 |
Originally posted at my company blog at http://blog.avanadeadvisor.com/blogs/waynea When I joined Avanade a while back, one of the most frusterating things at the time was the complete lack of information on what the Avanade interview process is, what to expect, how Avanade interviews, etc. These are things that are invaluable when you are making your preparation, and help you to concentrate on specific aspects of your interview material to ensure that you are prepared. After talking with one of our corporate recruiters, he indicated that this process is by no means secret, and there shouldn't be a problem disclosing how my recruiting process was done. Please note that this is just one person's remote interview experience (mine) running through the recruiting process as a System Engineering consultant for Avanade's west region. The Initial Contact The first contact from avanade will come via email, either in response to a resume sent or from one of the Avanade recruiters responding to a resource that you have posted online. The email is mostly the standard fare: "Well we see something that piqued our interest and would like the opportunity to see if you are a good fit for a position we have in mind." The Recruiter Interview Once you setup a time (and it could take a little bit, be patient), a recruiter will setup a call to discuss the possibilty of a position with Avanade. This call will cover most of the standard fare: a bit of background into who and what Avanade is, the prospective position and its duties, some of the basic frequently asked questions about who and what Avanade is, and then the rest of the interview is basically the recruiter trying to get a pulse about who you are as a technologist. Is a position with Avanade going to be a good fit for you? Are you someone with a passion to train your technology skills incessantly? Are you someone who is going to have any kind of problem with constant travel? Are you a good fit for Avanade's corporate culture? Falconic word to the wise: Understand that as an Avanade consultant, you could be literally 100% travel for several months at a time, or be 0% travel for a while. If you would not do well with 100% out of state travel for 2-3 months at a time (back weekends in most cases, but the term can sometimes be more), this may not be a good fit for you. Also, understand that as consultants it is part of our job to be on or (preferably) ahead of the curve, if you are looking to either remain a generalist for a while, or to find a job where you are not required to constantly be learning something new, this may not be a good fit for you. The First Technical Interview The next step, of course, if you are deemed to possibly be a good cultural fit for Avanade, is to get some idea of your technical skill and whether you bring to bear the specific skills that Avanade is looking for in thier technologists. I can only speak to what this interview is for a System Engineer. My interview covered a host of subjects along the lines of Active Directory, Server 2003, a touch of Exchange, a touch of SMS 2003, general network and server concepts, and a few questions on high availibility configurations. Personally, I stumbled a bit on this interview because at the time I had not worked with Active Directory as thoroughly in recent times as I had when AD came out and my Active Directory knowledge suffered accordingly. Understand that there is a real person at the other end of the phone that knows that you arent going to know everything. Falconic word to the wise: It's ok to say "I dont know". Making something up or trying to sound good to someone who knows the subject when you really dont is never a good choice. Some people feel they have to answer every question in interviews. During a technical, demonstrate where your strength is but dont be afraid to have some weaknesses. Avanade is looking for strong Microsoft technologists, not the perfect one that knows everything. The Second Technical Interview Following your first technical, hopefully a few days later you recieve an email inviting you to the next stage of interviews. For me, this was really two rounds of interviews at once in person at the local Avanade office. The first of the two was an in person technical interview with a local system engineering consultant doing exactly what I wanted to do right then. This interview spread a few questions around where I wanted to go technically, where I felt (technologically) my strengths lie. We then started another Q&A phase looking over various application infrastructures including IIS, sharepoint, high avaibility clustering, and SQL Server. As I understand it since joining, what questions you get and where they focus is really based on the experience of the interviewer. The technical interview lasted about an hour and then I was returned to wait for my in-person HR interview. Falconic word to the wise: I cannot stress enough that "I dont know" and "I have not worked with that much" are perfectly acceptable honest answers. The Director Interview The second stage of the in-person interviews was a Director level interview with one of the Practice Directors (one of the people responsible for Technology Infrastructure for a given area of the region). One of the first things he said to me was that his job was to figure out if there was a place for me at Avanade and where to begin. This interview covered a good bit of my background, both from an HR perspective, and on a technical level. We discussed some of my goals and passions for technologists, where I thought my value lies for Avanade to hire me on, as well as my thoughts on various technical subjects and initiatives along the way. Summary Some of the keys to success in the avanade interview process for me:
Keep in mind these are just my personal thoughts on the process, a single perspective, on a process that can vary quite a bit from region to region and even from interviewer to interviewer.
|
|
