Some notes on the passage of the interview when applying for a job in Prague

The crisis slowly got to the Czech Republic. Creeping in unnoticed and hurt. Especially on outsourcers, many of whom were left without contracts. Including me. But there are no hopeless situations. Who seeks will always find. Although, the search sometimes takes a lot of time.

I want to share my experience of finding a job and passing an interview in Prague. Maybe my experience will need someone here, maybe someone wants to compare how it is here and there. I settled for the position of Lead J2EE Developer. So all technical terms will refer specifically to Java. So let's go.

• Finding a job is easiest on the internet. I remember before, there were times when I looked through ads in newspapers like "Work for You." Here, too, there are such, but on IT it is necessary to search for the specialty on the Internet. There are many sites that specialize in this. I used only two: jobs.cz and monster.cz. There are more job vacancies on the monster, but on job.cz they seemed to me better.
  
  
• It is always preferable to respond to positions published by the employer. In this case, the chance increases, since they do not need to pay bribes to the agency.
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• If the position is published by the agency, then you will be contacted by phone. Some prefer email, but for some reason most of them still call. Sometimes they call to ask questions, the answers to which they did not find in the resume, sometimes just to schedule an interview at the agency. An interview at an agency is usually a waste of time. You will be asked to go through your resume and you just have to retell it. Also ask about the money. Here you can safely give an interval with a slightly lower minimum. So the chance to get to more customers increases. And the client, you can call a little different numbers. If you like, then sometimes it passes.
  
  
• By the form of clothing, by experience, no one pays much attention. Exceptions if you take a high-level managerial position. Here a suit with a tie is necessary. And if on a programmer, a team leader or a tester, then it is possible both in a T-shirt and with piercing and with a haircut.
  
  
• It is better to choose the language of the conversation on the basis of which one speaks best. Even if you do not always understand. This gives an advantage over the interlocutor. I, for example, speak English better than Czech. And in an interview where I had to communicate in Czech, I always failed. Because of insecurity.
  
  
• At first, usually, the conversation is conducted by a personnel officer (HR). Here the questions are mainly why and why you change jobs, what you did on the previous one, social qualities, interpersonal skills and how much money you want. It's simple. It is necessary to answer with confidence and in the case. With a question about money, you need not make a bad bargain. They are always guided by the named amount. Bargaining is not accepted here, and if the amount is beyond their means, they will send you after a technical interview, regardless of its outcome. If you call a range, such as at least so much, and I would like so much, then always offer a minimum. So, here it is necessary carefully.
  
  
• The second interview (or the second part of the interview) with the techies. Here either they will offer a test, or they will ask tricky questions in their specialty (I remembered a few questions I was asked. You can find them below). By specialty, this does not mean that you answer these questions. Firstly, the nerves do not allow you to concentrate, and secondly, Java is large and versatile, you have forgotten something, but you never knew something. And questions are asked precisely on encyclopedic knowledge, and not on the flexibility of the mind. Answer what you know. If you do not know the answer, then say that you do not know without losing control over yourself and self-esteem. It is normal not to know something. Make it clear that knowing EVERYTHING is not at all necessary and in such cases Google helps and the smart books that you have. In general, the mention of smart books and especially the design of patterns is correct. The only thing they really need to know. Knowing only the names will help a little, if you have to explain what it is.
  
  
• Prepare for the fact that the technical interview can lead a person whose knowledge and experience is less than yours. In this situation, you should not bulge chest. He may not like it.
  
  
• If they offer a written test, the availability of a telephone with Internet access can be very useful. :)
  
  
• Czechs - big brakes. Sometimes they answer a few weeks or even months after you send your resume. The result of the interview also sometimes has to wait for weeks. From experience, remind yourself not worth it. Exceptions only in case this position is very interesting to you and you already have another proposal to which you need to respond.
  
  
• Black salaries are almost never offered. And if they offer, then go from there immediately and no longer come. It is undignified. :)
  
  
• Well, the last. Always remember that any interview is a lottery. Never be discouraged in case of failure. Even if you consider yourself an ideal candidate for this position, there will always be plenty of reasons to refuse you. But as the saying goes, that God does not do it, then for the better.

And finally, as promised, some questions from various interviews that I remember. I will not give answers (and I don’t even know one question). Discuss in the comments or look for answers on the Internet for yourself. :)

1. What is the difference between an abstract class and an interface? (Yes, such questions are also asked)
   
   
2. Why does the Object class have a hashCode () method and how is it related to the equals () method?
   
   
3. You build a cache. You need to remove some objects from the cache with each garbage collection. How to do it?
   
   
4. How to recover values ​​of transient class members after deserialization?
   
   
5. Differences between Adapter and Proxy patterns. Which of them in which case is better to apply.
   
   
6. What is Session Facade for?
   
   
7. Always ask questions on the Collection Framework and on threads and synchronization. What kind of lists are synchronized and which are not, the difference between Hashtable and HashMap, which is better for performance in which case.
   
   
8. You know what types of xml parsers and how they are conceptually different. Which one is better to use and when.
   
   
9. WSDL types and how they differ from each other.
   
   
10. How best to build a synchronized Collection of the usual.
    
    
11. Strangely enough, but questions on EJB usually do not ask. I came across only the most elementary and boring ones, about their types and methods of application.
    
    
12. The difference of yield () from sleep ().
    
    
13. What does the volatile modifier mean and why?
    
    
14. How can I change the thread state to WAITING?
    
    
15. How to release a dynamic change the date of the resource in the 24/7 system without redeployed?