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

Videos on building a Storage infrastructure

Want FREE Storage related tutorial just email 2 of your friends about this blog & CC(carbon copy) my email id roger.smithson@gmail.com

Also if you have any Software or Storage Career related query you will get answers but first email just 2 of your friends & cc roger.smithson@gmail.com .Then email me your question & I will be able to answer or give a proper resolution.

It has been a long time since i posted any videos so here are some videos

Setting Up Sun Cluster Lab Servers,Network,Racks


Sun HPC Storage HPC : High Performance Cluster


Sun Blade 8000 System Walkthrough
See this video to understand what an enterprise blade server is made of

My Email to Storage Student who is interested to build his Career in Storage technology

He has already emailed me showing his interest in getting personalised online (email based) 1-on-1 Storage training. This is one of my early emails to him. I thought sharing this email helps many of my blog readers to get an understanding what it requires to plan & Build a Career not just in Storage technology domain but any Information Technology segment. This is a paid service & I charge a little heavy for this Storage training if you are interested email me.Those who are not able to go for this I have a Simple Yet Effective Suggestion check out the right hand top corner of this blog for "Blog Archive" section. Start Clicking on the Year/Date/Sub segment ( Titles of my previous blogposts) you will find a Huge Treasure of articles, interview questions , interview experiences, interview preparation tipcs, salary structure of software companies as well as many storage companies, many videos on storage related topics, some tutorials on Veritas,NAS,Solaris, Storage fundamentals etc. It is a real good treasure for all those who are really interested to get into storage technology. You just need to put enough time to read through all these articles which I have not copied from anywhere but written as almost a personal email to a friend. So do let me know your feedback on this blog. Whoever emails me giving their feedback or suggestion or any article contribution recieves 3 Tutorial PDF downloadable files & many other surprise gifts. Make sure you write a little lengthy email :)

Content of my email to my student is copied below
Brief outline of sugestion for your Storage learning is
Build Strong Storage Fundamentals
Make sure you are good in Operating System ( Either Solaris 10 or preferably Redhat Enterprise Linux 5 or RHEL5 ) with administration level of skills
Be good in Networking and Servers/Hardware knowledge
EMC2 or Netapp > SAN range of products u choose any product series based on ur preference no issues > Backup & recovery or Virtualization both are equally hot segments for a Job hunter .

Timeline : 25 days to 2 Months on EMC2 or Netapp or HP SAN product learning
15 days to 2 months on either Backup and Recovery OR Virtualization technology
In total 2 months to 4 months if you can dedicate & work hard

This is what I would say ur roadmap should be if you are aspiring to build your career in Storage domain. I guess this is a very basic outline to begin with. But I want you to comeup with your list of your strengths & weakness pertaining to this , so I can rewrite the details of this Guidance outline. I want you to understand this road does not seem easy it does require your consistency in learning & relearning and revising whenever necessary. Be clear about the necessity of putting enough time & efforts for this learning.

Send your Present Resume/CV to me & i'll have more clear idea on this.
if thats not an issue let me know what is ur salary expectation , other terms if you have any. whats ur present salary & responsibilities .

Your study should be more goal oriented, what i mean is , make compressed notes of what you r studying, make Question & Answer kind of notes on all the topics you study & make a soft copy always .This helps you in interview prior preparation as well as it is easy to revise when you have your own compressed notes than reading huge reference books or several online articles. This also helps you build your own last minute quick reference guide for any interview even if they schedule it the very next day.

I want you to email me all the progress you are doing on a daily basis if possible. I may be allowed to publish some of those content online. I will never reveal your identity in anymanner online I will just say contributed by one of the blog reader.So if you permit me to publish some of your email contents (NOT the personal communication but only tech stuff) I will do my part of supporting you in reaching your goal.

I want to clarify that I am not a SAN guru or Storage guru I am just someone who knows how to help U reach your goal. So I am not stressing on mere Tech help but I would be a bit more than that as a personal friend(Online) who knows industry expectations, can share some of the insights & can help U reach your career goals. I dont email/help many on a 1-on-1 basis i do it rarely,selectively & I would like to support only those who value my time & my requests/conditions.

Email me what you have planned so far & what are your expectations clearly.
So let me see ur next email . Then I will continue this conversation.

Outline whatever u know already in an informal list for my reference . write down frankly what u clearly know & what u know just on the surface, we will take it forward from there

Regards
Roger.Smithson@gmail.com

Where to start if I am a Begineer in Storage industry

These are the topics which you need to know if you are starting to learn Storage technology. These are part of "Storage fundamentals" online training which is a paid service. If you are interested to join this "Storage Fundamentals" Online training email roger.smithson@gmail.com . The cost for this training is $375 .

Exponential growth of Storage in Enterprises
Factors to mainly consider while planning for a Storage Solution
Capacity
Performance
Availability
Cost
Scalability

Storage Components
Hosts [ Servers ]
Internetworking Components
Network Devices [ Switches , Hubs ]
Cable Connectivity
Storage Subsystems
Hard drives
Tape drives
JBOD [ Just a Bunch Of Disks ]
Enclosures
Arrays
NAS [ Network attached Storage ]
SAN [ Storage Area Network ]
Difference between DAS-NAS-SAN
DAS : Direct Attached Storage
NAS : Network Attached Storage
SAN : Storage Area Network
Protocols or Standards in interfaces
IDE : Integrated Device Electronics
ATA : Advanced Technology Attachment
SATA : Serial ATA
SCSI : Small Computer System Interface
SAS : Serial attached SCSI
FC : Fibre Channel
ISCSI : SCSI over IP

If you are a beginner who can not afford the high price of the course start reading this blog's previous all posts/articles as I have covered many of these topics in brief in many of my earlier blogposts. Keep reading this "Storage Jobs Blog" daily as I might share some more details on this topics in future posts.