As I have also had trouble in this field, although mine is more concerned to game programming, what comes to mind is fundamentals, like what trcollinson linked.

As I have also had trouble in this field, although mine is more concerned to game programming, what comes to mind is fundamentals, like what trcollinson linked. Some of the most important things to know about any programming position is the language in question. This seems simple in theory, but much of what programmers need is fundamentals such as algorithms and language semantics. When I first went for an interview for a game programming I was asked a question about how to find if a point is in a triangle (find the area of the original triangle and the area of the triangles created by the points of the triangle and the point you are looking for, if they are equal than the point lies within the triangle). I could not answer this question at the time but some of what was the problem was not knowing the fundamentals of c++ and not just math. If you are going for a junior position and it's dealing with information based programming then dealing with string literals is very important. Many companies, namely google and micorsoft, love asking questions dealing with problems with string. If I had to lay out the steps to getting the job, trcollinson's link is very good, I would then after knowing not just the slides but the importance behind the ideas presented I would then learn some fundamental algorithms in dealing with arrays, string literals, sorting, etc. All of which can be found at wikipedia: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_algorithms http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_algorithms Also equally important is a good cover letter and resume so here is a link to a story posted by peteretep on how to write these: http://www.slideshare.net/perlcareers/how-to-write-a-developer-cvrsum-that-will-get-you-hired http://www.slideshare.net/perlcareers/how-to-write-a-develop...