How to prepare for a Software Job Interview

"Help Me to Prepare for My Interview" This is a very common question which many have in their mind.So thought I would give some pointers to help. Most of the Software job interview including storage technology jobs have some common format.

They are classified into several areas like
Your Skillset
Specialization
Project Experience
Operating System
System Administration knowledge
Networking knowledge
Programming knowledge or Scripting Knowledge
Ability to understand and follow processes whether it is Software Development Life Cycle(SDLC) processes, Test Life Cycle, Infrastructure management processes, Customer Service Level Agreements (SLA) or any other maturity model process. Knowing about processes is an important aspect if you are aiming for higher or management level positions.

Highlight the keywords of skills or anything related to above topics in your resume.
If you are serious about your Interview Preparation start giving priorities which might be decided by the Job description.
Get some inputs from your seniors or anyone more experienced than you who is willing to spare sometime to let you know what he thinks are the priorities for this job .
Based on the priorities start getting short notes or small content for your study preparation
Start with the toughest topic example : Configuring Linux Clusters & try to grasp them as much as you can.

Skillset
Never forget preparing strongly on your present work based skills or present project details. Most of the times many questions come from this area only.
Usually you will be given some lineancy if you dont answer earlier(oldest project in your resume) project related questions but if you are not satisfactorily answering your present project or experience related questions then - it does not add to your favour.
So make sure you put lot of time to prepare on your present company's projects or work experience.
Make sure you prepare well to answer " Tell me about Your Self " ,
Tell me about your role & responsibility,
Tell me about your initiatives in present role,
How are you contributing to your team's progress
How are you being a good team player
How do you handle customer escalations
Do you interact with customers on a regular basis, what is the process for this
How is your configuration management
What do you mean by Change management
How much time you need to come upto speed in your new job
What are your strengths & weaknesses

Specialization
If you have some certifications or done some real valuable training better highlight them , but also be prepared to handle questions on them. Example would be what are the outlines you learnt from your Sun Solaris Administrator Certification

Operating System
Generally having work experience on some of the major operating systems like Sun Solaris (Latest Solaris 11), Redhat Enterprise Linux ( latest RHEL5), HP UX, Windows Server 2003 (Enterprise Edition) , IBM Mainframes etc adds lots of weightage
But if you are not well versed on all above OS's atleast be good in one of the *nix OS preferably Linux or Solaris.

Having System administration experience is a huge benefit in Storage/telecom industry openings

Even Network administration or atleast good networking fundamentals & networking advanced knowledge is becoming almost a mandatory requirement for most of the job openings recently. The reason being Network has become an integral part of most of the projects or services which IT is focussed on. So start learning more about Switches,Routers,DNS,DHCP,Firewalls,Subnets etc

Programming or Scripting knowledge : I can not say in words the importance of these segments . If you have anything related to these in your resume you should YOU MUST be very very clear & good in them. Thats all I can say for now

Processes : They drive the success of a Company, Team , Project . They make life complex in the middle but make it better at the end. Know you project related processes or processes you follow in your team/project/company etc

I guess this is a very generalized overview of how you should think or partition your interview preparation. Let me know your thoughts. I appreciate your inputs on these articles - Roger.Smithson@gmail.com