Recently I had an interview for an Android developer position at a large company. I was accepted! Know that before I attained this position, I had tremendous difficulty, even with a degree, in obtaining consistent software development work. It is for this reason that I wish to provide to everyone, FREE OF CHARGE, some documents that may help with preparing for an interview. In-addition, I want to also detail some tips for interviewing. The study guides I provide are at the bottom of this article.

Interviewing tips

1. Research the company that you are interviewing for. See what products or services the company offers, what clients they might have, the attire that you see employees wearing, etc. This will come in handy later.
2. When asked something like “Tell me about yourself” or “what brings you to this company” or “who are you,” be sure that you are answering only with relevant, useful information. If you do not have past work experience with the role you are applying for, describe yourself not as that role but instead as a “technologist” or “technology professional.” For example, if you are like me and have worked in many different areas of technology, from computer science lab assistant to I.T. assistant, consider answering with the following:
   1. I am a technology professional. I studied at X relevant educational institution. I have X certification. I have worked in several different technology positions, from computer science lab assistant to wordpress content manager, to I.T deployment.
3. Dress well for the interview. I would advise dressing like you are interviewing not for the position you are interviewing for but for the position of the boss of the person who’ll be interviewing you. Make sure your hair is combed, that you’ve washed your face. As a man, you should wear a tie and a clean button up shirt with a buttoned collar. I don’t know how to give proper advice for women, my apologies. Make sure you check it in a mirror. Ideally you should have a haircut and trimmed facial hair (let’s not have a jungle on your face). If you have tattoos, make sure you try to not show them. Although I would assume something negative of someone merely because they have tattoos, your interviewer might not be so open-minded. If you have tattoos on your face or neck, good luck! If you have facial piercings, it would probably be best to take them out for the duration of the interview.
4. Never say “It’s on my resume” in response to a question. This comes off as rude, even if it is completely true. If you feel annoyed by a question that is answerable by one reading your resume, remember that interviewers often have to read hundreds of thousands of resumes, that they all blend together, and that they might not have gotten an opportunity to read yours. Either that, or they have read yours, and they are testing you on it.
5. Interviewers will try to poke holes in your listed skills. They will try to probe as to whether you put something on your resume to fill space or if you genuinely have experience in that area. You should act as though they will question you on every skill listed on your resume.
6. While knowing all the relevant topics inside and out can help, remember that interviewers are often more interested in your thought process in responding to a problem rather than your encyclopedic knowledge of a given subject.
7. When asked a question about something you know only a little about, instead of saying “I don’t know…,” instead say “I have some experience in that area but I am by no means an expert.” This is good because it shows that while you aren’t an expert on that thing, you aren’t also overselling your abilities. It gives you the benefit of the doubt, too.
8. Preparing for coding interviews is genuinely very challenging. Sometimes coding interviews involve coding tests, which could be as simple as using OOP inheritance to represent shapes (create a generic shape class, then create subclasses rectangle and circle, etc), or more complicated things like reversing a string. You have no way of knowing if you’ll be asked to do something that you consider trivial or if you will be asked to do something like Towers of Hanoi. My recommendation is to study how to do common programming tasks, some algorithms, but ultimately try to remember that coding tests are usually about testing your problem-solving thought process rather than your ability to cram information.
9. Know your concepts. You should be able to explain what Object Oriented Programming is, or what Polymorphism is, what an SDK is, or how to make a basic SQL database query.
10. When asked in an interview what your salary expectations are, it is better to ask “What are you willing to pay?” The question of salary expectation is often a gotcha question.
11. Sleep well the night before the interview. Don’t show up to the interview overtired, stoned, drunk, or concussed.
12. When asked if you have any other questions for the interviewer, have two to three questions prepared to ask the interviewer. You should ask no more than three questions, and they should not be questions concerning salary, benefits, or paid time off. Instead, consider asking one of the following questions:
    1. What made you (the interviewer) choose this company?
    2. What is your favorite part of working here?
    3. What is your favorite part of the day?
    4. What version control system do we use at this company?
    5. How does this country’s approach to technology differ from other companies? (don’t name any specific companies).
13. Be polite, speak clearly, use eye contact (or look at the interviewer’s forehead, if eye contact is challenging for you like it is for me) and thank the interviewer after the interview via email. Yes, really. It may seem weird but it goes a long way.

Download study guides:

The above was actually created by an Android training instructor who helped trainees prepare for interviews. These are real questions that he asked for practice interviews, and they are pretty relevant for an entry-level position.

The next file (OpenDocument .odt) is one of my own creation, where I did my best to research the concepts and answer the questions appropriately. It has answers.