The first interview was one to one with the person who would be the immediate manager for the role. All in all, this was a relatively relaxed conversation.

An initial segment consisted of the interviewer describing the consultancy division of the company and outlining the role. This was followed by a request to discuss my CV, giving details of both education and work experience.

The interviewer just listened to the description for 5-10 minutes, followed by some queries on specifics of technical skills used in the past, i.e. (ASP.NET, C#, etc.), and asked to rate my competency.

There was a brief technical test consisting of writing some C# code on paper. Something very simple, like writing a method to reverse a string or something similar.

This was followed with some general questions about career direction, e.g., “Are you more interested in going down the project management route or the architecture route?”

The second interview was again a one to one, this time with a company partner. This was a much more difficult interview, predominantly due to the interviewing style. It was quite confrontational; I assume a technique to see how the interviewee responds to a difficult situation.

The interviewer asked general questions, mostly asking for experience-based descriptions of development techniques and technologies to use in different situations. “When would you use LINQ? What are the pros and cons?”

This was followed by a question about what salary I expected and, surprisingly, a negotiation over money.

The first interviewer was very interested in business skills. An understanding of the business drivers of a project or task and the ability to communicate were clearly desired for this role. The second interviewer (who I believe was a software architect) was far more interested in technical competency.

Describe a large project you worked on, how you approached the task, and what you learned from it.