Interview Mantra

You are a software developer/tester sitting in an interview, trying to get this great job. Dozens of applicants are waiting in the hall for their turn. Your chances don’t look high. How can you stand out from the crowd?

“So, what web framework does your company use to develop your sites?”, you ask in the middle of the interview to show interest.

“Oh we use here Django framework for web development along with PostgreSQL DB” – The interviewer replies (like you didn’t know !)

“That’s a great web framework. I hope you use version 1.1.1″ – You mention.

“No, we actually use 1.0. Why?”

“Well, you better upgrade quickly. All versions up to 1.1.1 are vulnerable to DOS attack. There is a bug in the way Django validates forms in these versions, in particular emails and URLs. An attacker can craft a special URL string that when used in a form would bring the site down. It has been fixed in 1.1.1″

The interviewer raises his head from your application form and looks at you with a new appreciation in his look. Your mission is almost complete. The other applicants would need to work really hard to beat that.

The above kind of interview is not accidental and can happen with a little planning. The key is to come to an interview prepared with knowledge about bugs. Yes, bugs. Demonstrating your knowledge about the latest bugs in relevant software will greatly improve your chances to get the Job. Moreover, if you can also suggest during the interview, workarounds to these bugs, the sky is the limit!

Let’s review the stages needed to use bugs to get you a job:

1. Before the interview, do a research on what specific technologies and products are used in the desired company. Taking your time to do this research is crucial. Especially, try to find out which specific software is being used and how. Even if you fail to find too many details, every technical detail you find can be priceless during a second or third round of interview with a technical interviewer.

2. Find what major issues were found using the software. For this you can use specialized Bug search engines like BugSpy.net. BugSpy crawls the web in search of the latest bug reports in open source software. It tries to display only open bugs. Using this search engine you can find many interesting bug reports about many products.

3. Once you’ve identified few interesting (and relevant) bugs, find more about these bugs and about possible solutions for them.

4. Be prepared to raise those bugs in the interview. Wait for your chance to discuss the technologies used. Plan ahead how you would show off your knowledge. Sure, you can’t guarantee that the interview goes the technical direction you want (namely discussing bugs on some specific software product), but you can try to steer the conversation to this direction. This should be your game plan.

5. When the opportunity comes in the interview, pull out this rabbit out of your hat. Make it appear like it is your regular knowledge – not something you worked hard to find out.

Hopefully, this tip will help you and will greatly impress your interviewer.