I feel blessed to be kicking off 2011 with a fresh start at a new company. It’s felt like a crazy few weeks going through the interview process and then the transition between companies. I thought I should take a minute to reflect back on the experience and share any insights I came across.

  • Have a clean simple resume, and bring a copy with you to the interview. I brought a notebook (professional looking) with me to take notes of peoples names, responsibilities, and notes when considering a possible offer.

  • Don’t lie. If you’re unfamiliar with a topic or technology, don’t be afraid to say so. If you want to save face you could say, “I’m not familiar with technology X, but I have experience with Y which is a similar technology.” However if you don’t know something, you don’t know something. It’s not the end of the world.

  • Have a bio for yourself. This is one I stumbled through and wish I was more prepared for. When asked, “Tell me a little about your past experience”, you should have a well thought out answer. We all know what we’ve done at our past jobs, we wrote it down in our resumes, but did you rehearse speaking out loud a quick bio? It would be best to customize or tweak this bio to highlight your strengths that match with the opportunities’ position requirements.

  • Ask questions. If you’re genuinely interested in an opportunity, I believe it will show in your curiosity to learn about the organization and the position requirements. A few things to consider include: the organizational structure of the company and more importantly the IT department, current coworkers that you would be working alongside with, and any future plans or projects in the works.

As always, be on time (better yet, a few minutes early), be professional (in both appearance and behavior), be yourself, and relax.