2024-08-06 –, Florentine B
our resume “worked.” You talked with the recruiter. Now it’s time for the Real Interviews. But do you know how you’re being judged? What methods the firm is using to evaluate candidates? Sure, you’re going to get some questions about EDR and VPC flow logs and lateral movement. But what about those other questions, like “tell me about your greatest failure” and “how would you handle a disagreement with your boss?”
In this session, we will walk through the theory behind behavioral interviewing and the ways it commonly manifests in the interview process. We will discuss how interviewers - both well- and poorly-trained - select questions and evaluate answers. And then we will walk through the entire interview, from invitation to waving good-bye, and optimize it. We will discuss specific techniques you can use to leave a better impression and firmly establish yourself in the interviewers’ minds as a prime candidate.
Most interviews do not result in a job offer. In large part, this is because interviewing is a game of first impressions, and interviewing processes intentionally create a power imbalance that puts candidates off-balance and prevents them from appearing at their best. The combination of these factors - the power imbalance, the uncertainty, and the low success rate - makes interviewing a highly stressful activity.
The single most powerful factor we can change in this equation is the interviewee’s self-confidence during the process. Self-confidence for “technical types” usually is the result of deeper knowledge: both of the “correct” answer to give to a problem AND the theoretical underpinnings of why that answer is “correct”.
We will discuss both in this talk. We will spend the first third reviewing the underpinnings of “behavioral interviewing,” discussing the theory itself and how that theory shapes the questions and agenda for the interview process. The bulk of the talk will be working through preparations and techniques for a “typical” behavioral interview. We will look at how to communicate and interact with the recruiter; how to prepare in advance for any interview in general and this company’s position in specific; how to enter the building, the lobby, and the interview room; positioning techniques you can use once you’re in the room; and how to buy yourself fifteen seconds of critical thinking time to help answer difficult questions.
Jason Fredrickson is the Managing Director of software development for Aon Cyber Solutions, the arm of the services firm dedicated to helping clients achieve cyber resiliency. Jason graduated with a degree in computational physics from Harvey Mudd College and then got his "MBA" at the School of Hard Knocks with a succession of failed startups during the late 90s. Since then, he's been running software development teams in the cyber security industry and building online platforms used by tens and hundreds of thousands of users worldwide. He's never afraid to ask the stupid question and dedicates his time to making people 42% more awesome. In his spare time, he builds Lego and practices Taekwondo with his daughter.