

Ask HN: What kind of things do you say about projects when interviewing? - solarmist

When you talk about previous projects during an interview what kind of things do you say to make it informative and interesting?<p>For example (I'm a student), I've been working on a multi-threaded Ray Tracer for my graphics class, I built a plugin interface for the package that contains the Ray Tracer, and I'm expanding the support for the Collada file format, but besides that all I can think of to say about it is that they're written in Java anything else seems like like it would only interest a specialist or is  obvious, I had to do lots of debugging, I learned some new Java functionality, implemented some algorithms, blah blah.<p>I really like the project and am adding to it because I'm interested, but I don't what to say about it.<p>So recruiters /interviewers, what are you looking for in "Tell us about an interesting project you've worked on."<p>People with projects, what would you say about your own projects? Or would you suggest saying when asked the above question.
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ares2012
Having interviewed hundreds of people over the years, when I ask a question
like that I'm looking for the following things:

1\. What kind of problem do you really enjoy and find interesting?

2\. Did you do it because you had to (in a class) or in your free time?

3\. What technologies did you use and why?

4\. Did you work in a team? If so how did the team collaborate and did it work
well?

In a lot of ways it can tell you the most about a person because it is so open
ended. Your answer says a lot about what you think is important and what you
value in your work and likely will value in your job. If you start with the
technologies you used that is a lot different than if you start with the
problem you were solving.

So, I recommend picking a project you really loved and just be honest. If it's
the right fit then the interviewer will hear exactly what they want to hear.

