Hacking the InterviewHuman Buffer Overflows? Gross...

Inherent Bias

● I’m SFS (security guy)● Internships in public and private sector, but

no long term work experience in tech field● Advised and conducted technical interviews

for ACM’s sponsors

Agenda

● Before● During● After the interview

Agenda

● Before● During● After the interview

Do Interesting Stuff

Public Speaking and Leadership

● People want to hire future leaders

● Get involved in ACM :) ● Give presentations like

this one (even better….technical presentations)

Stay Current

● T shape: Breadth of general knowledge, know one area deeply

● Read conference papers● Subreddits, blogs, etc.● GPA

Resumes

● Bullets, verbs, how you added value, etc...● The good places to work don’t want

buzzwords...● But HR does● So does software:

egrep -i “mobile|big data|the cloud” > hireNow.txt

Resources

● Your professors● Google Scholar● http://makingawesome.org/● https://studentgroups.fsu.edu/organizations● Internet (for InfoSec I can give a huge list)

Agenda

● Before● During● After the interview

Behavior & Appearance

● Suit will never hurt, looking scrubby might not help

● Be ready to self promote, have stories ready● You are in the interview to MAKE FRIENDS

Interview

● Certain types of questions are inevitable, so have good answers

● Google moving away from “shrunk to 1 inch and stuck in a blender” type questions and GPA requirementshttp://www.businessinsider.com/how-google-hires-2013-6

Interview Judo (Sorry Gustafsson)

Do you know $foo?

Well, I know $bar, which has:

$bar.a$bar.b

Just like:$foo.a and $foo.b

Their Questions

● Technicala. Convergent - List and describe the OSI Layersb. Divergent - You need to hack a vending machine

● “Tell me about a time…”a. You succeededb. You failedc. You dealt with a difficult colleagued. You came up with an ingenious solution to a hard

problem● “How do you feel about?...”

a. Working remotelyb. Company culturec. Etc

Your Questions

Nature of Question Impact

About the organization Asking for facts is lame. Asking about company culture, or about living in the location is fine.

About the interviewer If it looks casual, very good. Otherwise you are a brown-noser.

Technical questions Jackpot! Bonus points for (politely) stumping the interviewer

Resources

● ACM (soon)● http://www.career.fsu.edu/mockinterview/● Places you don’t want to work● Engineering Fair next Tueday (Suit up!)

Agenda

● Before● During● After the interview

Follow Up

● Give it a few days, then send a “thank you” email to your interviewer

● DO: Be short and sweet, polite● DO: Use names, mention something funny

or memorable that came up● DONT: be a suck-up

General Career Advice

● High GPA, one novel project, Meaningful outside school stuff

● Apply to lots of places● Get started early● Craft a personal trajectory, make

incremental progress

Questions, Comments, Complaints?