How do you get a high paying job if you struggle with interview questions?
Posted by SillyRecover@reddit | sysadmin | View on Reddit | 54 comments
I've been in IT for seven years and have a Bachelor's degree. I've been a cloud admin for a little over a year. I want to break into the six figure range, but I start to remember how tricky interviews are nowadays. I was out of work for eight months due to a layoff before landing my current role, mainly due to increased competition, my difficulty in answering technical questions depending on their nature, and poor communication from HR departments. I've always been more of a "I'll figure it out" person rather than an "I know off the top of my head" person. Many of the interviews I've experienced over the last few years have been more of the latter.
Anyway, if anyone is similar, how did you break through the interview process to land a high paying or competitive role?
Mothringer@reddit
Most of the time how do you figure it out is a better answer anyway. No one can know everything off the top if their head, and knowing you know how to find answers you don’t already know is more important than having answers right now.
SillyRecover@reddit (OP)
Yeah, it just depends on the interview. For my current job, the interview was great because my manager just asked questions about what systems I've used. I pretty much handle anything AWS, Azure, or O365 related. I have to look stuff up a lot and sometimes only do something once and forget shit a lot.
So if I interview for a role and they ask questions related to that one time I did something, I won't remember, lol.
Mothringer@reddit
My experience is mostly on the linux side, and the number of times I’ve done technical interviews where the applicant didn’t know what a manpage was were frankly shocking.
SillyRecover@reddit (OP)
I know pretty much nothing about Linux but the manpage should be the rundown of shell commands.
Centimane@reddit
Some of your responses make me question why you would pull 6 figures.
Wrote 1 python script in your career.
Has a vague knowledge of a man-page, but doesn't know any Linux.
Sounds like a junior admin to me. Unless you're using IaC extensively already for windows like packer/ansible/terraform (or comparable alternatives). But I wouldn't bet on it.
I'm all for everyone getting theirs from the big corpos, but if you want to pull big $ you gotta have on-demand skills.
SillyRecover@reddit (OP)
I haven't written one Python script. I will work in Python and then may not be required to use it for a few months. The point is I don't have to use it daily. My job is weird, and we don't use IAC much at all, so the only time I need to use Python is if I'm helping a developer implement something into Azure automation or there's a one-off issue that requires me to use Python. I work with Linux. The moral of the story is man is just UI documentation, help, and commands for support. I'm not going to give a super detailed response to a Reddit comment. It's a help page in bash.
I do agree with you on the needing in-demand skills part, though. The point of the post is how to better present yourself to be desirable for those roles. I'm just going to delete the post. Most comments are people not comprehending what I'm typing or adding/removing details that I never stated.
glotzerhotze@reddit
harsh, but true
Mothringer@reddit
More than a rundown, it’s generally going to explain everything the utility can possibly do in an excruciating level of detail. They are sometimes more than 100 pages of text.
ChernobylChild@reddit
I'm not suggesting you cheat, but many people are using AI to help with questions they get stuck on. There are ways to do it live without being obvious. You could be losing final rounds to those people, so take that as you will.
Deodedros@reddit
Interviewing imo is a skill in orator or public speaking. Maybe what you could do is ince a week practice answering common interview questions with a family member or friend. If there are any events related to IT definitely go to them and just start talking with people.
I think your problem is that you haven't developed the skill of speaking, but very much developed in critical thinking.
theabnormalone@reddit
The below is going to be quite frank but from what you have said this is how I've read things. As a random redditor you can feel free to ignore these but please do take it in - yes I'm a random redditor, but also I could be your next boss.
There is nothing wrong with "I'll figure it out" - most of the industry works this way (stop lying you lot) - but you have to demonstrate your ability to be effective at that.
Working it out is absolutely a valid skill, but when you're talking the figures you are, I think you're reaching.
You haven't mentioned real world qualifications (as in technical ones from vendors), just that you've worked in IT for 7 years. That isn't enough to justify a punt on whether someone with the ability to use Google could be a good fit (I am exaggerating here but that's what people will assume).
Don't be fooled by the Bachelor's. I would overwhelmingly choose someone with experience over a university degree when hiring. What is the point of someone who has once written a script that creates a database schema for a class project when I have AD not trusting a computer that is supposedly joined to a domain?
It also sounds like you're putting blame on your past failures to secure a role squarely on others. Step back and think. Of course hirers want people who can demonstrate an ability over those who will wing it. Why wouldn't they? The difference, for most, is experience.
Let me give you an example. I've worked for many many years with many different products and technologies.
If I'm asked, for example, how would I deal with such and such issue with a Juniper firewall. No clue. Never used one. But I HAVE used Cisco, Smoothwall, Sophos, Fortinet. So I'm in a great position to say "I don't know. However I have had a similar issue with X in the past, and I did Y to resolve it".
Finally, I just want to say the the above might sound a bit harsh but the reality is that IT really is an important role that comes with responsibility. Companies are entrusting you with the keys to the kingdom. If you can't demonstrate your ability to be a great steward for them keys, maybe you're just not ready yet.
I wish you the best of luck in your search.
8923ns671@reddit
If you have the time, do you know of any good resources for answering interview questions in general? I feel like I struggle a lot with questions where I can't directly answer with an example identical to the question. I think I have trouble figuring out what the interviewer is trying to get at in general until I read things like what you wrote above and it suddenly seems obvious.
theabnormalone@reddit
Unfortunately I don't, I just have the experiences I went through.
One thing that is VERY worth doing is consistently keeping a list of your achievements as you're doing them. Every day, week, month, what those things were, why you're proud, how did you achieve it. Trust me, you will very quickly realise how much you actually achieve and how much of that you would have forgotten.
When it comes to updating your CV - and prepping for an interview - review all those notes. They ARE your achievements. They ARE what, how and why you work. In prepping for an interview you'll all of a sudden have all these examples floating in your head that you can draw on when asked a question. They might not directly answer what you've been asked, but demonstrating real life experience is a huge bonus in interviews.
Also, practice. Give your mate your CV and ask him to be an absolute prick of an interviewer. Challenge Chat GPT with the job spec you've been given and get it to ask you questions (but be specific. Tell it not to go easy on you, tell it not to give you feedback until you've answered the 10th question, and set yourself a time limit. Tell it that you want genuine, non-sugar coated feedback.Tell it to tell you why it WOULDNT hire you for that role, and what you could have said that would change it's mind).
Interviewing these days is really tricky. Don't be hard on yourself. If you're unsuccessful at an interview for a job you were really interested in, email them and ask for feedback. What is there to loose? If they don't reply, no biggy. If they do, you might get some valuable feedback. Additionally you may well set a seed in their head for the next position.
I don't know if any of that stream of consciousness is useful but I wish you all the best in your search. You got this!!!
DaftPump@reddit
Wish I encountered more of this. I have 36 years experience and still get shunned over paperwork. Like, I started when 'word processing' was a college computer course. :P
M-G@reddit
As another random redditor I agree with all of the above, and hope OP takes it to heart.
I spent many years where I had to support multiple technologies and tools. Learning on the fly was the standard, while never becoming an expert. With the rate of change in tech, the ability to find answers and adapt to new things is critical. So you should absolutely play that up. But you need to frame into a broader narrative about you solved a particular problem and make it more than just "I Googled and found the answer." Think of a bigger challenge where search results gave you incomplete or wrong information and how you worked through that.
If you are interviewing for a position where they use a specific stack, it's to be expected that they are going to get into some detailed questions. If I'm an Azure shop and all of your experience is in Google Cloud, you'll have a hard time answering my Azure questions. And while you might be able to get up to speed on Azure, I might have ten other candidates with experience that will let them hit the ground running.
I would suggest that you pursue certification in your cloud provider of choice. Even if your current employer doesn't care, it will help for future job opportunities.
imitation_squash_pro@reddit
Blaming a long layoff on "trash communication from HR departments." sounds like an attitude problem . That will hurt you A LOT more than any technical shortcoming in an interview ....
SillyRecover@reddit (OP)
Brother what are you talking about? I gave three reasons why the layoff is wrong. And if it takes me three attempts to get a response, or I learn in the third interview that the role is different from what the first two interviews disclosed, it's safe to say something is wrong with your company's internal communication.
scytob@reddit
you being out of a job has nothing to do with their trash communication, as someone told you earlier you need to step back and stop blaming others
SillyRecover@reddit (OP)
Am I typing in a language that's not English? I'm genuinely confused. Where did I say that that one instance was the sole reason I didn't have a job?
MathmoKiwi@reddit
It was still significant enough you put it into your "Top 3 reasons why"
ciphermenial@reddit
You aren't a bad interviewer. You seem to have the opposite of imposter syndrome.
Matazat@reddit
Have a beer first so even though you don't know all the answers you still seem like a chill dude.
sebf@reddit
If you struggle with an interview question, you must ask questions. It’s not because the interviewer ask for something that you have to give an answer. Most of our work is asking questions to refine requirement. Producing slop is useless for a company, it creates zero value and make the company lose money. Creating friction by challenging what we are asked for is useful.
xSchizogenie@reddit
Having a bachelor means nothing for your quality of work.
SillyRecover@reddit (OP)
Never said it did, I had 11 active certs at one point. I never really looked at it like it mattered.
xSchizogenie@reddit
Then why mention it then?
StarSlayerX@reddit
Unfortunately, you have to interview well. As a hiring manager, interviewing is my way to determine how well you adapt technically and socially. My engineers under me are expected not only their technical skills, but able to communicate and deliver to non-technical business teams.
SillyRecover@reddit (OP)
Yeah, it looks like it's just going to be a mixture of practice and luck for me. I interview fine outside of technical questions. So that's practice. Luck as in hoping you don't hound me on technical questions. I doubt I'll ever be the best in a pool of applicants regarding technical knowledge.
This role had 4 finalists, and one major reason I got the job is because I was local to my manager and the others were remote. If I were remote, I probably wouldn't have gotten the job, lol.
BallsInSufficientSad@reddit
Practice
FawdyInc@reddit
Interviewing is honestly its own skill separate from engineering ability, and a lot of people underestimate that. Some extremely strong engineers are mediocre interviewers simply because the format rewards a certain style of communication and confidence under pressure.
It also helps to remember that the interview is supposed to be a two-way conversation, not just a test. You should be evaluating the company just as much as they are evaluating you, because you are potentially deciding where to spend most of your waking hours for the next several years.
0xVex@reddit
Interviewing is a skill just like anything else, the more you practice the better you get. Make sure you have pre-canned answers for all of the common questions (tell me about a time you had conflict? what’s a project you completed that you were proud of? Etc.) not having to come up with answers on the fly helps to be ready to think when you need to.
On my recent interview loop I used AI to generate practice questions based of the job description then would use voice to text to answer and have my answer be graded. This helped a lot with vocalizing my thoughts and finding knowledge gaps. If you ever run into a question in an interview you don’t know make sure to note it down and look into it after.
If you get a question that you don’t know walk them through the process of how you figure things out. What resources you would use and how you solve problems you aren’t familiar with. Good luck out there!
nimulli@reddit
Thank you, thats great advice
Automatic_Beat_1446@reddit
i cant speak for all interviewers, but if youre given a scenario question that you dont know the answer off the top of your head, you still need to be able to speak through what you think the answer is and why.
those sorts of jobs have candidates that have enough experience to answer these sorts of questions, so either you need more experience or you need to get better at interviewing. you may also not be at the right place from a career/skillset level for the jobs youre applying yet either. not clear from your post
gearcontrol@reddit
Just be yourself, be honest, and work the question exactly the way you would if you worked there. It's also about whether you'd be able to learn and get things done, not create more work (or outages) for everyone else, and how you'd fit in with the team. Read up about the company beforehand, look up their employees on LinkedIn etc and try to get a read on how they do things and the company culture. Then emulate.
CaptainSlappy357@reddit
You either learn to interview well, create your own high paying job, or you don’t.
Snogafrog@reddit
Sounds like you are making assumptions about why you have not been hired.
Any question you don’t know the answer to can be fielded.
If you know SOMETHING you can say, “I don’t know for sure but here is what I DO know” and give a general approach indicating you understand the big picture, if not some details.
Your HR blaming comment is a red flag to me. Maybe they did fumble, but if I get a whiff of someone who cannot take responsibility, that’s a hard pass.
ovirto@reddit
Interviewing is a skill. You need to practice — get a friend to mock interviews, use AI to act as an interviewer and have it give you feedback.
You said you’re an “I’ll figure it out” person. Well during the interview, I’m asking you to figure it out. I don’t expect you to know the answer to everything but I do expect you to troubleshoot it live in front of me. What would you look? What type of data would you need? What additional info about the problem would you get? Your process for how to attack the problem is just as important as the solution. And don’t bullshit, if you don’t know, then say you don’t know.
As an employer, I’m looking for 3 things:
iwinsallthethings@reddit
Since you were talking about a senior level type position, or maybe mid level, if your cost-of-living is high, you should absolutely be able to answer some questions that are technical. You may not know every single answer, but not every answer should be “I’ll figure it out “
If you put stuff on your résumé that you’ve got experience with, you better be able to defend that experience. If you say, for example, that you are an expert in active directory, but I start asking about specific active directory things like sites and services and you don’t have a clue , that tells me quite a bit.
The number of times I’ve seen where we’ve tried to hire senior level positions, and they’ve got things listed on their resume, but their experience is cursory at best, it really narrows the pool. If you’ve done something one time and then put it on your résumé, but can’t recall how to do it again during an interview that is problematic.
I’m not saying that’s what you have done, but in the open position we’ve had at our company with a senior level/architect level position, they have struggled with some of the basics.
Only-An-Egg@reddit
r/ITCareerQuestions
The_Sands_Hotel@reddit
That sub is cancer
QualitySad1710@reddit
You still need to know your shit - but for me, it’s who you know that will get you there. Network and learn the why’s. Don’t just be a do’er. The more you move up, the more critical thinking is required. Also be humble - we can’t know it all.
Give us some of the questions they asked and perhaps we can provide feedback on how we would answer and you can learn that way.
Vermeers@reddit
"I'll figure it out later" doesnt really cut it during an interview because you are trying to demonstrate that you have the capacity to solve certain issues or posses knowledge in certain areas.
Im sure there has been a shift in the last 5 years in the "what type of questions are being asked" area and in my experience, they require you to demonstrate your thought process and provide more specific examples of different scenarios and how you acted to resolve them. Naturally, higher paying positions requires more of you.
LOLatKetards@reddit
Create a list of "wins", map them out to what questions they could be used to answer. This is how I started prepping for behavioral questions.
eman0821@reddit
Compensation is based on years of experience. 1 year of Cloud experience is early career that's still junior level. You wouldn't start seeing six figures until you hit mid to senior level.
BoysenberryDue3637@reddit
I'm sorry to say, you have to interview well. As a hiring manager, why would I hire someone who doesn't interview well over another 10 people who do. It is absolutely a skill to interview. For a senor level, it is even more important to interview well.
Coldsmoke888@reddit
Do some mock interviews with a mentor.
Search for common interview questions and rehearse.
Have scenarios in your head.
At strategic level, very little technical questions generally, you’re judged on your ability to land strategic goals through delegation, trust, and relationship building.
I have zero formal training in anything and have run entire sites, country IT roles, supply chain, etc. I don’t even like talking to people but I do like money.
PrincipleExciting457@reddit
You don’t have to know the answer of the top of your head, but you should have some rough idea of a clear path to solve the issue.
Other than that, you need to be personable. You don’t get high paying jobs by being the shy IT guy. You need soft skills.
angrydeuce@reddit
Just broad level advice, but in my last 10ish years working in this field, ive found that being personable in itself counts for way, way more than anything else. Of course technical knowledge is important for senior positions, but with how much variance there is in the tooling, platforms, and internal policies, really displaying an ability and eagerness to learn has seemed to be far more of the focus than raw technical know how.
Also, I find that the less I "care" about the result of the interview, the better I tend to do. This is probably just a personal "me" thing, but the interviews ive done where I really wanted the job, those were always the ones Id never hear shit back...but the interviews I went into with a more "well, it would be nice, but if nothing comes of it, oh well", those are the ones that I seem to be getting calls back the next day asking me for another interview or meet and greet. Seems completely backwards, but its definitely what ive experinced...every job Ive gotten has been the one I was just like whatever during the interview.
GallowWho@reddit
Talk about what you do know, if someone asks you "how does autoscaling work in AWS" but you only know how autoscaling works in kubernetes on private clouds, you could say(assuming you didn't mention AWS on your resume), "I'm not certain of AWS' specific naming of autoscaling functionality, but in general autoscaling works in this way...."
MyWifesBoyfriend_@reddit
You get better at interviewing.
Stephen_Dann@reddit
Interviewing at the moment for a 2nd line. I can ask technical questions and gauge them on that. But I need someone who fits the team.
It is the same, if not more at a senior level. I know you can do the tech, know you can work under pressure. The important thing is can I work with you and can my team.
FatherPrax@reddit
Networking. Join professional organizations related to your specialties like user groups or vendor meetups, etc. Ask to be involved when your boss meets with your vendors, so you can put in face time with the sales and technical teams there. Find out about conventions that are pertinent to your job and might be easy to attend, or even better if it's something you can talk your boss into sending you to.
Find the local consultants and talk with them, because a huge part of consulting is knowing people. I'm sure if you go to a local user's group for, say, VMware, a good 1/4 of the people are probably consultants. Even if you don't want to consult yourself, knowing them is great because you become a part of their network, you become someone they can reach out to for help, and visa versa. When it comes time to find a new job, consultants may just go "Oh yeah, Jim over at A&B said they were looking for a new SQL guy, lemme setup a meeting."
billy_teats@reddit
Practice and mental framing. I don’t want a FAANG type job where they ask hyper specific questions. When I would interview folks to join my team I was much more interested in the process than knowing what port sql communicates over. I would ask questions to get that type of response.
Do mock interviews. Find a peer who can look at a potential job description and come up with questions. If you can be comfortable talking through interview questions with someone you know it should become easier to do the same with a new interviewer.
Krixim@reddit
no idea lol