wallpapers from Germany

Recently I have visited some places in Germany so I made some wallpapers - most of them are from Berlin (Berlin wall) but some from car museum from all around the country.

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wallpapers from Russia and Ukraine

I took some nice pictures during my roadtrip around Russia and Ukraine. I chose few to create some fine wallpapers. Just click on the picture and it will take you to Picasa album when you can get the HD version. Few pictures are from Chernobyl (Pripayt city); the rest is from Moscow and St. Petersburg.

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erwin data modeller tutorial - reverse engineering tool

ERwin modeller has a reverse engineering functionality implemented. Reverse engineering is nothing else than creating a model of existing database. If you already have some tables in the database but you have not modelled them first you might want to use reverse engineer to have to model automatically created for you. The fact is that many business simply do not model and create the tables directly in the database. This is obviously malicious practice because when creating a model first you have enough time to thing about the design (you see the desing in WYSIWIG editor) which obviously leads to better DB design. If you create tables directly in the DB you don’t see how it actually look and effectively bypass the design phase. Model is also form of documentation and having documentation is always a good thing. Documentation can be easily shared and other developers can see what is already in the database and maybe reuse the data which leads to lower data redundancy. Lastly when using ERwin you can create logical model which is DB independent and then you create different physical models for different DBs. This is particularly useful when you migrate from one DB vendor to another (preventing vendor lock in) or if you have heterogeneous DB environment.

So how does the reverse engineer works? You simply tell ERwin how to connect to the database you want to reverse engineer and select the type of objects you want to reverse engineer. Erwin then does everything for you and creates automatically a logical/physical model. So the first step is to select Reverse Engineer from Tools. In the following diagram you select if you require Physical or Logical/Physical model. Better practise is to have Logical model as well. Also select the DB engine you reverse engineer from. The next thing to do is to select objects you want to reverse engineer. It depends on your modelling strategy but I recommend to select as few objects as possible. You don’t want your model to be overly complicated. You should however tick following: tables and views. Click next and in the last step you just need to fill in all the credentials – tell Erwin to where and how is he supposed to create the connection. Just select the type of authentication Windows or SQL Authenticaiton, fill in the user (in case of SQL Authentication) and fill the server and database name. Once this is done click connect and ERwin will reverse engineer database you have selected and create model like the one below.

Reverse engineering is an effective way of creating a model from an existing database. Since some developer might bypass the design phase (this should not be encouraged!) the reverse engineering tool might be useful. The only limitation is that you cannot select the tables you want to reverse engineer – it will always pull meta data about all the tables in the database you have selected. This is particularly annoying if you connect to a massive database like (example: datawarehouse) – it will take ages to reverse engineering all the tables.

Complete compare

Another useful tool is called complete compare. It allows you to compare different models you have created and detect changes. It is particularly useful tool when you make some change to the model for which physical implementation in DB already exists. You can then clearly see what the differences are and do some impact analysis before you actually deploy the changes to the DB. To do complete compare just select Complete Compare from the Tools menu. Then you just select left and right model (two models to be compared), the types of objects (tables, views etc.) you want to compare and finally the objects you want to compare (you can select just some tables to be part of the comparison etc.). Then you compare the model and a comparison dialog containing all the detected differences will pop up and you can decided which differences should be carried over and which not. This whole process is fairly simple and straightforward.

However there is another use of complete compare – to merge meta data from two different sources. Just imagine a situation that you have a model of a database (tables) but some meta data is stored somewhere else – in some other modelling tool and you would like to have all the meta data in one model in ERwin. So what to do? Simply use the import wizard of ERwin which allows you to import models from different tools and compare the models you have imported. Using complete compare you can merge meta data from one model with meta data from other model. Real world example can be from area of business intelligence. One of my customers had a datawarehouses without keys defined (they had reasons for that) and Business Objects universes containing joins and keys. They wanted to have a data model containing both the meta data about the tables form the data warehouse as well as the joins and some other meta data from the Business Objects universes. The process of merging is fairly simple. First step is to reverse engineer the database and get a create a model; after create a model import the model from the Business Objects universe (or any other data source you might have). When you have both models just complete compare them and migrate the changes from one to other. In our case we have migrated the joins from the Business Objects universe into our DW model.

In this chapter we have discussed the reverse engineer and complete compare tool. When you have a database but you have not used ERwin to design it you might want to reverse engineer the model from the database. Or if you made any changes to the database without changing the model you can use complete compare tool to find the differences. Complete compare is also useful for merging meta data from different sources.

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erwin data modeller tutorial - forward engineering tool

In last post we have designed simple model of a bank and save it either locally or to data mart. But usually what you want to do with model is to export it to the database so it can be used by you and other developers. By export I actually mean creating all tables, relationships etc. in the database. ERwin’s export dialog is really sophisticated and allows you to properly set what you want to export. If you have not chosen target db engine do it now clicking on Database/Choose Database. If you have chosen your target db engine you are ready to export your model. Click on Tools select Forward Engineer and then Scheme generation. This dialog should pop up:

This dialog allows you to fully set up export. Here is description of main fields:

• Schema Generation file – any configuration you set up can be saved into XML file and used later. This is extremely useful when you have one file for creating tables, relationships etc. and one for dropping them. Thing is when you make changes to the model you have to recreate tables in the DB and in order to do so you have to drop them first (when you use PK and FK constraint you have to drop them in special order) and create them again. So just create two config export files – one for dropping and one for creating.
• In Option tab there are two windows: DB Schema Generation and Schema where you actually set up what is ERwin going to do. I recommend you focus on Table and Referential integrity in left window where you can set whether and what to create or drop. I also recommend to uncheck creation of ERwin triggers.
• On the bottom there are few buttons that might be interesting for you:
  • Filter allows you to filter out tables you do not want to be generated
    
  • Preview actually shows you the SQL query that will be sent to db
  • Generate will connect (ask to select connection) to the database. If you have already selected connection ERwin will NOT ask you again so if you want to export your model to different db you have to change in main window in Database/Database Connection…
    

One important thing is that you do not make changes to design directly in the database but you do them first in ERwin and then recreate tables changed. Developers tends to skip ERwin and make some little changes directly to the DB.
Well you know what is forward engineering tool. But what if you already have some tables in database and you want to create model according to them? ERwin allows you to reverse engineer your database and export all metadata from DB and get a model. Just click Tools/Reverse engineering tool… and short wizard will guide you through the process. In this post you have learnt how to use forward engineering tool to export your model into DB and reverse engineering tool to create model according to existing DB.

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ERwin Data Modeller tutorial - Our First Model

In the last post I have described how to set up ERwin so you can store all your models into database using AllFusion ERwin Model Manager. This is very useful since it allows you to:

1. share models with other team members – yeap, teamwork!!!
   
2. make different versions of your model - ERwin has its own versioning tool which works fine; whenever you save current version of model old version (one before changes were made) is saved as well, so you can roll back
   
3. data mine Model Mart database and get some interesting info about the model (meta-data) you might need – I will talk about this later since it is very important
   

This post will be about creating your first model. I will show you how to create simple model and explain the difference between logical and physical model, identifying and non-identifying relationships. So let’s get started. Shall we?

1. To create new model, click on File/New and in the dialog select if you want to create Logical, Physical or Logical/Physical model. If creating physical model, choose the database you want to create it for. For those who don’t know the difference between logical and physical: logical is about the business (gather business requirements and transfer them into model), physical is purely about the db. To be honest I usually draw logical model on a piece of paper and then create physical model in Erwin.
   
2. If you have created new model, your screen should look like this:
   The whole screen consists from 3 main areas – menu and toolbars, object explorer on the left and main workplace on the right.
   
3. So how do I create a model? First of all you have to create some tables (in logical model they are called entities). Just click on and create entity in the main workspace area. Give this entity name. After that you have to add some columns (in logical model they are called attributes). If you create more than one table, you can connect them with relationships. You can basically choose (by clicking on ) between two types of relationships:
   
   • Identifying relationship – PRIMARY key from parent table migrates to the child table as a PRIMARY key, which means that the row in the child table cannot exist without row with the same PRIMARY key in parent table. I use identifying relationship only when I want to resolve many-to-many relationships using additional “key ”table.
   • Non-identifying relationship – PRIMARY key from parent table migrates to the child table as a FOREIGN key, which means that the row in child table can exist without row in parent table (FOREIGN key can be NULL, PRIMARY cannot be NULL).
     

Scenario: Let’s create simple model. In CreditCrunch Bank Ltd. they store data about Customers and their bank Accounts. Every customer can have more than one Account and one or more customers can be assigned to one Account (for example company account can be accessed by more people). Every customer can have Personal Banker assigned. Bank is supposed to store Customer’s and Personal Banker’s name and surname. You also have to store currency and type of Account. Do not forget about proper definition of PRIMARY keys!

Solution: You have to create 4 tables: Customer, Account, PersonalBanker and CustomerAccount. The last one just resolves the many-to-many problem between Customer and Account. Others contain info about business entities (Customer, Account, Personal Banker). What about the relationships? You use identifying relationship between Customer and Customer_Account and also between Account and CustomerAccount. Why? Because when there is an Account it must have Customer assigned and also if someone is a Customer he/she must have at least one Account. One cannot exist without the other one and so you need to use identifying relationships. The last relationship between Customer and PersonalBanker is non-identifying because Customer can (but does not have to) have Personal Banker. And here is the picture:

If you have created your model you probably want to save it. You can store it either locally or in a database. To save it locally just click File and save or save as… as with any other application. What is more interesting is that you can store models in a database. Click Services and Connections. Dialog allowing you to connect to Model Mart should appear. This dialog contains connection we have created in the previous post so just select this connection and click Connect. Now you are connected to Model Mart and can save all your models into DB (click Services and Save/Save as…).

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Database benchmark - OLAP database with or withouth primary keys

At work we are implementing new database engine for our warehouse and we also want to redesign our db structure, methodlogies etc. Currently we do not define primary keys and foreign keys constraints in our tables. The main reason is speed and problems when data is loaded into tables using DTS (when there is a single foreign key violation DTS fails, which is nightmare when you load millions of rows). I was given task to evaluate the impact of primary keys and foreign keys on our ETL process. In this article I will focus on speed - does primary keys and foreign constraints slows down the ETL process and how much?
I took some typical loading scenarios in our company and try to load tables without keys and tables with keys. Then I compared times of both. So here are the results:

• Test 1: small star scheme
  Number of tables: 4
  Number of relationships: 3
  Number of rows: around 100 000
  Units in graph: seconds
  
  Conclusion: Insert is 9% slower and select is the same.
  



• Test 2: medium sized FACT and DIM table
  Number of tables: 2
  Number of relationships: 1
  Number of rows: around 500 000
  Units in graph: seconds
  Comment: FACT table had lots of rows and inserting data is much more demanding than checking the constraints = keys does not slow down much
  
  Conclusion: INSERT is a bit slower and SELECT is about 11% faster
  


• Test 3: massive FACT and DIM table
  Number of tables: 2
  Number of relationships: 1
  Number of rows: around 5 000 000
  Units in graph: seconds for SELECT and minutes for INSERT
  Comment: FACT table had lots of rows and inserting data is much more demanding than checking the constraints = keys does not slow down much
  
  Conclusion: INSERT is a bit slower and SELECT is about 11% faster
  


• Test 4: snowflake scheme
  Number of tables: 8
  Number of relationships: 7
  Number of rows: around 600 000
  Units in graph: seconds
  
  Conclusion: INSERT is slowed down by 28%
  

Conclusion: Proper definition of PK and FK constraints will slow down inserts (on average by 15%) and will not speed up selects significantly. It will also make the ETL more demanding since the data must be perfectly clean and consistent (no foreign key violations). However you will gain a lot - 100% consistent data.

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Job hunting - Summary

So called Graduate Development Programmes offered by many companies are basically dream jobs for fresh graduates. You have a opportunity to be involved in more teams and departments of the company, you can still develop your theoretical knowledge but you also work on real-world projects and...it is all well paid! What more to wish for, right? Only problem is to get to one of those programmes. As far as I know there are usually 30 applicants for 1 position offered. On this blog I tried to describe my experience with the selection process. This article is kind of summary - the essential stuff you should know if you want to succeed and get your dream job so it will not be as consistent as the other articles. So here is my advice:

• Start early - you can start applying for the programs during late November and you can apply (usually) till end of January/February. To choose companies to apply for, filling in all online applications and taking part in the assessment center will be time consuming. Get ready for it...and start early!
  
• Choose companies wisely (more here) - how to choose the best companies for you? Try to consider following:
  
  • company's industry - what I did first was I selected industries I find interesting and then selected companies from these areas. So if you find banking boring (as I do) do not apply for banks. However this is very subjective and therefore not very scientific but it can help reduce the number of companies to choose from.
    
  • Image of the company - everyone wants to work for cool company so try to involve this factor in your choice - again very subjective, but if you want to be satisfied with your job it is a lot about feelings which are subjective. You do want to be proud of a company you are working for!
    
  • Structure of the graduate dev. programme offered - try to get some info about what you are going to do if you get the place. Is it just a work or are there possibilities to develop yourself in other areas (languages, international placements, getting certifications etc.).
    
  • How difficult it is going to get the place - when you are selecting your companies do not focus only on the industry leaders. It is probably very difficult to get a job within such company. So do apply for jobs in "less cool" companies. It is not a good idea to apply only for Google, McKinsey & Company and IBM.


• Do some research - you need to do some research before you take the telephone interviews (see here and here). The research should take at least 30 minutes for every company. What to read?
  
  • Wikipedia entry about the company
    
  • Company's webpage with focus on products and services
    
  • Google out some recent stuff about the company (use news.google.com)


• Do even more research before the AC (see here) - during the assessment center you will take part in several different tasks. Usually you cannot prepare for them. One of them will be interview and you will be talking about yourself. This is a great selling point but only if you are prepared. Try to link your experience/theoretical knowledge to the company's industry - but you need not know a lot about this industry, so do your research!
  

I hope this series of articles helped you to get a nice graduate job. For me it was very demanding but definitely worth it.

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Job Hunting: Toyota Assessment Center

Toyota AC was my last assessment center I have been to. I took place in Brussels in the European Headquarters of Toyota. I did not like it much - poorly organised, some of the activities were too difficult and worst food ever - I stayed in toyota for 5 hours and I got one lousy baguette. They should at least offer decent lunch. So what did the activities look like?

• Interview with HR - typical competency based interview with young HR girl. It is easy to prepare and tell them what they want to hear. I had to 'pass' this one to get to the next stage. Important! If they ask you what do you want to do in 5 years do not tell them you want be managers. HR girl told me that in japanese companies it takes lot of time to become manager and if you tell them you want become one in 5 years they consider you overambitious and so. Tell them some stuff that you want to improve your theoretical knowledge and practical experience...
  
• Tests - I was told to retake those online tests. Easy.
• Meeting with the managers - I have met 5! managers (I guess the managers only hire people, they actually do not work...why there has to be 5 of them to hire one graduate? If you imagine that toyota europe hire about 200 graduates and AC lasts for at least 5 hours, than the managers really do not do anything else but talk to gradutes.) This meeting consisted from 2 parts. The first one were basically questions by the managers - mixture of competency based questions and questions about IT (what is important for page rank in google etc.). This was pretty ok. However, the second part was difficult. I was supposed to show the managers how I would deal with preparing party for people from toyota. I could use whiteboard. I did not get any time to prepare. What they wanted to hear is that preparing party is a project, which means there are several aspects (time scale, people, money and other resources). I do not think I did well.

I found this AC badly prepared and managed. I was not successful, but I would not like to work for Toyota - people were not friendly there.

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Job Hunting: Shell Assessment Center

Shell assessment center took place in The Hague in the Netherlands in Shell main building. The Hague is BTW very nice city full of beautiful blond girls. The evening before AC we had a meeting with Shell representative and two graduates who has already been working for Shell for about a year. Next day the AC started at 8.30. I have to admit that this AC was pretty demanding. Shell focuses on so called CAR skills (capacity, achievement and relationships - for more, visit shell's career page). It is good to know, that Shell AC differs a lot from other ACs. For example there is NO competency based interview.

• Business scenario was about reading A LOT of information and identify key issues the imaginary company faces. There were basically 3 issues to identify. Then you had to present your conclusions to the managers. After that you were supposed to select one of those three and offer a solution. They wanted exact plan what you would do if you were responsible for solving the problem (ex. 1) I would contact somebody from the markenting, 2) I would do this and that...). They had pretty mean questions.
• Group exercise - there were several corporate responsibility projects in which imaginary company could invest. Within a team we were supposed to choose two of them (we had a budget). Basically to come up with a conclusion and defend this conclusion. Each manager represented different stakeholder (one was city major, other represented press etc.). Difficult since the group was pretty big (6 people).
• Business scenario 2 - I do not remember the official name for this exercise so I will call it BS2. Task was to choose one function within a company (IT, finance, HR...), then you were given several information about problems the company faces in this area, find solutions and present to managers. Again, pretty mean questions.

For me, this was quite difficult AC. Very competitive (there was a guy from Oxford) and extremely exhausting. Also it differs a lot from other AC I have been to, which makes it very difficult to prepare for this AC.

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Job Hunting: Bentley Motors Assessment Center

Just few day after my Allianz AC I had my Bentley Motors AC. It took place in Crewe in the Bentley factory in Pyms Lane. I was surprised than only two of us came to this AC, but I was told that for some exercises we will be mixed together with AC for purchasing programme (I was IT). So, what did Bentley AC consisted from?

• Presentation to managers - as usual, it was a decision making problem. You were supposed to solve and than present on a solution. Our task was to read internal email and notes from meetings of a fictional company which was looking for new premises. The presentation went well, the managers were not mean, but had some tricky questions.
  
• Interview which was pretty long. I was interviewed by two managers (both women) and asked about my competencies. What was interesting about this interview was that during the second part they asked more specific questions about project management and IT (mainly about data mining and so.). It was not extremely specific, but I had to know something about data-mining, data-modelling and business intelligence. This has never happened to me before - interviews were always very general.
  
• Group exercise was quite funny. We had to build a tower from Lego blocks. Fortunately the guy I was competing with was little bit shy, which gave me a space to breathe. I think I did pretty well.
  
• Online tests verification - we had to retake the online tests. We also took some computer skills test, which were little bit crazy since they were too specific (ex. detailed knowledge of ASP syntax etc.).
  

In general I really liked Bentley AC. It was demanding but not extremely. We also had a tour through the factory line, where the Bentleys are produced. And I was successful in this AC! And accepted the offer :-).

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Job Hunting: Allianz assessment center

Allianz assessment center was one of the worst I have been too. It was extremely demanding and the people (managers) were very unfriendly. I understand that they want to hire the best people possible and so they are little bit mean when asking questions, but this was too much. Also the whole day was little bit overwhelming - for example there were 3 interview in a row! So what did the day consisted from?

• 3 interviews in a row with 5 minute breakes! I don't know why they demanded 3 interviews, but it was crazy. Each lasted for about 30 minutes and they asked nearly the same questions. All were basically competency based questions.
• Presentation given by me to the managers about a decision making. The presentation itself wasn't super difficult, but the questions of the managers were. They were really mean - in one hour you simply cannot prepare argumentation for all the questions they have asked.
• Role play - another crazy thing. You were supposed to play middle management role within a insurance company. There was a problem to solve and you were to meet other managers. Two assessors played those managers and together you simulated the meeting. You should have come up with a solution for the problem. Again, very very mean...only thing to recommend is that you should offer you help = there is a problem, how to solve it? I will be active part in solving the problem...I will not just propose the solution, but also be part of this solution.
• Career path interview - this one was easy. Just to tell them what you want to do etc.

In general, this was difficult AC. Too many activities and too many mean questions. I would really not like to work for such a company.

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Job Hunting: AXA Assessment center

For one month my blog was without any new post and the reason is simple - it's summer time and I was on holiday. But now I can continue with my series about assessment centers I have been to. The next one is AXA UK, which is one of the largest insurance companies in the world. The AC took place in Bristol, which is by the way, very nice city - I really liked. AXA building is located about 15 minutes (with train) outside the Bristol and is new and bright. The AC started at 9.00 with short overview of the positions offered. Then it continued with the following activities:

• Interview with manager was the same as usual - asking questions about your skills and experience. I really felt like a vending machine - insert a coin and I will tell you everything about my professional life in 30 minutes. You should be prepared to give some insurance industry related examples - I have studies mathematics so I know lot about probabilistic models used in insurance...so I have kind of a relationship to insurance, which was very useful during the interview.
• Tests - again they did not believe us our test results so we had to retake the tests. There were two kind of tests - numeracy and 'computer ability' test. If you have done few of them, then you will pass it...no problem with that.
• Presentation was quite difficult. We had one hour time to prepare presentation about a decision we made based on materials provided. It was typical decision making - two locations for new factory, some data provided. It was more about presenting than decision making since both locations were good. You should persuade the audience (one manager) that what you chose is the right thing. Don't forget some financial analysis!
• Group exercise was quite OK, since the fellow candidates were easy-going. We had to prepare a schedule for visit of representatives from collaboration company. Try to push your ideas, but do not push hard...persuade others.

In general I found this AC very good (and I was offered a position) and easy going. Any advice? Inform yourself about insurance industry!

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Job Hunting: Ernst & Young Assessment Center

During my job-hunting period I have applied for all Big4 companies but made it to Enrst & Young assessment center only, which is pretty interesting since all the companies have the same requirements. The AC took place in Leeds and was quite easy, which I did not expect. It consisted from only 3 exercises - interview, case study and group exercise. So let's have a look at those:

• Interview was typical competency based interview with partner of the company. It was lot focused on two things - teamwork (you were asked to provide examples of teamwork you were involved in) and reasons why you want to work for Ernst & Young. Big4 companies ask you a lot about why you want to work for them. The trickiest question is whether you know what are you going to do during the first 1 - 2 years. It is essential to answer this question well, otherwise you will not succeed. Quite good answer is: a) I will develop my skills in area of my interest + audit (everything what they do is connected with audit), b) I will build up a strong social network (basically teamwork) and finally c) I will gain certification like ... (by this you show that you are aware of the fact you need lot of certification for audit).
• Case study is 2 hours long - you get a lot of materials (emails, ads, analysis) about a hotel chain, which have to decide whether to sell its restaurant branch. Your task is to analyse these materials, find key issues the company faces and decide whether the company should or should not sell its restaurant branch. It is also important that you should offer ways how E&Y could help with selling the branch. I guess they do not read it, at least I am not aware of any comments from their side. This is mainly preparation for the group exercise.
• Group exercise lasts about 1 hour. In the first 40 minutes you asked to discuss your findings with the other applicants and then to come up with solution = the company should / should not sell the branch. You should also provide reasons why did you decide to do this and that. The last task is the plan, how will you proceed with your decision (the company should do this and that). Cooperation is crucial - do not force others to accept your proposal and ask others about their opinions.

It was not very difficult and it was quite short (from 9.00 AM - 13.00 PM). The lunch was not very good :-(. I passed this one and was offered a position.

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Job Hunting: 3M Assessment Center

In the beginning of March I attended assessment center of 3M in Bracknell, where the headquarters are located and now I would like to share my experience with you...

The assessment centers tarted at 9:00 AM with short presentation of the IT Graduate Programme and the company. Then we were told that only two of us have arrived so the group exercise will be cancelled and schedule must be adjusted. At 10:00 AM we started with competency based interviews, there were 2 one hour CBI in a row! Both of them were very difficult and demanding. After these interviews we had time for lunch and after the lunch other graduates showed us the company building (mainly the IT department). Then we had to retake the numerical and verbal tests in order to prove that we did not cheat and finally the day ended with a presentation, which we were supposed to prepare at home. The topic was: My Idea of a Good Leader, so typical bullshitting stuff. The presentation was difficult because you had to present in front of 8 managers and all of them asked you one question.

Summary

In general I did not find this AC extremely difficult, it was kind of demanding, mainly due to 2 long interview in a row. The presentation was also tough, but the managers were OK.

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Job Hunting: npower assessment center

In the end of February 08 I attended npower assessment center for IT graduate position. Now I would like to share my experience with readers of this blog...

npower assessment center took place in Swindon, where the npower headquarters is. The RWE npower building is new and nice. The day started at 9.00 sharp with short introduction both of the candidates and the assessors. There was the same number of assessors and the candidates (8 of each). The whole day consisted from the following activities:

• Competency based interview - typical CBI with two managers who were asking lots of questions about your experience, why you want to work for npower and why it that role and so on...this one is easy to prepare for.
  
• Group exercise - it was a kind of role play; our task was to read brief description of imaginary organization and each of us represented a department within this organization. Then we had to discuss how the budget will be spent - there were some proposals for each department prepared and in 1 hour we should have come up with an idea how the budget will be divided. Of course, the there were much more proposals to finance than it was able to finance. I have to admit, this was quite difficult and I don't think we cooperated well. I guess that there were too many people, which makes it extremely difficult to cooperate, when you are under press (assessors and time).
  
• Presentation - 1 week before the AC we were sent three topics on which we were supposed to prepare presentation. They were: 1) major university project (I chose this one), 2) how to motivate people in energy industry and 3) what do you see as the pros and cons of a captive supplier relationship (RWE systems vs. Rest of RWE). Since you had enough time to prepare the presentation, it is not difficult, but you really should link the presentation to RWE.

Summary

This was my first assessment center and I think I did ok, but not excellent. There were a lot of other strong candidates (8 of us made this AC the most populated I have been too). The environment was very friendly, even the assessors were helpful and easy going. However it took them more then 3 weeks to make decision and I did not get any feedback, which they promised.

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Job Hunting: Assessment Centers

Were you invited to assessment center? Congratulations! You are pretty successful because only the best ones make it to AC. If you want to succeed, you should read this article :-).

Assessment centers vary a lot but they have one thing in common - you will not be assessed for your knowledge but for the way you are able to solve problems and deal with time pressure. If you make it to AC they suppose you posses deep theoretical knowledge of the area you have applied for and therefore they do not assess your knowledge they rather focus on your ability to solve problems. How do they do it? Through several exercises. Here are some, you might be involved in:

• Competency Based Interview - pretty similar to the telephone interview. They ask you about 'a time when you had to solve a problem...'. For more info, please click here.
• Presentation - you receive a lot of information about a company or a problem, you have to analyze it, prepare presentation of the key topics and finally present it and answer questions. You usually don't have much time so it is a lot about time management. IMHO you should not prepare detailed slides, but just bullet points and then present self-confidently. There are usually no right or wrong answers. They also assess the way you can persuade them about your solution.
  
• Group exercises - you and your fellow candidates have to solve a problem together. In this exercises, they assess your interpersonal skills and team-work. Some people think you are supposed to talk as much as possible, but that is not true - try to express your ideas but ask other about their ideas! In my opinion, this is the toughest exercises, especially when you meet wrong people.
• Role play - very similar to presentation, but you 'play a role in a company' and discuss the problem directly with the assessors without presentation. Extremely difficult, but I can provide one hint. If there is a problem to solve, involve yourself = offer help.
  
• Case study - again, very similar to presentation, but you write your notes down and then discuss it with assessors. They usually want you to offer a plan of solution, so tell them what people you would contact, what exactly you would do etc...

These are the main exercises that might be included in AC. How difficult they are is up to the assessors. If they are mean, it is gonna hurt. In the next posts I will write about different AC (npower, 3M, AXA, Ernst & Young, Shell, Toyota, Bentley...).

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Job Hunting - telephone interview (2/2)

In the previous post I was talking about motivational questions. Now it's time for competency based and analytical questions.

Competency based questions

The theory behind competency-based (sometimes called skill based or behavioral) interviewing is that past work behaviour is a good predictor of future job performance. This means that during competency-based part of the interview interviewer will ask you about specific time when you had to solve a specific problem. This means that you should provide real-world experience rather than theoretical ways you would solve the problem. Typical CBQ start with "Tell me about a time when you..." and here are some of the endings:

• ...had to work as a part of the team? - all the companies use this one. Teamwork is very important and they want to find out if you can deal with it. Provide an example of a time when you worked successfully as a part of a team. Focus on how did you interact with other, how did you gain feedback and decision making.
  
• ...had to solve a problem you have never faced before? - very common, other question like "What was your plan of solving this problem?" follows. This one is about planning and learning. I strongly advice you to use some kind of methodology for describing your plan, for example PDCA (plan, do, check and act).
  
• ...helped a somebody else? - again, typical question. Tell them how did you helped somebody. They like examples when you helped somebody even without being asked to help (= you offered to help).
  
• ...asked for a feedback and how this feedback influenced your performance? - I guess they want you to know if you are interested in your ability to improve based on a feedback. Again best example is the one, when you proactively asked for a feedback and used this feedback to change your approach. For example: I worked on a project and did not know how to move on, so I asked my supervisor if he could give me some hints...
  
• ...had to persuade somebody about your solution? or ...had an argument with a team member and how did you solve it? - questions about your ability to persuade and influence other people.
  

How to answer such questions? As I mentioned, they want you to provide real-world example, so you should mention some details, in the beginning you might describe the situation by answering WHAT was the situation, WHEN it happened, WHO were the main stakeholders and then you can continue with HOW did you solve the problem, WHAT was your plan to solve the problem (use the PDCA model - I planned, then I did what I planned, I checked what I did and I acted to improve this or that). You also have to stick to the subject of the question, if they ask you about teamwork, don't talk much about yourself. Instead of "I did this and I did that..." you should say "As a team we have decided to do this and that...". It is also important to realize that everything (in modern management) is project and projects have several layers (personal, financial, time and resources).

Analytical questions

Analytical questions are tricky, they differ a lot and it is very difficult to prepare for such a questions. They usually ask you to solve case study or something that proves you understand industry you applied for. These questions are very company specific, here are some examples:

• What does Web 2.0 mean for you? (Cisco)
• What is a virtual team and what are the advantages and disadvantages? (Shell)
• Why do you think Apple computers is so successful lately? (Allianz)

I also know that technology consultancy companies like Accenture or Logica will ask you to solve a case study.

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Job Hunting: Telephone Interviews (1/2)

Have you made it through online tests? Congratulations! Usually just about 40 - 50% applicants pass online tests. Now you have to schedule and prepare for your telephone interview. Following posts might help you with your preparation...

In general, telephone interviews are very similar - I have been through 14 of them - and have to say I was really stressed out before the first one, but after I did four or five of them it felt much more natural. It is the same with the online tests - practise makes perfect. So how does telephone interview look like? It usually takes about 45 - 60 minutes. In the beginning the interviewer introduces and gives you some information about the interview itself. Than you have about 5 minutes to introduce yourself. After that the interviewer starts to ask you questions. In general there are three different types of questions:

• motivational questions - in these questions they try to assess your motivation and why you want to work for their company


• competency based questions - usually the longest part of the interview; they ask you about your skills and experience


• analytical questions - some companies gives you case studies you are supposed to solve quickly; for these questions it is impossible to prepare and I think it is the most difficult part of the interview

Motivational questions

Motivation or "about the company" questions are questions relating to the company and the job. They try to find out if you are really interested in their company or you just apply to every company possible. They usually want to know if you are able to identify with the products or services they offer and if you enjoy the job. Especially Big4 companies are obsessed with these questions. So what you should expect?

• Q: Why did you choose our company?
  A: try to provide 2 - 4 reasons why you chose to apply for their company; for example: 1) I have studied IT and I see my future in IT department of big multinational, 2) you provide excellent trainings, 3) I strongly believe that your company will allow me to travel and meet different people and so on...


• Q: Why did you apply for this job?
  A: Again, you should rationalize why you chose that job; this should be simple since you know why you applied for this job; you can answer this question in the similar way as the previous one, but don't say the same!


• Q: What do you know about our company
  A: Very simple one; do your research about their company and talk about 1) history, 2) main products or services, 3) future, 4) mention main competitors


• Q:What do you think you will be doing first year?
  A: Big4 companies ALWAYS ask this question and it is not easy to answer it. Some suggestions: deepening theoretical knowledge and gaining industry recognized certification, building social network of contacts etc.


• Q: What are the main issues in our industry?
  A: Provide the main news about what is going on in their industry. For example: SOX in Audit (for Big4) or Web 2.0 and collaboration in IT (for Cisco). It is essential to do some research to be able to answer this question.

For this part of interview you should do some research - read about the company and the job on their webpage, use wikipedia.org and servers like wikijobs.co.uk. It is quite easy to prepare for these questions, it just need some time. Next time I will be writing about competency based questions.

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Job Hunting: online tests

Did the companies you applied for find your application interesting? If yes, you have probably been invited for online tests...and this article is about online tests...so you should read it :)

Companies use different types of online psychometric tests, fortunately most of them outsource this activity to company called SHL. What does it mean to you? You can practice! In the beginning these tests might be tough for you (especially if you have not done math for longer time), but after 5 tests or so you will improve a lot. The first and the most important advice is: take every test you can, because you can learn how to do well.
But how does these tests look like? There are basically 4 different types of SHL tests you may face:

• Numerical reasoning is about counting. You usually don't have much time and it is difficult to solve all the problems you are supposed to solve (usually 1 minute per 1 problem). For this test it is neccessary to be good at elementary mathematics and have logical thinking - it is sometimes not neccessary to count everything, you can guess.
  Example test


• Verbal reasoning is supposed to asses your logical thinking abilities. You are supposed to read short paragraph and then decide whether the statements bellow are true, false or you can't decide. I find this test more difficult than numerical reasoning - some of the questions are tricky.
  Example test


• Diagrammatic reasoning is a test for IT guys. I have taken this one only once, during AXA assessment. It is actually very interesting and quite difficult.
  Example test


• "Picture reasoning" test is a test which official name I don't know. It is very similar to IQ tests - you got set of pictures and your task is to select picture from other set that logically fits the first set. I have taken this test only one during Toyota Assessment.

What is the pass level of SHL test? As far as I know (I have asked HR people during assessment centres) it is about 65 percentile = you must do better than other 65 percent of the applicants. I also know that in case of Big4 companies the pass level is higher, around 75 percentile. There are also some other tests you might face - some companies develop their own tests:

• IBM IPATO test is very stressful and quite difficult test. It is impossible to do everything unless you are a genius. It was one of the first tests I took and had lot of trouble with it.


• McKinsey Problem Solving test is the most difficult I have ever taken. You don't have much time, lots of very difficult questions. It is impossible to prepare for such a test. I guess only the smartest get through. Pass level is 65%.
  Example

Hints

• Take as many of them as you can - if you practice your performance will improve a lot!


• According to previous you should take the tests of the companies you really want to get in later than those you are not that interested in.


• Insider information: HP UK does not use online tests and Allianz UK has lower pass level :-)

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How to pass ITIL foundation exam

Thinking about taking ITIL Foundation V3 exam? Want to self-prepare? Than this article is excellent starting point!

One day I have decided to take ITIL Foundation exam. You ask why? First reason is that ITIL is the most common "standard" for IT Infrastructure management. Secondly I did some ITIL on my uni, so why not to get certification, which might be useful in the future. Since all the taught courses are extremely expensive I decided to go for self-preparation. I bought two books - Introduction to ITIL and Passing your ITIL Foundation Exam - and access to two online services which offer mock exams - itilprime.com and itilexams.com. Total costs were $ 200, which is pretty ok (the cheapest taught course cost 3 times more). Here is short description of the books and services I used.

Introduction to ITIL

I decided to take ITIL Foundation exam and one of the books I have studied from is Introduction to ITIL. It is well written book, which can offer you basic understanding of Service Management in ITIL. It is very important to know, that this book is about ITIL version 2, so it is now very useful for ITIL version 3! However, it can be used as a supportive study material for ITIL v3. Although the most of the book is concerned about the Service Management you will also find some information about the other ITIL processes.

Passing your ITIL Foundation Exam

The second and more important book I used for my ITIL Foundation Exam preparation is a study aid called "Passing your ITIL Foundation Exam" (sounds promising, huh?). This is really nothing more than a study aid, it does not explain ITIL much, it focuses only on the most important thinks, which is OK - I guess you will be able to pass the exam, but you will not understand ITIL much. Very good thing is that there is a mock exam, so you can practice.

itilprime.com and itilexams.com

itilprime.com is pretty good service. Very clean GUI, easy to use, offers both ITIL v2 and ITIL v3 mock exams. It was very helpful. itilexams.com was not that helpful because it is just for ITIL version 2. So why did I bought it? ITIL v2 is still widely used so it is good idea to know how it works (at least a bit).
UPDATE 28. 5.: I have passed my ITIL v3 Foundation Exam!

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