More the reverse angle - tips from interviewers to interviewees of what not to do…
1/ Don’t lie. If I find out you’ve lied on your cv, you’re not getting the job. If you’ve stretched the truth and can spin it well, that’s ok
2/ Don’t claim to be an expert after using something for 3-6 months. Not good, especially when it’s in with a lot of other things you’ve been doing in that time period.
3/ Don’t expect stock interview questions. Yes, there will be some technical questions that you will be expected to answer.
4/ I don’t care about your knowledge of prior versions. Unless you’ve used them that is. Well done on taking an interest in the history of the product but it’s your experience with it I’m after.
5/ If you don’t know, say so. You don’t know what the criteria for the successful candidate is. While there may be ten things on the requirements list, the salary will reflect how many the interviewer expects competency in. You also won’t know what emphasis is placed on each of these and it may be the case that you’re trying to feign knowledge in our strongest area so we’re treating it purely as a bonus if you know it.
If in doubt, be honest, but be enthusiastic without sounding like you do nothing else in your life.
I agree with you 101% . If people lie at the interview, one thing is certain that they will continue to lie after they are hired. Nobody wants a liar in his/her team.
Unfortunately, most people will never be honest at the job interview. That’s why it takes a competent manager to weed out the liars.
While we recruited some people for BO, I asked a guy, “Tell me, what is the biggest challenge you faced while working with BO.”, I was shocked to hear him saying, “Hey, nothing is too hard for me and I found nothing tough.” (The funny thing is he was not able to answer even a simple question.)
One more guy, showed up again after I interviewed him a few weeks back with a new identity.(because the company has a rule that a candidate who appeared in the past 6 months shouldn’t appear again.) As soon as I saw him, I drove him out without asking a single question.
Clearing the interview mostly is not related to the Skill , the attitude / honesty really matters and continuing in the job after the interview depends upon how you move forward and how your attitude is.
To be honest, Most importantly, getting a job is not in our hands, it is in his hands who rules us and everything (Atleast in my experience)
What Mark said is the most important thing. Honesty and Integrity is the most desierable thing in any organization.
Also your confidence tells a lot, You should be relaxed and not worry about anything. I have seen some people even go with their blue tooth on with the hiring manager , wrong thing to do turn your damn cell phone off.
I have given so many interviews and i would say my success rate is 90%, most common thing i do is prepare about the subject and also i put extra effort to know some thing about the person i am going to meet at my interview appointment i.e(which school they attended, how long he or she lived in the area). Your recruiter can help you with that as well, since professional service providing companies have good friendships with hiring managers and their direct reports.
It could potentially freak out an interviewer - stalking isn’t cool…
A quick search on the company’s website may turn up some news about the individual, especially more senior ones. It may be useful to formulate a question for the “so, any questions for us” bit near the end of the interview.
It’s natural to be a little nervous about jobs, especially the ones you really want.
Mark,
I agree that stalking isn’t cool, and I am not talking about stalking or asking so many personal questions “out of subject”. Think about from relatability perspective, people do business with who they feel comfortable around and people like to talk about themself. i.e.(I got my MBA from Colombia University , my daughter’s team won the soccer game last weekend, i mean it goes on and on)
This is only when you first time meet them , and they walk you to the interview room or take an elevator, etc… I do that all the time, and it works for me
I will be very clear again. I don’t have a set list of questions.
Each BusinessObjects role will have a different list of criteria.
I may want a junior reporter.
I may want an experienced administrator
I may want a good all rounder whose key strengths are Designer and ETL skills with good dimensional modelling.
If I was applying for the last of those jobs and someone were to ask me to name all the report formats that a file could be saved as, I’d seriously consider if I wanted the role. There are no hard and fast set of questions for you to bluff your way through. I want to know what you can do with the tool and more importantly what you have done with the tool.
well i have prepared reports for Clients across the globe. Developed universe and administered a system of 1500 users solving there problems and montoring server.
I just wanted to go through the questions so that i can just have an idea of questions coming my way
Looking at your experience and the role you do at moment, you should be answering any question if some one asks you. Ask question yourself, then you get the answer from the works you done. If your looking for interview questions, please refer the sticky post.
thats the problem i am no longer involved with the project. So i am just losing the grip on things.
BTW i worked on BO 6.5 and now we have requirements for BO XI so probably stuck in current situation.
I wouldn’t worry. As long as you can explain what you’ve done with a level of authority and assure me that you could do it again, that’s fine. Most of my questions are about how you’d approach things - that’s far more important to me than whether you can remember every option from a drop down list.
If you’re getting “stock questions” - the ones that you’ve seen the downloads - then that’s only a starter for ten. Most interviews will vary depending upon what role you’re going for. Again, you’ve not specified that so I cannot be more specific myself.
Only just seen these so I’ll run through each question from an interviewer’s perspective:
> Difference between vertical and the cross tab report, Challenges in using cross tab report table
Interviewer’s comment: Sounds like whoever has set the question has a real issue with crosstabs. Basic answer is having objects on both axes in a crosstab, ranking can present issues when ranking by horizontal objects but other answers may or may not vary depending upon the BO version. Again, not a great question.
> limitaion of cross tab report
Interviewer’s comment: This is a strange question. There is no context to the question. It sounds like whoever has pulled the question together has come across something very precise they were unable to do (e.g. merging cells in the footer) and it has exploded into a generic question where you must have encountered the same situation. Poor question
If I was asked it: I’d ask when comparing it to what?
> difference between multi data provider report and the single dataprovider report
Interviewer’s comment: OK, reasonably basic question. If they can’t answer this in its most basic form (1 query versus more than 1 query, then it’s not good)
> challenges of multidata provider report
Interviewer’s comment: Understanding what you’re bringing in, managing merged dimensions. The merged dimensions part is important.
> why two data providers are created and used to synchronized, why cant we have only one data provider?
Interviewer’s comment: Grammatically poor question. Probably wrong as well. A single data provider can show as synchronised - it will be where the objects come from more than one context and there is an imbalance of dimensions between the two contexts. The question is wrong so you’ve got no chance with the answer!
> what is the consequence/challenges of using linked universes
Interviewer’s comment: If you’ve never used linked universes, say so. If you’ve used them, explain what issues you’ve faced. There is no right or wrong answer, it’s just what you’ve encountered.
(BOB member since 2006-02-08)
(BOB member since 2008-05-12)
. If people lie at the interview, one thing is certain that they will continue to lie after they are hired. Nobody wants a liar in his/her team.
(BOB member since 2004-01-16)
(BOB member since 2004-01-29)
