About the Interview

I did an interview with a research center at UBC, for an open position of programmer/analyst, performing data extraction and analysis tasks.
This job fits my background perfectly. I did data analysis and prediction on a huge real-world dataset in my master study. I also love this job coz it requires Unix experience and shell scripting skills.

I thought my interview was successful initially. However, I have been contacted after one week and I start to doubt whether I have survived the interview.

The interview was conducted by a 5-person team consist of two technical managers, two programmers, and one operation manager. I was asked various questions for about one hour.

I believe that I have passed most of the technical questions, but I think that I might have missed two important personality questions.

The first question was "What is the first three strong points that people will say about you, when we ask for a reference" (something like that)
I remember that I said those three strengths: creativity, programming skills, and organizational skills.
Apparently, I haven't really prepared to be interviewed with this question. However, this question is just a variation of "strength" questions or like.
I should answer the question with more thoughts and be consistent with my resume. I should have answered, fast-learner, self-starter, and organizational skills or programming skills.
I think that those three answers are much better than my original answer.
I could use "scjp", "R", and "Latex" as my fast-learning examples.
"Latex" and "Perl" could be two good examples of self-starter.
Organizational skills are easy to prove.

The second question is closely related to the first question. I didn't answer it very well, either.
It's about my weakness, when it is asked from referrer.
I responded with a very stupid answer, "communication problem, because of multi-culture conflict". That's really bad, coz nobody would like to hire a people with communication problem.
To make things even worse, I cited two examples for this question. That's damn stupid!
I now have a better answer and it is also the fact, that my writing skills are not perfect. With this answer, it is so understandable and it won't affect my personal image, I think, because you can always improve the writing skills.

Anyway, I think that those two dumb answers might have ruined my interview if I am rejected. Sigh! I really love this job.

I'll contact the operation manager tomorrow for the result, if any.

Be more prepared, next time.