Honestly buy "Cracking the coding interview" or find it online - IMO it is hands down one of the best interview prep books out there (at least for entry level software dev positions).

Checkout careercup and glassdoor, you can find an insane amount of practice material, interview information, or information about most companies through these sites alone.

Learn about the company, study basic coding questions and become familiar with working through problems, come up with thoughtful questions to ask before the interview (questions that you are actually interested in hearing the answer to)

You'll most likely never have experience in everything a company is looking for (especially coming out of college), so just showcase what you do know and what makes you better than the other candidates their interviewing. Something has to set you apart from everyone else, be it some skill or special thing you were involved in.

I never got an internship during school, and although it's obviously helpful it's not the end of the world if you don't get one.

I thought I tanked all 3 of my last interviews and ended hearing back from all 3. If you don't know a question (it happens), say you aren't familiar with that technology and relate it to something you know if you can.



This is also really good advice. (Honestly couldn't remember what BGP or OSPF were at first lol)

On the network/linux side, some common questions:
......
Know TCP, IP, UDP
Know connectionless vs connection oriented service
Give an example of an IP address (Was actually asked this by Amazon lol)
How do you get a public IP address?
Know what a subnet mask is and how to use one.
What happens when you type in a website name into your browser?
Know linkstate routing protocol.
How can you tell if a webserver is online?
Whats the difference between a switch, router and hub?
Know basic linux commands (helps if you actually use the linux command line alot - can also just memorize basic linux commands)
Know the basic linux filesystem structure - what directories there are, what they do

You can learn all the linux and network stuff from google (although honestly I can't imagine interviewing for a network position without at least some background in networks)

Make sure you're actually passionate about what your applying for too, that and not being anti-social can honestly get you into the door even with average skills and knowledge


Sorry for the huge wall of text

Most helpful post. Even I found this useful thanks!

This is what happened for me.

I lost interest in programming but finished out my degree anyways. I didn't just scrape by in classes though so I still have a decent GPA to back me up. I went in and got a programming position just because of the pay.. didn't think I'd enjoy it. I actually do enjoy it now more than I ever did in school.

School didn't teach me anything. They essentially had to reteach me everything I needed to learn. The only thing I can boast from school is that I took an OOP course which helped me understand how to implement polymorphism but never what it actually is or when to use it.

" i have no related experience listed on my resume and no networking knowledge"

Why in the hell are you applying for the job then? It sounds like you just want to "fake" enough knowledge to get throughthe interview... but what's the point? Most jobs have a 3 month probation period where they can let you go with no notice to see if someone can actually do what they claim.

poor wording of choice, but ofc i have experience from school projects and assignments outside of school. just like anyone, i am a competent learner/programmer but i don't have any job/intern experience in the field is what i meant.

and most of the time, u arent gonna know everything that's listed on the job posting. in this case, i have never taken any course in networking or studied it.

This post was edited by iGotThatFiyah on Apr 25 2015 07:26pm