Technical Interview / Technical Assessment

Technical interviews or technical assessments are interviews in which the candidate is tested for his skills and knowledge.
They are usually done by knowledgeable or very experienced employees to

• young graduates, whose universities are not well known
• engineers who are coming from other countries and they have different way or working techniques
• engineers who are trying to do a big career step or change

How to prepare for a technical assessment
The assessment might be done with one of the two following ways

1. Assessment on CV skills: in that case you have to review all skills mentioned at your CV and to be able to back them up during the interview. Review old projects and study notes.
2. Assessment based on a generic assignment that will be part of your future job: you have to carefully review the tasks and responsibilities which are written at the job description and based on those to get prepared accordingly. For example, if you have to do C# coding then you might get asked to design a simple program (depends on the job experience level) and if you have to design electronic systems for a specific industry then you might get asked to design something based on given requirements.

SKYPE interviews

Skype interviews are the preferred interviews for candidates who leave in other countries than the location of the employer. They are very popular as first interviews because they can save both time and money.

The fact that you are not getting outside your house it does not mean that you do not have to get dressed properly for an interview. The requiter asked you to have a Skype interview because he/she wants to see you. So make sure that you look presentable.

Do not forget that a Skype interview is supposed to be the same as a face-to-face interview. So all interview rules about body language, eye contact (try to look at the camera as much as possible, increase the distance between you and the camera if needed) apply here, too.

Make sure that your internet connection is working properly, including your hardware.
Make a test call a day before the interview at about the time of the interview. That will indicate you how the background looks, whether the lighting is enough and if there is any noise you sound take care of (if you leave with other people in the same house, notify them at about the time of the interview to be quite). It looks really bad when there are technical problems which you cannot solve fast and efficiently... especially when you are interviewed for an engineering job!

Tips: include your Skype address at your CV. If you do not want to give your personal Skype address, then make a new one with a neat naming and picture.