Tips to a successful IT job interview

So you’ve applied for that IT job and you’ve made it to the interview stage.  Here are some tips from Venture Loop CEO Jeremy McCarthy on how to make it a successful interview.

Regardless of how you view this prospective opportunity, always do your best in the interview for you never know where it may lead you. Some of his other suggested tips:

1) Research: With everything literally at our fingertips today, it’s close to blasphemy to enter an interview without having searched and studied as much about the history, fact and figures of the company with whom you are interviewing as possible. Savy online searching can turn up valuable information to prove to an employer they’d be hiring an expert in their industry.

2) Review your triumphs and faults: You can almost guarantee that typical questions such as your vision for five years down the road, strengths, weaknesses, tough work situations and best type of person to work for will be asked, so why not write down your answers ahead of time to review rather than spin your wheels while sitting in ‘hot seat.’

3) Behavioral question awareness: More firms rely on behavioral interviewing techniques to see how candidates answer when asked for specific examples of past professional situations. McCarthy presents some typical queries to prepare for ahead of time:

• How you handled not meeting a deadline
• How you dealt with conflict with a co-worker or boss
• What you did when someone else’s actions caused failure
• When did you show initiative
• What did you do when a customer was upset with you
• What did you do when a co-worker blamed you unfairly for something

For the rest of Mr. McCarthy’s tips check out the source.

Related articles

• Strange interview questions tech companies ask revealed (zdnet.com)
• Job Search Tip: How to Eliminate Anxiety before an Interview! | Ashley Ellis (skillsinfo.wordpress.com)

Gain more clout with these security certifications

Want a premium salary as an ISS professional?  Make sure to obtain certifications in addition to the degree.

Security service providers and other channel partners who have invested in Global Information Assurance Certification (GIAC) training for their employees or who have hired employees who already have GIAC certifications will have a little more to advertise in 2010 with the announcement last week that three of the major GIAC tracks were accredited under the ANSI/ISO/IEC 17024 Personnel Certification program.

…

The most recent GIAC tracks to get the check-mark from ANSI were the GIAC Certified Incident Handler (GCIH), GIAC Certified Intrusion Analyst (GCIA) and GIAC Certified Forensics Analyst (GCFA) programs.
One of the most well-known incident-handling certifications in the security world, GCIH was recently ranked as the No. 1 security certification that organizations pay a salary premium for according to the IT employment analysts with Foote Partners. Those certified with GCIH have proven they know about common attack techniques and tools used to penetrate enterprises and small businesses alike. The certification attests to their knowledge about how to defend against and respond to these attacks, as well as incidents caused by both innocently inept and malicious insiders.

Unique within the security industry, GCIA is designed to show that recipients understand how to manage any Intrusion Detection System, regardless of vendor. Those who hold this certification have shown they understand the fundamentals of network protection and are able to analyze traffic patterns well enough to spot and analyze anomalies.

The third program ANSI accredited last week, GCFA, is one of the most recognized digital forensic certifications. Those bestowed with this vendor-neutral certification have proven that they understand a panoply of computer forensics tools and know the most common criminal forensic analysis techniques to complete Windows- and Linux-based investigations.

It seems security skills are not only in demand but result in greater pay.

Though the premium for most IT industry certifications generally went down over the past year, security certifications such as those offered by GIAC, (ISC)2 and ISACA all managed to buck the trend.

“Unlike other technology job segments, pay and demand for security skills have risen steadily since 2007 and neither budget nor headcount has diminished in economic hard times,” wrote Foote Partners principal, David Foote. “Driving continued momentum for steady jobs investment and career safety is the ‘perfect storm’ of more regulation; constant fear of increasing threats; greater customer expectations and demands aimed at vendors; and the splitting of business/strategic risk and operational security activities, which has been accelerated by market forces.”

This demand for such skills could prove profitable for channel partners who are able to hire and retain personnel on their consulting staff in order to market to those customers who don’t have the wherewithal or resources to maintain their own cadre of full-time security experts. (Source: Channel Insider)

Will be pursuing certifications following graduation in June.

Related articles by Zemanta

• Security through diversity (cdixon.org)
• Upcoming webinar: “Cloud Security for Dummies” hosted by SIIA (aws.typepad.com)
• BBB’s Data Security – Made Simpler Initiative (pindebit.blogspot.com)