Navigating Interviews with Confidence

How to Prepare for Interview Formats

Different interview formats reward different kinds of preparation. Understanding what each type is designed to test helps you put your best foot forward regardless of the format.

The Main Interview Formats in NZ IT

Format	What it’s designed to assess
Phone screen	Usually twenty to thirty minutes with a recruiter. Designed to assess your basic communication skills, confirm the facts on your CV, and gauge your motivations and salary expectations. Treat it as seriously as a face-to-face meeting.
Video interview (Teams, Zoom)	Increasingly common as a first or second-stage interview. Has specific technical and behavioural considerations. See the dedicated section below.
Technical interview or assessment	A coding challenge, architecture discussion, whiteboard exercise, or take-home project. Format varies by role and organisation. See the dedicated section on technical assessments.
Competency-based or behavioural interview	Structured questions designed to explore how you’ve handled past situations. These follow the STAR framework most reliably.
Panel interview	Two or more interviewers from different parts of the business. Usually includes the hiring manager, a technical lead, and sometimes an HR representative. Common for more senior roles.
Coffee chat or informal meeting	Low-key but not low-stakes. Often used to assess cultural fit. The expectation is a natural conversation, but you are still being assessed.
Presentation or case study	Asked to present a technical solution, a business case, or a worked example. More common for senior, architecture, or senior BA and product roles.

The Core Preparation That Applies to All Formats

Regardless of the format, certain preparation applies universally:

Know your CV. Be able to speak clearly and specifically about every role on it. Vague or inconsistent answers about your own experience erode confidence quickly.
Know the organisation. Look at their website, LinkedIn, recent news, and any public information about their technology stack or initiatives. Understand what they do and why it matters.
Know why you want this role at this organisation. Generic interest is obvious. Specific, genuine interest stands out.
Prepare three to five real project examples that demonstrate your key skills. Refresh your memory of the details: who was involved, what the challenge was, what you did, and what the outcome was.
Know your salary expectations. Settle on a specific figure before the interview. Being vague or being caught off-guard in this conversation is avoidable.

Refreshing Your Memory vs Rehearsing Answers

There is an important distinction between refreshing your memory of real experiences and rehearsing scripted answers. Rehearsed answers are easily spotted. They sound flat, they often miss the mark on the actual question asked, and they don’t allow for the natural back-and-forth of a good interview.

What works better is spending time the night before mentally revisiting the key projects and situations you want to draw on. Think through what happened, who was involved, and what you did. When the question comes, you can access that memory naturally rather than reaching for a prepared speech.

It’s more about quick memory recall than a practised answer. If you’ve sat and thought about that project the night before, when they ask you the next day, everything’s quick recall. You can just get the information out of your head rather than pausing and going ‘what was that project again?’ Jane, Younity

Phone Screening

The phone screen is often underestimated. Many candidates treat it as a preliminary hurdle rather than a genuine interview opportunity. Approached well, it sets a strong positive tone for the rest of the process.

How to Handle a Phone Screen

Take it somewhere quiet. Background noise is distracting and signals poor preparation.
Have your CV and the job description in front of you. Being able to reference specific details quickly is useful.
Be ready to speak clearly about your current situation and motivations. Why are you looking? What are you looking for? These are standard early questions.
Be specific about your salary expectations if asked. Vague answers, such as ‘I’m open to offers’, tend to waste everyone’s time.
Have one or two thoughtful questions ready. ‘Can you tell me more about what success looks like in this role in the first six months?’ shows genuine interest.
Be warm and engaged. Your energy on a phone call communicates a lot. Sitting up, smiling, and talking at a natural conversational pace all make a difference.

A phone screen is a real interview. The recruiter is assessing your communication skills, how clearly you can articulate your experience, and whether you seem genuinely interested. Treat it accordingly. Alicia, Younity

Teams or Zoom: Getting Video Interviews Right

Video interviews have particular technical and interpersonal considerations that in-person interviews do not. Most of them are easy to address with a little preparation.

The Technical Basics

Test your setup beforehand. Camera, microphone, internet connection, and the meeting platform itself. Do a test call with a friend if you haven’t used the platform before.
Ensure a quiet environment. Find a place where you won’t be interrupted for the duration of the interview.
Tidy or blur your background. What’s behind you says something about you. If your environment is messy, use a virtual background.
Look presentable. The expectation for professional appearance is the same as in person. At minimum, wear what you’d wear to an in-person interview on the top half.

The Interpersonal Considerations

Look at the camera, not at the screen. This is the equivalent of eye contact in a video call. Watching someone else on the screen rather than the camera lens makes you look like you’re looking away.
Account for slight lag. There is often a half-second delay on video calls. Pause slightly longer than you would in person before responding to avoid talking over the interviewer.
Check in on your answers. Because video calls are less natural than in-person meetings, it’s worth periodically asking ‘Was that the level of detail you were looking for?’ This gives the interviewer a chance to redirect if needed and signals that you’re engaged.
Deal with technical issues calmly. If there are connection problems, handle them matter-of-factly. It happens. Stay composed.

If you’re given the choice between a video interview and an in-person interview, go in person. It works out better 99 times out of 100. It’s just easier to build rapport face to face. Tom, Younity

One Point That Catches People Out

Because video interviews feel slightly less formal than in-person meetings, some candidates relax too much and forget that they are still being assessed. The informality of sitting in your home or office does not change the nature of the conversation. Stay professional throughout.

Technical Assessment Examples

Technical assessments are increasingly common in NZ IT hiring, particularly for development, engineering, data, and architecture roles. Understanding what they test, and how to approach them, puts you in a better position.

Common Technical Assessment Types in NZ

Assessment Type	What it tests and how to prepare
Coding challenge (timed online)	Tests knowledge of algorithms, data structures, and problem-solving under time pressure. Common platforms include HackerRank, Codility, and LeetCode-style tools. Prepare by practising on these platforms.
Take-home project	A more realistic task completed in your own time, usually over a few days. Allows you to demonstrate your actual working approach rather than performance under artificial time pressure.
Whiteboard or virtual whiteboard exercise	Asks you to design a system, solve a problem, or diagram an architecture in real time. The thinking process is being observed as much as the output.
Technical discussion	A conversation with a senior engineer or architect about your experience, the decisions you’ve made, and how you approach problems. Strong candidates talk about trade-offs, not just outcomes.
Portfolio review	A discussion of your existing work, code repositories, or design case studies. Demonstrates real-world capability in a way that test scenarios cannot fully replicate.

If Technical Assessments Don’t Show Your Best Work

Some candidates, particularly those with ADHD, dyslexia, or other forms of neurodiversity, perform less well in formal timed assessments than their actual capability would suggest. It is entirely appropriate to note this and ask whether alternative formats are available. A whiteboard exercise, portfolio review, or technical discussion will often reveal far more about your capability than a timed coding test.

Panel Interview Expectations

Panel interviews involve two or more interviewers, typically including the hiring manager and one or two other stakeholders. They are common for mid to senior roles in NZ IT.

What to Expect

In New Zealand, it is relatively uncommon to face a large panel in a single sitting. More typically, you’ll meet different people across separate interviews as the process progresses. What you might encounter in a standard process:

First interview: Hiring manager. Focused on fit, motivation, and broad experience.
Second interview: Technical lead or senior team member. Focused on depth of technical knowledge and how you approach problems.
Later stages: HR or people and culture representative, and potentially a ‘meet the team’ conversation. Focused on cultural alignment.

Managing Multiple Interviewers

When you are in a room or call with more than one person:

Make eye contact with the person who asked the question, but bring other panel members in with natural glances as you speak.
Address your answer to the whole room, not just to the most senior person.
Don’t assume the quieter panellist is disengaged. In many cases, the technically senior person says the least and observes the most.
Ask a question of each panellist if the opportunity arises. It signals that you’re interested in them as individuals, not just the company.

Coffee Chats and Informal Meetings

The coffee chat or informal meeting is common in NZ IT hiring, particularly for relationship-led processes. It is less structured than a formal interview but not without assessment.

What the Coffee Chat Is Actually For

From the employer’s perspective, a coffee chat is designed to assess cultural fit, genuine interest, and interpersonal skills in a lower-pressure environment. They want to get a sense of who you are beyond the CV and the formal interview setting.

How to Approach It

Prepare as you would for a formal interview. Know the company, know why you’re interested, and have questions ready.
Be yourself, but be professionally yourself. Casual does not mean unprepared.
Lead with curiosity. Ask about the team’s work, the challenges they’re navigating, and what success looks like in the role. Good questions make a stronger impression than a polished answer.
Don’t raise salary in a coffee chat unless they bring it up. There will be time for that conversation later in the process.
Follow up with a brief thank-you message the same day. Something specific that references a point in your conversation shows you were listening.

The coffee chat feels informal but it’s still an assessment. The best candidates come prepared, ask great questions, and leave the other person feeling like the conversation was genuinely interesting. Mark, Younity

Presenting Confidently on Video Calls

Already covered in the Teams and Zoom section above, but worth reinforcing a few key points specifically for candidates newer to video interviewing:

Test everything before you need it.
Camera on, always. Video off in a video interview communicates disengagement.
Look at the camera. It’s the equivalent of eye contact.
Blurred or tidy background. What’s visible behind you forms part of the impression you make.
Pause before you answer. The slight lag on video calls means pausing is more important than in person.
Start with a brief moment of small talk if you arrive early. It’s an easy way to build rapport before the formal questions begin.

Common Interview Pitfalls to Avoid

Most interview mistakes are avoidable with a little awareness. These are the ones Younity’s team sees most consistently:

Pitfall	What it looks like	How to avoid it
Talking too much	Lengthy answers that go off on tangents, multi-threaded stories, or answers that don’t address the question asked.	Answer the question asked. Pause and check in. Ask if the level of detail was what they were looking for.
Not talking enough	One or two word answers, failing to elaborate on examples, or trailing off before making the point.	Prepare examples in advance so you have material to draw on. Use the STAR structure to add appropriate depth.
Giving theory instead of examples	Answering ‘how would you handle X’ with a description of best practice rather than a real example of when you did it.	Always illustrate with a real situation. Theory tells them what you know. Examples show what you can do.
Being unprepared for basic questions about the company	Not knowing what the company does, who their customers are, or why you want to work there.	Spend thirty minutes researching the company before every interview. Check their website, LinkedIn, and recent news.
Raising salary or conditions too early	Asking about salary, leave, or working hours before the company has decided they want you.	Let the process develop first. When asked, redirect to your recruiter if you’re working with one.
Being too negative about previous employers	Criticising former managers, companies, or colleagues in an interview setting.	Focus on what you learned and what you’re looking for next, not what was wrong with where you came from.
Trying to change the job scope in the interview	Suggesting the role would be better as a contract when it’s advertised as permanent, or pushing to make it remote when in-office is required.	Assess your fit with the role as advertised before you apply. Trying to renegotiate the fundamentals in the interview reflects poor judgement.

Always illustrate with a real example. Theory tells the interviewer what you know. A real example shows them what you can actually do. The more specific and recent the example, the more persuasive it is. Tom, Younity

Talking to Your Worth and Salary

Salary conversations make many candidates uncomfortable. Having a clear approach makes them much easier.

Before the Interview: Know Your Number

Before you walk into any interview where salary might be discussed, you should know two things: your target figure, and the market range for the role. Research SEEK Salary Insights, LinkedIn Salary, and NZTech’s annual salary guide to understand what the role typically pays in your market.

Settle on a specific figure rather than a range. When you give a range, the employer will anchor to the lower end. Give the number that represents your genuine expectation.

If Salary Comes Up in the Interview

If you’re working with a recruiter, the cleanest approach is to redirect the conversation: ‘That’s a conversation I’d rather have through my recruiter once we’ve established mutual interest. I’ve been very clear with them about my expectations.’ This keeps the conversation professional and avoids a situation where, in the excitement of an offer, you agree to a figure you later regret.

If you’re applying directly and salary comes up early, give your figure confidently and move on. Do not apologise for it, add excessive caveats, or immediately negotiate against yourself.

When clients try to close candidates in an interview, there’s the excitement of having an offer, the pressure of that situation, the feeling you’ve got to give an answer. What generally happens is you end up accepting a figure that you then regret because you didn’t have time to think about it. Take some time. Have a conversation with your recruiter. Tom, Younity

Understanding Pay Bands and Benefits in NZ Tech

The New Zealand IT job market has well-established salary benchmarks for most role types. Understanding how to read them helps you assess offers accurately and negotiate effectively.

How Pay Bands Work

Most larger organisations set salary bands for each role level. These bands are designed to allow room for salary growth and performance-based increases without requiring a promotion. Typically:

When hired, you will usually be placed somewhere in the lower to middle portion of the band. This leaves room for the employer to reward performance over time.
Top of band usually signals that the person has outgrown the role level, which means the next step is either a promotion or a conversation about market adjustment.
Most companies leave approximately twenty percent of band headroom above starting salary for performance-based increases.

Beyond Base Salary: NZ Tech Benefits

Benefit	What to understand
KiwiSaver employer contribution	Mandatory employer contribution (currently 3% minimum). Note that under current law, this is on top of your stated salary, not included within it. Verify this with any offer you receive.
Annual leave	Twenty days is the statutory minimum in New Zealand. Some organisations offer additional days (often framed as wellbeing leave or long-service leave). Discretionary additional days may not be encashable.
Flexible and remote working	The level and formality of flexibility varies significantly between organisations. Clarify expectations early, but avoid making it a focal point of early-stage interviews.
Health insurance	Offered by some larger employers. Coverage and value varies considerably. Ask whether it extends to family members.
Bonuses	Discretionary bonuses are common in larger financial services and corporate technology environments. Most are structured as fifty percent on company performance and fifty percent on individual performance.
Professional development budget	Training budgets, certification funding, and conference allowances are offered by many IT employers. Worth asking about, particularly if certifications are important in your field.
Equity or share schemes	More common in startups and scale-ups. Employee Share Ownership Plans (ESOPs) require careful review of vesting schedules, tax implications, and the underlying value of the shares.
Fringe benefits	Some organisations offer wellness programmes, gym subsidies, income protection insurance, and similar benefits. Not universal but worth noting when comparing offers.

Negotiating Fairly and Confidently

Salary negotiation is an expected part of the hiring process, not a conflict. Most employers anticipate that you will negotiate and structure initial offers with some room to move.

When and How to Negotiate

Wait for a formal offer before negotiating. Negotiating in the interview itself is premature and often counterproductive.
Negotiate based on market data and your specific value, not on personal financial need. ‘Based on my research and experience, I was expecting something closer to X’ is professional. ‘I need X because of my mortgage’ is not a business case.
Anchor the conversation on your key requirement. Leading with salary expectations clearly stated avoids protracted back-and-forth.
Consider the total package. Base salary is one element. If the base is firm, ask whether there’s flexibility on other elements: additional leave, a professional development budget, or a salary review at six months.
Be positive throughout. You are not in conflict with the employer. You are establishing a working relationship. Being gracious even when negotiating creates a better start.

If through the process you find the role is bigger or has more responsibility than you expected, and your expectations have shifted, raise it at the earliest possible point. If you wait until the end and the final offer doesn’t match your revised expectations, you’ve wasted everyone’s time. Tom, Younity