Technical Test

I had the technical test yesterday and I ended up not all that nervous really. I think the guy who met me in reception seemed more nervous than me ha ha. So I was left in a room with a multiple choice paper - what could go wrong? It was hard that's what! Although probably not that hard if you had used ASP.NET and Web Forms and stuff on a day to day basis. You see the first two pages were ASP and HTML which I'd not really been expecting and hadn't even looked at in revision. Which meant that I had to drag the syntax for ASP out of the depths of my brain! But they were okay, whilst the HTML ones seemed really easy. So I'm sure the other questions weren't too bad if you were experienced using them.

They were very involved with long descriptions on what development you were hypothetically doing and the actions you were trying to take. And then some of the answers were long too with lots of different actions in different orders. So to be honest I took an awful lot of educated guesses - especially with the SQL ones. But it worked. I have a second interview.

Im a little surprised really as I'm sure I couldn't have scored too well. But there are a couple of factors which I think made the difference.

• I met two ex-colleagues there out of the blue who are now working for the company and they said they'd put a good word in for me.
  
• The company is local to me but that's not local to most people and so it's reasonably hard to get to unless you live in north Kent.


• They lost two developers before Christmas and have lots of work coming in and so they need people to replace them pretty quickly.


• I was the only person there yesterday and the advert was only there for a week so was I the only person to apply?

If I say any of this to Rob he'll tell me off for putting myself down! :)

Still I have a second interview and I just have to wow them now. I am slightly concerned because I did find the test hard and really didn't know much of the stuff and so I am obviously not up to speed and if I do get the job I will need some help and training to start with. I have to figure out how to best present myself whilst making sure they understand this. Hmmm!