IT Graduate Interview Questions

As a Graduate, interviews are likely to take a slightly different form than they will at any other time as employers are likely to be aware that your experience levels are low, as so will be aiming to understand your character and potential.

As a result the questions that you are likely to be asked in an IT Graduate interview will be very focused around soft skills and your ability to explain and relate your skills to the Graduate job available.

Here we look at some of the most commonly asked IT Graduate interview questions and some tips on how to prepare answers to them:

• Why do you want to work for us?

Employers like to know that you have prepared for the interview and researched the company, this question gives you a great opportunity to demonstrate what you found out. It is a good idea to highlight factors such as the company culture, any recent awards they may have won or training opportunities you have heard about.

• Why do you want this job?

When asked this question, try to explain how the description of the job and the challenges you anticipate the job will involve relate your interests and strengths.

• What is your biggest achievement to date?

This question is designed to uncover what makes you tick and how you deal with challenges. It is less important that it is a huge achievement more about how you present the situation and explain why the achievement was significant to you.

• What are your strengths and weaknesses?

A very tricky question, especially when it comes to describing your weaknesses. Obviously you don’t want to go admitting to everything you are not quite perfect at, but, it is unrealistic to claim you are good at everything. Pick one and emphasize how you are trying to overcome it or how you have learnt from it. When talking about your strengths, try to substantiate your claims with real life examples.

• What do you expect to be doing in 5 years time?

Opening up the floor for you to demonstrate you know about your chosen career path. Try to stay away from vague answers and instead be more specific with regards to the possible routes your career could develop in, showing a general idea of where you would like to be and your ambition to get there.

• Describe a situation in which you lead a team successfully

Most graduate schemes involve people management where you will be expect to guide the work of others as well as motivate a team to complete tasks, this question is designed to offer the interviewer an insight in to how you interact with other people and the role you assume within a group situation.

When answering this question you should ensure you outline the situation, describe what your role was and analyse any problems that arose, detailing how you overcame them.

• Do you have any questions?

Many recruiters will conclude your IT Graduate interview by offering you the chance to ask them some questions. It is a good idea to take this opportunity, often having previously prepared some interesting questions that you can refer to can be helpful. Remember to keep these reasonably short though so as not to cause your interviewer to run late and make sure they are relevant to the job itself – asking about benefits and salary are not advisable at this stage!

Preparation is key when attending IT Graduate Interviews as it can help keep you calm, organise your thoughts and examples and help you to come across as more confident.

For more advice on perfecting your interview technique, we've partnered up with CV Knowhow who offer interview coaching so click here to find out more.

Good Luck!