How Ukrainian developers can pass an interview in English

Many gifted Ukrainian IT specialists do not have a lot of English speaking practice, therefore they are struggling with having interviews in English. This article contains the most frequently asked questions and it will be a real asset for some.

The goal of the article is to prepare open answers beforehand and feel confident during the interview in English.

This would be of interest to those IT specialists who are a good fit for dedicated teams. For middle front-end, back-end and full-stack developers with B1-B2+ level of English, theoretically for all developers (and designers) working in the IT industry.

To begin with, interview questions can be different. Be ready to improvise. There is no need for long complicated sentences. Your answers should be plain and straightforward. The most often asked questions are:

1. How many years of experience do you have?

• I have been a developer for 3 years.
• I have been programming for a couple of years.
• I have had 4 years of experience so far.
• For 2 years, I have been working as a software developer/engineer.
• Since 2016, I have started to work as a back-end developer.

2. Why did you decide to become a developer?

Think about this question on your own. What was your motivation? Some of the ideas are below:

• I agree with the famous utterance, "Math is the queen of all sciences." Since my school years, I always loved math and numbers and solving tasks. I graduated with a master's degree in applied mathematics so it was obvious and logical that I decided to become a developer.
• Having an analytical mindset, I love solving tasks on a daily basis. Finding a solution to a complex problem makes me happy and cheerful especially if I can solve the task that others were working on but failed.
• In my opinion, every person should be doing work to his or her liking in order to achieve greater results. I am passionate about coding, and seeing how our world is rapidly changing due to IT innovations is amazing. I am glad to be making my modest inputs."

3. What was your the most challenging project in your career?

Basically, there are no right or wrong answers. You can either emphasize all of your projects or the last one that has probably been the most complex in your development career by now.

• This is an interesting question. Basically, I cannot highlight the most complex project I have dealt with. All projects have been a challenge and a step forward in my career. Every project I worked on or was a part of helped me gain new skills and experience. Overall, all projects are different and require individual approaches.
• It's a question to think about... I think the most challenging project was the last one. It was a complex Marketplace in PHP for a client from Germany. Lots of custom-made plug-ins and features have been implemented there to meet all the client's requirements. Since it was from scratch, this web application was decided to build on a custom CMS. Missing the deadline, probably, was the most challenging part of the project but we succeeded."

4. What was your role in the project?

I was:

• a Technical Lead. My team consisted of 4 experienced developers overall.
• a Senior Developer. This has been an Agile development, so we had daily meetings with the client to stay on track and were ready to change the direction at any given moment if necessary.
• a Middle Front-end Developer. Working independently, I was in charge of the front-end part, CSS, HTML, and animation effects paying close attention to details and responsiveness so the website could look well on different types of devices.?

5. Are you going to have a vacation in two weeks?

Paraphrasing this question,?this means, "When can you start?" The interviewer simply wants to know whether he or she could count on you in the nearest future or not.

• No, I have just had a vacation and I am full of enthusiasm to get to work and I am available upon request.
• I understand how it is important for you to start working on your project ASAP and I can assure you I am available to start working when needed. I am finishing with my current project and will be available in the beginning of the next week."

6. What new technology are you going to learn?

Be sincere and honest. You could say that you are going to either deepen your knowledge in your main tech stack or learn a new technology that is currenty in demand on the market.

• Well, I see that React is becoming more and more popular so in my spare time and on weekends, I learn this JavaScript library.
• Attending a tech event last month, I heard that Blockchain is one of the most popular technologies nowadays. I always wanted to know more about cryptocurrency so now I got the motivation to kick it off.

Bottom line

Above are the most frequently asked questions. However, there are some questions you cannot be prepared beforehand to. For example:

- Are you working during the winter holidays?

Or even more personal ones like:

• Do you have brothers and sisters?
• What are your plans for the future?
• Have you traveled abroad?

Use meaningless phrases to fill the gaps

While using some words and word combinations that have no special meaning we can think of the things we are going to talk about further. A few seconds could give you an advantage and let you sound naturally and fluently. These phrases include: “Let me think about it,” “It's an interesting question,” “What I can say,” “Well,” “You know,” etc. If you were unable to hear the speaker properly, do not hesitate to ask: “Could you repeat your last question once again, please?”, “There have been some connection problems, I misheard your question. Can you repeat it, please?”

What should be paid attention to:

1. Tenses. When speaking use correct tenses. “I have been a developer for 2-5 years”, “It was an interesting project”, etc.

2. Prepositions. I will call you at 3 pm. The project will be finished by/on Monday, in September… It is running on Magento and written in PHP; I work as a developer at/for a Company (in IT).

3. Gerunds. Use verbs in the -ing form (gerunds) after prepositions. “I am capable of dealing with these sort of tasks”, “Now, I am working on developing a module for a WP website”, etc.

4. Articles. Do not forget that each noun requires an article (‘a’, ‘the’, ‘no article’).?“Last month, I worked on a project. The project was based on the Laravel PHP Framework.”

Conclusion

Finally, my advice to you would be:

English has been, is and will be the language number one in the world. Find someone to talk to in English. The most important thing is having everyday practice to be confident and develop fluency. Watch TED Talks or inspirational and motivational videos of famous speakers like Brian Tracy with English subtitles on YouTube, read articles on Medium, Quora, etc. paying attention to sentence structure, word order, prepositions, and articles; write and speak to your colleagues/coworkers in English (it is free of charge) and they, in turn, could be writing and speaking at the same language as well (it is going to be good practice for you both) and the last but not least try thinking in English. Nothing is easy at the beginning but all is possible with practice.

Wish you all success in having your interviews in English!

Tags: #interviews, #english, #tech, #developers, #IT, #Ukrainian, #grammar, #preparation