Academia teaches us many things, but the ability to be persuasive, think on your feet, and close deals is invaluable. If you aspire to be an entrepreneur, this is one of the best experiences you can gain. Before you know it, you'll be pitching your own business instead of someone else's product. Never "selling yourself short" will take on a whole new meaning.

-- Tony Navarro, Streamcal

Investment Banking

Finance is no longer sexy, but no career provides a better framework for understanding how business works!

-- Josh Weiss, Bluegala

Computer Programming and App Development

There will be a lot of tech jobs this year, especially in programming and application development. Computerworld's annual forecast survey shows that 61% of IT executives plan to hire for programmers in the next 12 months-up from 44% from 2010. If you're into programming, you can command a much higher salary than your marketing major friends!

-- Dan Schawbel, Millennial Branding

Management Consulting

You'll have time to specialize later on! if you're generally interested in business and see yourself filling the role of entrepreneur eventually, being a management consultant will teach you diligence and focus, how to work in a team and how to work and communicate with clients.

-- Aaron Schwartz, Modify Watches

Web Design

My friend learned basic HTML and picked up a job editing websites at the entry level. If he doesn't know how to do it, he looks it up in a book and searches forums. In effect, he's getting paid to learn web design/development. If you want to be an entrepreneur one day or join a startup with huge upside, these are the skills that are most sought after.

-- Matt Wilson, Under30CEO.com

Are You Sure You Want a "Real" Job?

Building experience can be great, and certainly not everyone is cut out for the ups and downs of entrepreneurship, but make sure that you actually want to get a job. Is that where your heart is? I started my business right out of college; it's the best decision I ever made and I'm further ahead than I would've been climbing the corporate ladder over the last four years.

-- Natalie MacNeil, She Takes on the World

It's Not the Job, It's the Company

What many college graduates don't realize is that what they may perceive to be a sexy industry is overly competitive for very little pay. When looking at a job, don't just look at the industry, look at the company i.e. the people in it (are they happy?), your future boss (is he a leader?) and whether or not work will be enjoyable.

-- Ken Sundheim, KAS Placement

How An Employer Can Use Facebook 'Likes' Against You

By The Associated Press

By Brock Vergakis

 NORFOLK, Va. -- The "like" button on Facebook seems like a relatively clear way to express your support for something, but a federal judge says that doesn't mean clicking it is constitutionally protected speech.

Exactly what a "like" means -- if anything -- played a part in a case in Virginia involving six people who say that Hampton Sheriff B.J. Roberts fired them for supporting an opponent in his 2009 re-election bid, which he won. The workers sued, saying their First Amendment rights were violated. 

Roberts said some of the workers were let go because he wanted to replace them with sworn deputies while others were fired because of poor performance or his belief that their actions "hindered the harmony and efficiency of the office."

One of those workers, Daniel Ray Carter, had "liked" the Facebook page of Roberts' opponent, Jim Adams.

While public employees are allowed to speak as citizens on matters of public concern, U.S. District Judge Raymond Jackson ruled that clicking the "like" button does not amount to expressive speech. In other words, it's not the same as actually writing out a message and posting it on the site.

The case enters a murky legal area: Previous cases have dealt with postings on social networks such as Facebook, but there are no explicit words in this situation. Marcus Messner, a journalism and mass communications professor at Virginia Commonwealth University who specializes in social media, said it was likely that the matter would have to be settled by a higher court.

"Going to a candidate's Facebook page and liking it in my view is a political statement. It's not a very deep one, but you're making a statement when you like a person's Facebook page," Messner said.

James Shoemaker, an attorney for one of the fired workers, said he was surprised by Jackson's April 24 opinion and order, and would appeal it.

Jackson acknowledged that other courts have ruled that Facebook posts are constitutionally protected speech, but he said that in those cases there were "actual statements." Simply clicking a button is much different and doesn't warrant First Amendment protection, he wrote.

"The court will not attempt to infer the actual content of Carter's post from one click of a button on Adams' Facebook page," Jackson wrote.

However, First Amendment scholars said there isn't much to infer: "Liking" a Facebook page is much like putting a bumper sticker on a car or wearing a button. One critic of the ruling is Eugene Volokh, a law professor at the University of California at Los Angeles, who critiqued the judge's decision in a blog posting.

In an interview, Volokh said while a "like" could be ambiguous, there's no question it counts as speech. A thumbs-up gesture is symbolic expression protected by the First Amendment, for instance, and "liking" something on Facebook is even more clearly expressive because it generates text on a computer screen, he said.

"It is conveying a message to others. It may just involve just a couple of mouse clicks, or maybe just one mouse click, but the point of that mouse click, a major point of that mouse click, is to inform others that you like whatever that means," he said.

Roberts, the sheriff, doesn't use Facebook but has acknowledged in court documents that he knew about Carter's post. Carter said in court documents that Roberts was so angry about the Facebook postings that he thought he might actually punch him following a staff meeting where Carter and another fired worker's Facebook post -- which was later deleted -- were mentioned.

In his ruling, the judge acknowledged the need to weigh whether the employee's speech was a substantial factor in being fired. But the judge wrote that the point is moot if "liking" something isn't constitutionally protected speech.

Don Herzog, a law professor at the University of Michigan, said Jackson's ruling raises questions about the power of the government to determine what should be taken seriously in politics when it comes to protected speech.

"It is for sure a thin statement, but it is clearly within what we do all the time as democratic citizens," Herzog said. "This is one of the ways we talk about politics in our society."

Copyright 2012 The Associated Press. All rights reserved. This material may not be published, broadcast, rewritten or redistributed.