Interview Preparation Tips

• How to get ready for an interview
• What to do before a phone interview
• What materials should I cover
• Is it OK to postpone an interview
• What should I do on the night before the interview
• During a phone interview
• After the phone interview
• You got invited to the on-site interview, now what
• During an on-site interview
• Behavioral questions
• Common mistakes

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This section will provide you with some tips to help you better prepare for your interview. While other pages on this website focus more on technical questions and how to tackle them, this section mostly covers the general stuff.

I will not focus on the job hunting process. No tips for the search and apply phases are provided here. The initial assumption is that the reader either has a phone interview scheduled already or he/she is in interview mode. When you are in interview mode you are ready for an immediate interview. You don’t need time to study. Whether it’s a recruiter contacting you or a friend mentioning that there is an opening in their team, always have one thing in mind: there are other people that are contacted for this position too. Most of the time, in the fast paced industry environment they need to fill the position ASAP. Meaning that whomever needs less preparation time might get a better chance.

When is a good time to start getting ready?

Well if you ask me, a good engineer needs to constantly study. Education doesn’t end on your commencement day. Your degree is just a starting point. You are now qualified to self-study and teach yourself. For the case of interview preparation you need to get into interview mode early enough. Our market is a tough one with not so many openings and you cannot afford to lose any interviews. We often see people who apply for hundreds of jobs, ask for referrals, call recruiters and when they finally get an interview they remember they need to be ready for questions.

What material should you cover for a phone interview?

It really depends on what type of position you are applying for and the nature of the company and also the hiring manager. One thing that really helps is to research the company, the group, and the interviewer as much as you can. Find out what kind of background your interviewer has. If you are being interviewed for an antenna position and the hiring manager has a strong background in antennas, studying the Antenna questions should be the highest priority. Now don’t get me wrong. You still need to be ready for RF questions. Just that the chance of being asked detailed questions on antennas is much higher in this scenario.

In general and statistically speaking most of the phone interviews focus on your personality, very basic technical questions, and usually extensive questions with regards to your resume. They just want to see if it is worth the investment/time to invite the person onsite. This is why you need to know your resume word by word. Consider a case that an experienced engineer is interviewing a student who is just a few months away from graduation. When the student is asked about the details of a class project listed on his resume he answers: “well this was last year and I don’t really remember the details”. This is such a turnoff. You want to be on top of every single line of your resume. Know which lines are the weaker ones and try to have answers for different questions. Try to put yourself in the role of an interviewer and ask yourself questions from your resume. See how appealing you sound. Avoid listing stuff you have not done in your resume (DO NOT LIE). They will ask you questions and they will know you lied.

Is it OK to postpone an interview?

Short answer: yes, but be smart about it. If you genuinely need a few more days to prepare or you have a scheduling conflict, it is completely fine to ask for a reschedule. Most recruiters and hiring managers understand. However, don’t push it more than a week. You don’t want them to think you are not interested or that you need an excessive amount of time to prepare. A simple “Would it be possible to move our call to Thursday instead of Tuesday?” is professional and perfectly normal. Just don’t make it a habit or do it multiple times for the same position.

What should I do on the night before the interview?

Don’t cram. If you have been preparing for the past week, one more night of intense studying is not going to help. It will actually make things worse because you will be tired and stressed. Here is what you should do instead:

• Review your resume one more time. Make sure you can speak to every single bullet point confidently.
• Go over the job description again. Identify the key skills they are looking for and think about how your experience maps to those.
• Prepare 2-3 questions to ask the interviewer. Good questions show genuine interest. Bad questions (salary, vacation days) in the first round show the wrong priorities.
• Set up your environment. For a phone interview make sure your phone is charged, you are in a quiet room, and you have good reception. For a video call test your camera and microphone ahead of time.
• Get a good night’s sleep. Seriously. A well-rested brain will perform significantly better than a caffeinated, sleep-deprived one.

During a phone interview

So you got that phone interview you were waiting for, you prepared yourself for it for a complete week or two and now is the time. This is your window to impress the interviewer on the other side of the call. Yes, it is very hard. Usually you only have 30-45 minutes and you are nervous. But always remember this is your only chance if you want that cool job you were dreaming of. So be calm and focus on acing the interview.

1. Always listen carefully. Interviewers hate it when you don’t listen carefully and want to guess their questions. Be quiet and wait for the interviewer to finish the question. Sometimes if the interviewer is a nice person they might even give you a hint before you start your answer. But by interrupting them you just miss that chance.
2. Never try to Google the answers. I mention this as the second item because very often I hear interviewees typing right after I ask them a question. Your interviewer will hear your keyboard noise. Chances are they searched for their own question too and will know the first couple of links that show up on Google (or any other search engine for that matter). They will know you are searching for answers and you will not get an onsite interview for your dishonesty.
3. Do NOT use ChatGPT or any AI tool during your interview. This needs to be said because it is becoming increasingly common. We are seeing candidates feed questions into AI tools in real time and read back the responses. Here is the reality: we know. Experienced interviewers can tell immediately. The answers sound too polished, too structured, and too generic. They lack the pauses, the “umms,” and the genuine thought process of a real engineer working through a problem. On top of that, AI-generated answers often miss the nuance of what the interviewer is actually testing. When we ask “What does a series LC look like on a Smith Chart?” we are not looking for a textbook paragraph. We want to hear you think through it, maybe hesitate, maybe draw it out in your head. The moment your answer sounds like it was written by a language model, you have lost all credibility. Even if the answer is technically correct, you just told your interviewer that you cannot do the job without a crutch. And here is the kicker: many interviewers now deliberately ask follow-up questions designed to expose AI usage. They will ask you to modify the problem slightly, explain it in a different way, or go deeper into a specific detail. If you were reading an AI response, you will fall apart at the follow-up. Use AI to study and prepare before the interview, not to cheat during it. There is a massive difference between the two.
4. Never say “I don’t know” and leave it at that. Do not babble irrelevantly or go in circles either. This is always true whether you have a phone or onsite interview. Instead say phrases like “well, that is an interesting question, I never thought about it before.” Continue with expressing your thinking process loud and clear. Most of the time interviewers don’t care what you know but instead it is very interesting for them to see how you think. Show them your analytical thinking abilities by thinking loud about the problem you don’t know the answer to right off the bat. Hopefully the question you don’t know is not a basic question such as “What is IIP3?” or “Describe the difference between gain and efficiency of an antenna.”
5. Never try to switch the topic. Or if you do, make sure you are the master of the second topic. Trying to get away from a question by switching the topic has two drawbacks: First, your interviewer is a smart person and will understand you are not comfortable with the topic and are trying to change it. Second, there is a good chance that they ask you even harder questions in the second topic you brought up. If you don’t know the answer to the first topic you might get away with it. However, if you bring up a new topic and don’t know the answer to it either, the result of the interview will sadly be a pass on the candidate.
6. Take your time before answering. It is perfectly fine to pause for 5-10 seconds to collect your thoughts. Rushing into an answer often leads to a disorganized response. A well-structured answer after a brief pause is always better than a fast but messy one.
7. Have your notes ready but don’t read from them. For a phone interview it is totally acceptable to have your notes, resume, and even the job description in front of you. But use them as quick references, not as a script. If the interviewer hears you flipping pages and reading verbatim, it doesn’t leave a good impression.
8. Ask clarifying questions. If a question is ambiguous or you are not sure what they are really asking, ask for clarification. This is not a sign of weakness. It shows you are thoughtful and want to give a precise answer rather than guessing.

After the phone interview

Do the routine. Just a quick search online will teach you the required etiquette. Send a thank you email to your interviewer if you got the chance to get their contact info. Some companies do not share the complete name of the interviewer. If not, you can send a thank you email to your recruiter. Mention your experience and express your interest. This is pretty much what you have to do. Afterwards live your life, stay sane, and wait for two weeks. After two weeks if you don’t hear back there is a good chance that the position is filled. At this point sending just one follow-up email is usually recommended.

If you get invited for an onsite, start preparing ASAP.

You got invited to the on-site interview, now what?

This is it. You are given a chance to sell yourself. Research and study. None of these will work on its own. Researching and studying together increase your chances of being the winning candidate. This is a very simple but yet very effective advice. You need to research the company as much as you can. Research the team. Look up their products. See if you can find any documents online. Look up their team members and see what their expertise are. There is a good chance by looking these up you sort of anticipate what kind of questions you will be asked. For example, let’s say you find three of your interviewers on LinkedIn and find out they are all PhDs. Try to take a look at their papers, their thesis, and what their skills are on LinkedIn. Lots of times people ask questions from the fields they are experts in.

Read the job description a hundred times. It is a negative point if you are asked about a term on the JD and you answer that you never heard of it. Look up the terms you don’t know about. At least build a basic knowledge on them.

In terms of studying, waste no time. Study as much as you can. You will be grilled on the day of your interview. You need to be super ready. Of course, if you want that job anyway.

During an on-site interview

On-site interviews are a different beast. They are longer (typically 4-6 hours), more intense, and involve multiple interviewers. Here is how to handle them:

1. Arrive early. 10-15 minutes early is ideal. Not 30 minutes early (that’s awkward) and definitely not late (that’s disqualifying). Give yourself buffer time for traffic, parking, and security check-in.
2. Treat everyone with respect. From the receptionist to the hiring manager. You are being evaluated from the moment you walk in the door. I have seen candidates get rejected because they were rude to the front desk staff.
3. Whiteboard sessions are about process, not perfection. When asked to derive something or draw a circuit on the whiteboard, take a moment to organize your thoughts before you start writing. Label everything clearly. Talk through your approach. If you make a mistake, acknowledge it and correct it rather than trying to hide it.
4. Manage your energy. Four to six back-to-back interviews are exhausting. Drink water between sessions. If they offer you a break, take it. Your performance in interview number five matters just as much as interview number one.
5. Each interviewer is independent. Don’t assume that because you nailed a topic with one interviewer, the next one knows about it. You might get the same question twice. Answer it fresh each time with the same enthusiasm.
6. Be yourself. They are evaluating whether they want to work with you every day. Technical skills can be taught but personality and culture fit cannot. Be genuine, be curious, and show that you are someone they would enjoy collaborating with.

Behavioral questions

Many engineers underestimate behavioral questions. Don’t. For senior and lead positions these can make or break your candidacy. Common formats:

• “Tell me about a time when…” — Use the STAR method: Situation, Task, Action, Result. Be specific. Don’t give vague, generic answers.
• “How do you handle conflict with a colleague?” — They want to see maturity and collaboration. Never badmouth a previous coworker or manager.
• “Why are you leaving your current role?” — Keep it positive. Focus on what you are moving toward, not what you are running from. “I’m looking for more ownership in system-level design” is better than “My manager is terrible.”
• “Where do you see yourself in 5 years?” — Show ambition but be realistic. Tie it to the role and the company’s trajectory.

Prepare 3-4 stories from your career or school projects that demonstrate technical problem solving, teamwork, leadership, and handling failure. You can reuse and adapt these stories for different behavioral questions.

Common mistakes

I have seen these kill otherwise strong candidates:

• Not knowing your own resume. If it’s on your resume you should be able to talk about it in depth. If you can’t, take it off.
• Talking too much. Give concise, structured answers. If the interviewer wants more detail they will ask follow-up questions. Rambling for 10 minutes without getting to the point is a red flag.
• Not asking any questions. When they say “Do you have any questions for me?” and you say “No, I think you covered everything” — that signals low interest. Always have at least 2 questions ready.
• Badmouthing previous employers. No matter how bad the experience was, keep it professional. The interviewer will wonder if you will talk about their company the same way.
• Overconfidence vs. under-confidence. Both are bad. You want to come across as competent and humble. Know what you know, admit what you don’t, and show eagerness to learn.
• Ignoring the fundamentals. Many experienced engineers fail basic questions because they haven’t thought about fundamentals in years. Review the basics regardless of your experience level. A 15-year veteran who can’t explain why S11 rotates clockwise on a Smith Chart raises serious concerns.

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