Interview Tips?

[Chris1712]

Evening all. I've got an interview tomorrow at Broadcom for a one year internship, and I'm after some pointers because its where I really, really want to be next year.

Anyway, I've already got through the phone interview and supposedly these formal interviews are down to the last 4 candidates, for 2 jobs. I think I'm fairly clued up on the technical side of things I need to know (Real Time OS, Interrupts, Thread control, semaphores, context switching, stack control and scheduling. For those that are interested!). I'm hoping the interview is mostly technical anyway.

I'm more concerned about the corporate blurb. Eg.

"Describe a time when you used initiative in a team"
"Tell us about a time you worked under pressure to a deadline and delivered exceptional results"

And other such BS infused questions. I understand that these are really, perfectly valid questions, it's just at this point in my 'career' I don't really have any relevant experiences!

So, what have people in my position said about? I do have 3 years of retail experience at the purple shirts, but my intelligence was hardly stretched there .

 

[Chris1712]

Experience doesn't always have to relate to career, although it helps.

Are there any examples outside of work where you've done the above?

Voluntary work
Personal work (own websites, home networks, interest in the field)

There must have been some experiences at PCW..
Explaining the jargon in plain english to the inept
Dealing with large volumes of people over xmas
Being a supervisor while your boss was off


Dig deep, there will be examples.

I do have all three of those in my CV, in more or less words. It's just trying to think of specific examples. Working there has actually helped me no end in terms of personal development.

I guess your right though, will have to delve into my PC World memories.

 

[Chris1712]

Bit of a bump guys, but just saying I GOT THE JOB!

12 month placement starting september, Broadcom in Bristol which mostly deals with TV related hardware, SKY HD boxes for instance are designed and developed there, along with some networking equipment and video processing chips for Samsung tv's. Should be a giggle!

 

[Chris1712]

Well done. Hope some advice here helped!

The interview was a bit of a joke tbh. I'd already had lots of contact with the managers there as I was so keen on the job, they kind of knew who I was anyway.

I literally sat there chatting about home cinema stuff with two of the managers, and they asked me two pretty simple tech questions seemingly because they had to tick a box on a sheet!

Meanwhile, my mates in the next room getting absolutely grilled on video/audio compression algorithms! He got the job aswell though, can't wait! Need to pass this year of uni now :s.