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Last time I went out interviewing, I whipped up a fun little Android game, put it on my phone, and made a point of finding a way to slip it into the conversation. It was great because: 1) It let me set the tone and path for much of the interview, since so many places do unstructured interviews.
2) It was a concrete demonstration of my skills.
3) Java and mobile are both hot technologies, and the game also made effective use of other common stuff like Open GL, multithreading, network, database storage (via sqlite), etc.
4) Spending a few minutes playing a game sets a relaxed tone for the entire interview, which makes things easier for everyone involved. Structured interviews really are a brilliant strategy. Whenever I interview, I do my best to subtly direct the interview in a way that exposes my strengths and leads the conversation into areas that I am most comfortable with (and trust me, whipping out a concrete example full of technologies that you're absolutely comfortable with helps). A structured interview, to an extent, would allow the employer to retain better control of the interview (whether or not the realize it), which is probably to their benefit. For instance, I teach Java, C#/VB, and some other modern languages at a local college after work, do tons of C / embedded / network / etc. stuff at work, and do digital electronics for hobby ... so if you let me push the interview in those technical directions, I'm at an advantage. |
I am always surprised when I meet mobile developers who have never created a mobile app for themselves.