Interviewing for a part time internship for Entry Level IT. I am a full time student Comp Sci major and wanna go into networking, servers, security, so hopefully this gets me my foot in the door. I am a terrible soft skills person and really nervous. My friends told me to print out my resume and transcripts, I will surely do that. Anybody got anything else to suggest?

Update: I got the position! I honestly didn't even prepare for it, didn't even know what the company did. The comment that talked about learning to search things up was right on, they asked me what I would do if I didn't know how to do something. I answered "looking things up, asking others, and consult documentation." The company seemed really cool and is structured pretty much like Valve Corp in that they wanted jacks of all trades and it was company owned.

Thank you for all the helpful advice. It definitely helped me out, and hopefully, it helps others out as well.

  • Pulptastic@midwest.social
    ·
    19 days ago

    Be prepared to talk about class projects you've done, what went well, what didn't go well and how you'd improve that next time. If you do any extracurriculars like clubs, game night, or even a frat, include that as it shows you can be social.

  • dirtybeerglass [none/use name]
    ·
    20 days ago
    1. Force yourself to smile and say something f like “good to meet you” or “thanks for seeing me” . Soft skills come naturally to some, but the tricks can be learned by anyone and are based on manners.

    2. Have a couple of anecdotes about your approach to problem solving. Doesn’t matter what they are, there is no right or wrong answer, just have your approach ready in your head.

    3. If its help desk, say you like helping people. One line i used a long time ago, was something like “I am quite shy on the telephone, but i actually helping people with technical problems “. It’s just keeping it real, a credible .

    4. Consider de-emphasising your technical ambitions. They’ll have a dozen people saying they want to be a CCIE or data scientists or whatever the current flavour is.

    Instead, I’d with “I’m doing well on with compsci degree, I don’t have any difficulties with the technical aspects, but I really want to see how my skills fit into a company, and make a start on understanding the realities of a business environment “

    They want some one they can worth with, they can worth with almost anyone , but they won’t want to work with an “unknown”, so the more you can give - no matter who you are - the better.

    You got it.

  • golden_zealot@lemmy.ml
    ·
    19 days ago

    Hell yea, glad you got it. I have my third interview at a software company later today, here's hoping.

    Networking/security is some really neat stuff, I have dabbled as I used to work doing systems stuff, but moved to robotics automations after that. See if you can get your new employer interested in paying a bit for you to get certs at some point (often if you bring it up that you want some cert, they might be interested in putting some percentage of money towards helping you get it), Network+ and those other Cisco certs are pretty sought after as I understand it and could definitely help progress your career.

    Also welcome to the industry!

  • Breath_Of_The_Snake [they/them, comrade/them]
    ·
    20 days ago

    If the interviewer brings up personal life/trying to get to k ow you stuff be totally willing to expand on your interests. The interviewer is filtering k personal skills. Simply being able to talk about a hobby is a form of bridge building between people they seem to value. Create a script. Imagine a person asks you about your free time, have conversations in your head with the fictional person.

    Do the same for talking points related to your resume. Everything you put on there is a potential question they’ll ask. For example, put that you have experience with security and they are you to ask about what you’ve done or know regarding that. Pre-write an answer.

    My best advice is thus: pretend to be a jacksss gatekeeper and read your application from that perspective. Write down your critique. In your head argue against that and write it down. Memorize those talking points.

  • lemmyseizethemeans@lemmygrad.ml
    ·
    edit-2
    19 days ago

    Hope I'm not too late. I just interviewed over a dozen people for an IT position so I have some experience as an employer

    Be enthusiastic, be confident, if you don't know the answer say 'i don't know but I'll Google it later!' because tech skills are not as important sometimes, it's more like how will you get along with the team. Treat it as a fun opportunity to talk about your goals. Make sure you ask them questions, like what is the rest of the onboarding process like, how many more interviews, are the opportunities to grow in this position, is this a new position or am I filling in for someone who left? How many people on my team? And then end the interview by saying 'i look forward to working with you'

    Be confident, be enthusiastic. You got this

    • /home/pineapplelover@lemm.ee
      hexagon
      ·
      19 days ago

      This is a pretty good answer. I tried to be as enthusiastic as possible, asked lots of questions and being curious. Also, I admitted to not knowing some stuff like when they asked about EDR, I admitted I forgot what the acronym stood for. One other person also said they forgot what it stood for as well.