IBM Interview Questions & Reviews

Interviewed Dec 2011 in Washington, DC (took 3 weeks)

I frequently researched companies and their applicant processes on Glassdoor so I wanted to post an informative description of the interview process for the position I accepted with IBM.

I am recent grad and found this opportunity on Dice. I pursued two internship opportunities while in college with IT firms and earned a strong GPA. After applying, I was notified by recruiters by email that I was chosen to interview over the phone. The only interviews were over the phone and they were 3 45 min interviews. Two were with Project Managers and one was with a younger employee. The interviews with the Project Managers were pretty open-ended. A lot of the questions were "situational" in nature. Both managers seemed interested in my work experience while in college and allowed me to expand on the skills I learned (SQL, Java, etc) and my responsibilities. Be able to answer why you chose to work for IBM without giving a canned response. Make sure you are prepared to answer any type of behavioral-type interview questions during the interview with the PMs.

My conversation with the younger employee was a little more technical. He wanted to know what languages I was comfortable with and asked me fundamental questions like "What are the four cornerstones of OOP". Nothing too difficult really - just research common tech interview questions. The interviews went well and they made me a preliminary offer. They seemed to be more interested in finding great, young talent that can work well with a team rather than a developer with 5 years of experience and plenty of SDLC knowledge. However, I would say my previous work experience was instrumental in getting noticed.

Still, I had to complete the IBM IPAT exam after the preliminary offer - do your research before completing it b/c it might be difficult if you are unprepared. Also, there is probably a minimum score you need to attain in order to proceed to the next step. I will not go too in-depth about it because it specifically states not to do so, but you can find basic info on different forums via google search about the format. After the exam, I received an official offer and a whole bunch of paperwork to fill out online. There is a week of orientation at the home office before they send you on-site.

Honestly, the offer was at least 8K more than my other offers. While the home office for GBS is in Herndon, VA, it was communicated to me that much of the work will be done in DC and the higher salary may be accounting for cost of living, frequent travel requirements, etc. but I can't be sure. Regardless, the offer was much higher than what I expected to make my first year out of college and IBM does have a strong reputation as one of the best employers for young IT professionals in the D.C. area, IMO. My interviews with about 5 smaller IT firms in the area were much more technical and paid less. My interview experiences with these firms were not as enjoyable.

This is just about everything I remember about the applicant process. I will be sure to post a review of my role after I have been with the company for an ample amount of time. To this point, my interaction with IBM has been pleasant and I am excited to engage the project I am assigned to.