Interview - Brushing up on IT Knowledge.

Mondez

googler wrote: »

What are programming and software engineering skills, if they're not IT skills? They're certainly not inter-personal skills, are they?

Copy/pasting, formatting text within Word, using formulas in Excel, resizing cells, creating slides in Powerpoint, etc are not IT skills, in my book. They're techniques for the use of the program concerned by the end-user. The skills used to create Word and Excel are IT skills.

By the same token, the skills used to write a mainframe-based application in (say) Cobol, with a database such as DB2, are IT skills - the person who logs in as an end-user and uses that program isn't using any IT skills, other than having been shown how to use the PC or terminal which accesses the program, and how to use the program itself.

I'll grant you that software development skills are a subset of IT skills, but IT skills encompass all those skills you appear to deem mundane, such as using word processing and spreadsheet software. As a result those who want to show off their more involved skills don't refer to them as IT skills.

gb12345

Different terms for different situations.

I work in IT and my CV has a section for IT Skills, where I list things such as my familiarity with programming languages, SQL skills and familiarity with specialist applications. Nowhere in my CV does it state my skills at using MS Office - if you have worked in the IT industry for any length of time then it is taken as a given that you will have sufficient skills to be able to work with the standard applications suites.

If you were applying for an non-IT role then I would agree that it would be expected for the CV to include an IT skills section and that would detail your skills with Word, Excel etc.

Mirno

You need to know what the role entails, and brush up on that.
No point reviewing your sed & awk if you'll be a VBA monkey, and vice versa.

The_Hurricane

At the moment there is not much to go on, below is a link to the company. The job I applied for is an entry level IT graduate role and I've heard the technical questions are asked at the interview and I don't want to be caught cold.

http://www.allstate.com/about/Northern-Ireland/overview.aspx

neilwoods

Well lets put it this, you have a week then to learn all types of programming languages and know how servers work.

No disrespect, but don't you think you should have though about all this before applying.

gb12345

The company seems to have various vacancies available, but they all seem to be for specific roles, which would have specific technical knowledge requirements. Add that to the fact that the company seems to be involved in everything from development to outsourcing then the role could be for a myriad of things.

Have you been provided with/asked for a job specification for the role?

It would be very difficult to know what to study just based on the generic "Entry level IT graduate role". For example, if the job is a support desk role then the technical questions would be totally different than if it was a trainee developer role. If it truely is a a general IT trainee role and they will pigeon-hole you once they have seen where your skills lie, then it is likely that they will ask you about the type of things you would have learnt on an IT degree - so think basic computer architecture, non-language specific programming etc.

Are you applying through an agency or directly through the company's HR dept? I would get in touch with the person arranging the interview and find out exactly what the role involves, so you can target your studying to that area.

closed

Jobs within Allstate NI's project development teams include working on a range of technologies including older legacy systems such as Cobol, DB2 etc right through to more modern technologies such as Java, C++ and .Net.

googler

Mondez wrote: »

I'll grant you that software development skills are a subset of IT skills, but IT skills encompass all those skills you appear to deem mundane, such as using word processing and spreadsheet software. As a result those who want to show off their more involved skills don't refer to them as IT skills.

IT could be defined as 'the creation and maintenance of systems to store and manipulate data'. You need IT skills, in my view, to create and amend such systems.

The skills that allow you to use Word, Excel, etc. won't allow you to build such a system, with the exception of perhaps the VBA extension to Excel, and Microsoft Access.

It's got nothing to do with regarding the Word/Excel skill set as 'mundane' (your word, not mine), nor anything to do with showing off, merely a conviction that building IT systems can't effectively be done with Word, Excel, Powerpoint and/or Outlook.

gb12345

IT stands for Information Technology - which encompasses the use of standard office applications such as Word, Excel and Lotus Notes.

As I said in an earlier post, what is meant by IT skills in a particular situation really depends on the job that is being applied for - an office job asking for IT skills probably means able to use Word/Excel to a sufficient level. An IT job asking for IT skills will be looking for the programming/analysis/support skills relevant to that particular job.

albionrovers

For an IT post, Microsoft is expected and wouldn't even take up space on my CV ....