1.3. How to Avoid Blowing Your it Job Interview

What follows are IT hiring managers’ feedback on typical mistakes they’ve seen IT people make in interviews, along with what might have salvaged a scuttled job opportunity.

Mistake No. 1: Not asking questions because you already know it all

Not asking questions doesn’t just tell a hiring manager that you’re the wrong kind of thinker for the job; it can show an utter lack of curiosity and a prima donna’s belief that he knows everything there is to know.

Arnold Kirschner, currently an image artist, managed a high-tech pre-press department at a high-end printer for many years. He had to learn this lesson the hard way, after hiring a no-questions type.

This was pre-Macintosh, back when computers still cost an arm and a leg. Kirschner needed to hire somebody with a boatload of experience working with the new computers, then made by Scitex.

In hindsight, Kirschner realized that the star “asked very few questions and seemed to have all the answers,” he said. “I mistook that for extensive knowledge.”

The signs were there. Kirschner just didn’t clue in, blinded as he was by the star’s twinkle.

Some of the signs IT professionals give off that show they’re prima donnas as opposed to team players:

1. Not asking questions even when an interviewer gives you an opening.

Tip: Respectfully challenge the interviewer and show that you know how to accept criticism, Kirschner advised. At the very least, ask questions about the interviewer herself, recommended Mark Lyden, a Fortune 50 Lead Recruiter and author of the “Do This! Get Hired!” book series. For example, ask how the interviewer got started with the company, and ask for a little about her career.

2. Arrogant body language: Are you stiff? It can come off as arrogance.

Tip: Relax your body. It lets people know you’re open and approachable.

Mistake No. 2: Spewing acronyms

Bruce A. Hurwitz, president and CEO of Hurwitz Strategic Staffing, is no tech genius. He doesn’t specialize in tech placement, either, but sometimes his clients need somebody to, say, staff the help desk.

He’s encountered two types of IT professionals in a long career. The bad ones are those who “know their stuff, throw out all the acronyms, and talk about their business as though they are not speaking a foreign language,” he said, when in fact they spout what sounds like gobbledygook to the non-tech set. 

It’s not that these types are showing off. It’s just that they don’t know how to talk to non-IT people.

The second type of IT professionals—the kind he submits to his clients—both know their stuff and can explain it. “They take the mystery out of IT. They don’t make the interviewer feel like a dummy,” Hurwitz said.

Not that the acronym-addicted are talentless hacks. It’s just that, well, sometimes the brightest minds also have the most interesting workplace behavior, according to Elizabeth Lions, a career coach who specializes in high-tech professionals.

“One game is ‘knowledge is power’ and you don't have any—meaning they purposely do not disclose important information that can impact a project,” she said. This type of IT worker uses their introversion skills to observe and strategize, but not to disclose information—intentionally—to the detriment of the team.

They’re not all evil. Lions noted that engineers’ weakness correlates to their strength. “Their ability to have such a high intellect gives them a natural disconnect in terms of relating to others or building relationships within the office, which in an IT project is critical,” she said.

If the only way you can talk to people about technology is to sound like a user manual, non-IT interviewers may well get the impression that you lack confidence and have to turn conversations into “some sort of mystery—like physics or medicine—which only the initiated can understand,” Hurwitz said.

Tip: Remember to engage with the people in front of you. Never talk down to an interviewer.