I gave many interviews in the last few years and each time I found the interview

Question

I gave many interviews in the last few years and each time I found the interviewers are not satisfied with what I know. My first company only developed desktop Windows applications using .NET. They had nothing to do with features like: Remoting etc. We also had limited use of Generics, Reflection and Multi-threading.

When I appeared for the interviews, I was asked questions on above features even when I told them that I don't have real-life experience.

Now the .NET interviews are even more complex. Seeing my experience, the interviewers target the latest framework. I have no real-life exposure to the new features and technologies like WPF, WCF etc.

Please suggest me how to effectively prepare for the .NET interview. I have 3 years experience in .NET but I only developed Windows based applications. At present I work on .NET Framework 3.5. I never worked on ASP.NET, as in my present company I work on PHP for web-applications.

Explanation / Answer

Even at a junior level, if someone has been using .net 3.5 then I would certainly expect them to be comfortable using generics. At a more intermediate level I would expect at least some knowledge of reflection and multi-threading.

So my first piece of advice is, if you want to progress your skills in programming then you must devote at least a little bit of your own time to learning and keeping up with current developments in the field. I'm not talking about cutting edge stuff here - if you're a good programmer and have been using .net 2+ for a significant amount of time if you're not comfortable with generics by now then it tells me you're not keeping your skills up to date at all. This applies if, as in your case, you don't have the opportunity to learn in the workplace but also if you're lucky enough to be somewhere where skills development is valued. You can get this knowledge by reading books, blogs and by supplementing that knowledge by applying it to some personal/open source projects.

My second piece of advice is, if you have a lot of experience with windows apps and you want to join a company that is doing web development then you should understand that you're looking at what is potentially a very different job despite it having .net in common. So, either apply for jobs where your current experience is going to be valuable, or gain the skills in those areas (see above) before applying, or accept that you're going to be applying for potentially more junior jobs than if you were applying for windows app development roles and treat it as a stepping stone to a more senior position.

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