What Recruiters Look for in Technical Interviews (and How to Prepare)

I work with technical consultants across the French contract market, mainly within cloud, infrastructure, DevOps, OpenShift, OpenStack, platform engineering, and more recently, AI infrastructure environments as well.

And honestly, one of the biggest misconceptions I see is candidates thinking technical interviews are only about proving technical knowledge.

Of course technical skills matter. But most clients already know from your CV that you probably have the technical background.

What they’re really trying to understand in the interview is:

• how you think
• how you communicate
• whether they trust you
• whether they can see themselves working with you

And this is where many strong technical candidates unintentionally lose opportunities.

So I wanted to explain how technical interviews usually work, the mistakes I see most often, and how I recommend consultants prepare for them.

How Technical Interviews Are Structured

In general, technical interviews are actually quite predictable once you understand the structure.

Usually, the client will first introduce:

• the company
• the structure of the team
• the environment
• the project
• and most importantly, the problem they need solved

And this is something candidates should pay much more attention to.

Because the client is basically telling you what they care about most.

Maybe they need someone to help structure governance across cloud environments. Maybe they’re modernising infrastructure. Maybe they’re migrating OpenShift platforms, scaling Kubernetes environments, improving automation, or building more mature AI infrastructure capabilities.

The strongest candidates immediately adapt their discussion around these problems.

After this introduction, the consultant will normally present their experience and background.

And this is where I see one of the biggest mistakes happen.

A lot of people explain their career in a completely chronological way, almost like reading their CV from top to bottom.

But the client does not need your entire life story.

What they need is relevance.

So if the client just explained they need someone to improve governance or help stabilise infrastructure, then you should focus on the experiences where you solved similar problems.

The experiences that are not relevant can stay brief.

Common Technical Interview Mistakes

The biggest mistake I see is candidates speaking too generally.

A lot of consultants speak in terms of:

• “we did this”
• “we built that”
• “we managed this migration”

And yes, of course, technical work is collaborative. Nobody expects you to pretend you did everything alone.

But clients still need to understand:

• what you specifically did
• what your responsibilities were
• what you contributed

I always recommend structuring things clearly; what the team was responsible for, and then specifically what your role was inside that team.

This matters especially in cloud and infrastructure environments because responsibilities are often shared between:

• Platform teams
• Infrastructure teams
• DevOps engineers
• SREs
• Security teams
• Cloud operations

For example, in one company, the DevOps team might handle integrations, while in another company, the infrastructure team owns that responsibility.

So hiring managers want to understand exactly where your ownership started and ended.

And honestly, one of the fastest ways to lose confidence in an interview is exaggerating responsibilities.

If you say you handled something technically, but then cannot explain it properly when challenged, the confidence gets broken immediately.

There’s absolutely no problem saying:
 “That part was handled by another colleague, but I understand the process and I’d be happy to learn it further.”

That honesty is much stronger than pretending.

How to Explain Technical Experience Clearly

One framework I often recommend is the STAR method:

• Situation
• Task
• Action
• Result

Not because interviews should sound scripted, but because it helps structure your thinking clearly.

For example:

Situation

The company was struggling with inconsistent governance and deployment processes across multiple Kubernetes and OpenShift environments.

Task

My responsibility was to help improve platform stability, standardise processes, and support scalability across the infrastructure environment.

Action

I worked with infrastructure and DevOps teams to improve CI/CD automation, standardise deployment workflows, and reduce manual operational processes.

Result

Deployment consistency improved, operational overhead was reduced by X% through automation, and the platform became more stable and scalable across teams.

What matters is clarity: What was the situation? What did you specifically contribute? What was the outcome?

But one important thing: do not over-prepare your answers.

I genuinely think over-rehearsed interviews often feel unnatural.

When someone has memorised every sentence, it loses authenticity. Clients want to feel they are speaking with a real person, not someone reciting prepared answers.

So prepare your ideas and your structure, but still keep it natural.

What Hiring Managers Want to Understand

Most technical interview questions are not traps. The client is usually just trying to understand:

• how you work
• how your team was organised
• what your responsibilities were
• how deeply you understand your environment

They might ask:

• What was the size of the team?
• Who was responsible for what?
• How was the platform organised?
• What tools were you using?
• How were deployments handled?
• Were you working with stakeholders or only technical teams?

And again, specificity matters a lot.

Especially in platform engineering and infrastructure roles where environments can become very complex.

For example, if you’re working within OpenShift, OpenStack, Kubernetes, cloud governance, AI infrastructure, or automation environments, clients will often want to understand:

• how mature the environment was
• how responsibilities were shared
• how much ownership you personally had
• and how you approached solving problems

Why Authenticity Matters More Than Perfect Answers

One thing I always say is: technical interviews are not exams.

The client is not interviewing the Queen of England. They are humans. They have their own stress, their own workload, their own problems.

And many times, what they are evaluating is not just whether you are technically capable. They are evaluating whether they can work with you every day.

I have seen extremely skilled technical consultants fail interviews because they came across as difficult, too rigid, or too convinced that only their way was correct. Meanwhile, another candidate with slightly less technical knowledge got the role because the client could imagine working with them more easily.

Technical skills matter enormously. But adaptability, communication, and attitude matter as well, particularly in consulting and contract environments.

Questions To Ask in a Technical Interview

Another mistake I see often is candidates not asking questions at all.

For me, this is a missed opportunity because good questions can completely change how the client perceives you.

There are three types of questions I especially like.

1. Ask something that shows you researched the company

For example:
“I saw that your company also has operations in Greece. Will this role work closely with those teams?”

You may not even need to worry about other locations, but the question demonstrates that you researched the company before the interview.

2. Ask a technical question

As the client explains their stack and environment, if they mention a technology you know well, ask about a common challenge that usually comes with it.

For example, every technology has its typical problems or operational pain points. If you ask how they currently handle one of those challenges, it immediately demonstrates that you understand the technology and have real experience working with it.

It also creates a kind of connection with the client because you both understand the same frustrations and technical realities of working with that environment.

That creates a much more natural technical discussion instead of making the interview feel like a one-sided interrogation.

3. Ask what success looks like

This is one of my favourite questions.

Something like:
“What would you expect from me for you to feel highly satisfied with the work delivered in this role?”

This changes the conversation completely, because now the client sees someone who is already thinking about delivering value.

Why Working With a Recruiter Can Help

One big advantage of working with a recruiter is insight on the client and the person you will be interviewing with.

A recruiter who knows the client properly will often know:

• how the manager works
• what personality they have
• what previous candidates did wrong
• what technical areas matter most
• how formal or informal the environment is

These things are difficult to know when applying directly.

For example, sometimes a company has a very relaxed startup culture. Other times they expect something much more formal. These small details can influence interviews much more than people realise.

And many times, recruiters can also help consultants understand what the client actually values, the problems they are trying to solve, and any concerns they might already have.

That preparation with the recruiter before an interview can make a huge difference.

Interview Advice for Cloud, Platform Engineering, and AI Infrastructure Roles

The infrastructure market is evolving very quickly right now. Companies are no longer only hiring traditional infrastructure engineers and are increasingly looking for professionals who understand:

• cloud ecosystems
• Kubernetes
• OpenShift  
• automation
• platform engineering
• AI infrastructure
• scalable environments
• governance
• MLOps collaboration

And in these environments, communication becomes even more important because the technical ecosystems are much more collaborative and cross-functional.

Especially now with the growth of AI infrastructure and companies building internal AI capabilities, I’m seeing increasing demand for engineers who can combine:

• infrastructure expertise
• cloud scalability
• automation
• and understanding of modern AI environments

This is also why certifications and advanced AI training programmes, including Frontier-focused certifications, are becoming more valuable in the market.

How to Feel More Confident Before a Technical Interview

I know interviews create a lot of stress for people, especially highly technical profiles who maybe are not naturally very comfortable with interviews.

But honestly, one thing I always say is: you have nothing to lose.

Either things improve or things stay the same. That mindset helps reduce a lot of unnecessary pressure.

And my final word of advice for interviews that is something simple but genuinely important: never underestimate the power of a smile and showing enthusiasm.

Not in an exaggerated way (still be professional), but enthusiasm and positive energy matter much more than people think. Clients want someone technically capable, of course, but they also want someone they’ll enjoy working with every day.