Already learned it...or at least the basics of it. That does remind me though...anything else you guys think are important for college graduates to know about? Yaoluv mentioned servlets/J2EE which I've already looked a little bit into, and for database stuff, one of the recruiters recommended that I look into Spring and Hibernate (that's what the company used for their databases). I think I have some free time (for once) this weekend, so I'd like to at least start some basic tutorials for some of these.
I cant emphasize the importance of your appearance and personality enough. If you don't know how to dress up, go and learn. If your personality sucks, fake it for the interview. If you are called for an interview, chances are you have already caught their attention with the technical side of things. Now you need to show them that you have good work habits and that you are easy and fun to work with. Beat the college student thing by dressing as sharp as you can. Make sure that the suit FITS. Dont borrow someone else's suit. That's a no no. Shoulder fit is extremely important. Wear a french cuffed shirt with links. And yes spend some money on cuff links. It gives you a much more sophisticated look and helps them forget that you just finished college. Pay attention to posture. Walk around like you belong in the company. Walk and sit straight. Smile, smile, smile. Smile when you greet anyone. Smile while talking. Smile while listening. Not only does it show you are confident, it also helps the other person feel comfortable when talking to you. Avoid crap like "wanna", "Ya'all", "gotcha" You will be reinforcing the college thing. If you have to write stuff, make sure to know the difference between "there" and "their", "You're" and "your". These things will kill you. I am speaking from experience. When I talked to the people in my current company who offered me a job, they said, they had narrowed down the application pool based on qualification and GPA, and bla bla. We all had high GPA, research experience, and bla bla. I got the job because #1) I was dressed like I owned the company. #2) They liked me, not just based on my academic achievements but because of me. If you want to score some more points, do some research on the company/people interviewing you. Before I walked into the company, I had a list of people who were going to interview me. I did some research on them. I read their publications and what they had worked on. During the interview, I made it a point to bring their accomplishments up. Without going into details, I showed them that a)I can comprehend advanced technical journals b) I have researched the people I will be working with and I like them c) I have buttered them up. Dont over do it though and definitely dont come out looking like a stalker by mentioning their birthday, social security etc.
I'm not sure if nice suits are a good idea for most programmer interviews. I think you should dress like the people that you are going to work with. When I'm dressed in jeans and a linux tshirt and I am interviewing some dude in a nice fitted suit in doesn't give me the vibe that he will fit in here and I think it probably is awkward for him. When in doubt I think khakis and a button up shirt is always a good bet. Very few programmers dress up more than that on a day to day basis.
Doubt anyone really cares, but... Had another interview today, and it went really well I think. The interviewer sounded really impressed by the end of the interview, and I think I was much better at "selling" myself. Luckily for me, this interview was actually much more like what I expected my first interview to be like (the interviewer had a long list of questions prepared, which she would ask me), so I didn't have to worry too much about bringing up my accomplishments on my own (although I did). Interview was 45-50 minutes long IIRC, even though it wasn't supposed to be more than 30 minutes. The fact that I got there REALLY early and that the interview was going well made it easy for both of us to continue the interview for another 15-20 minutes. As with most on-campus interviews, she unfortunately doesn't have direct control over any job offers I might get (AFAIK?), but this should help me out a lot when it comes to applying to positions for this company (she should give some positive feedback). I have another interview tomorrow with a different company (a competitor actually), and hopefully I can expect to see similar results. Again, just want to say thanks to all the feedback I got.
