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One of the biggest challenge for a lot of junior OBIEE professionals is to excel at interviews. In the past few years, I have had the opportunities to both take interviews for the new project and to interviews other candidates for projects that I had. When it comes to interview for OBIEE, specially when this is not an entry level opening, my goal as the interviewer is to find out what kind of experience the candidate has, that's all.
I am sure there are many ways to get to know the candidate's experience, but there are some very common questions that I have been asked and also used during the interview. The question sounds very casual, yet it is in my opinion the most important question that I can ask in order to generate my first impression of the candidate, specially when the interview is done over the phone. Ironically. so many candidates have come unprepared for this question. Want to know what it is?
It is:
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COULD YOU PLEASE TELL ME A LITTLE BIT ABOUT YOU?
You see, this is a very open-ended question. It is one of the best way for me to know the way you perceive yourself, the way you communicate to me and the way you organize your thoughts when it comes to presenting yourself.
The most common response that I have gotten from candidate is this:
Hi my name is so and so ----duh? you think I don't have your resume in front of me?.
I went to such and such university ----- Thanks for the info, but who cares.
I have been doing OBIEE for 8 years ------well I can read, but talk is cheap.
My first project is blah blah blah, my role was blah blah blah, my responsibility was blah blah,
then I went to this project and my role was blah blah, then third project blah blah. ---- I am bored just listening to all this and still have no clue who you are..
You see, this is the common answers I got 8 out of 10 times. So at the end, how am I going to make a decision if every candidate speaks the same way?
So here is how to make yourself stand out by answering this question the right way.
1. Don't state any facts that you have already listed on your resume. It is ok to mention it here and there, but don't need to make it sound like it is scripted.
2. Focus on talking about how you have come along all these years, what your experience was like. How did you started in this field and what have you learned.
3. Talk about your understanding of OBIEE. If you have been doing OBIEE for years, you are likely to have developed your philosophy and understanding of the technology and the project implementation. State your belief and explain why it makes sense to you over the years. This demonstrates not only you can think on your own, but also is the best way to prove to others that you do have experience.
4. Last but not least, talk about the values you have contributed to your past projects. This is not the same as stating your role and responsibility as those I can read on your resume. Your contribution would be anything challenging your project has faced, and how you helped overcoming these challenges. It could be how to make the unreasonable deadline, how to significantly improve the performance which was killing the project, how you have created a system or a process that optimized the implementation of the project. Dig deep and show them what value you can provide.
Prepare to talk for no more than 5 minutes, Chances are, you will be interrupted as a lot of the interviewers like to pick up some key words you say and start asking questions related to it. If they do, then just go along and drop your story. The key here is to be creative, to relax and present yourself professionally. I guarantee this is the most popular question in any interviews. Mastering how to answer this question will not only get you far in OBIEE, but just about any interviews. I seriously advice to do some research and prepare yourself for this question.
Now just as a bonus, I will reveal you another question that I like to ask my candidates. You see, I am not too crazy about spending 1 hour grilling you with one technical question to another, as most of those questions can be researched online or geekinterview, it doesn't showcase your experience and skills. Sure I may ask 1 or 2 of those questions, such as 'what is hierarchy?', 'what is star-schema?', 'How to configure Ibots?'. But trust me, anybody who do some research will easily find the answer of those, and I am getting bored with it.
The second question that I like to ask right after you have bored me to death with your self-intro is:
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Are you ready?
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COULD YOU TELL ME WHAT IS OBIEE?
ah ha, so what is OBIEE?
OBIEE is Oracle Business Intelligence Enterprise Edition ------- Duh? You think I don't know?
OBIEE is a reporting tool -------- Well, so is excel.
OBIEE can create charts and graphs ---- So can excel, but excel is free.
I am not going to tell you what is OBIEE as there is no one standard way of answering it. While this may give you some ideas, I still want you to do some research on this. But keep in mind, what is it about OBIEE that costs so much more money than excel? If you are the Oracle sales and you try to convince me the CEO to buy OBIEE with millions of dollars, how would you do it? Think of it NOT just from what technical features OBIEE has, think of it from a higher level perspective as what benefit does OBIEE provide to my business. This is the best way you can showcase your knowledge and experience of OBIEE.
Now go research. If you want, feel free to post your findings on the comment box.
Until next time
