62 HTTP Interview Questions for Networking Professionals
You need to know what HTTP is and how it works for many jobs in networking and other technical fields. Interviewers often use a mix of general and HTTP-based questions to find out if you are qualified for these jobs. If you are getting ready for a technical interview about HTTP, it might help to know what kinds of questions you might be asked. This article talks about 62 HTTP interview questions, some sample answers, and some tips that may help you prepare for the interview.
General HTTP interview questions
Most of the time, interviewers will ask you general questions to find out more about who you are and how well you might fit into the company’s work culture. Your answers may also show how hard you work and how you stay motivated at work. Most general questions don’t focus on a certain industry, but the interviewer may ask similar questions about the computer or IT fields. Think about these general questions as you get ready for your interview:
- Tell me about yourself.
- What makes you want this job?
- What’s one of the best things you’ve ever done?
- Why do you think you should play this role?
- What do you say to other people?
- How would your former bosses describe you?
- What do you want from your next job?
- How did you hear about this job opening?
- What do you think is the worst thing about the way you work?
- What special skills do you have that set you apart from other applicants?
- How much money do you want?
- For this job, what kind of setting do you want to work in?
- How familiar are you with our group?
- Do you prefer to work alone or with others?
- Where do you see yourself in five years?
- What does success look like to you?
- Do you have any questions we can answer about the job or the company?
- Tell me about a project where you went above and beyond what was asked of you.
- What do you do to keep up with news about the web and changes in technology?
Questions about work and history from the past
Your interviewer may spend most of the time asking you about your work history, education, and skills related to HTTP and other web-based skills. Most of the time, these questions help the interviewer figure out how well you can do the job and how you handle your responsibilities. Here are some common HTTP questions based on what people have asked in the past:
- How do you handle work stress?
- At your last job, what were the most important things you had to do?
- What was your favourite part of your last job?
- How can you learn and use new technical skills?
- How has your education prepared you for a job that uses web applications?
- What were the biggest problems you had to solve at your last job?
- What kinds of HTTP-related tasks did you do at your last job?
- Tell me about the last project you finished, including any problems you ran into and what you did to make it work.
- What was your favourite part of your last job?
- What was the biggest mistake you made at a previous job, and how did you fix it?
- During school, what did you learn?
- What do you think you can give this company that no one else can?
- What would your old coworkers say about how you do your job?
- Do you have professional certifications in IT or other technical fields?
- How did you improve your HTTP skills over the past year?
- How do you work in a team, and can you tell us about a time when you worked well with others in a network role you had before?
- How comfortable are you with using code that was written by someone else?
- Tell us about a time when your boss told you to do something you didn’t want to do. What did you do, and how did it go?
In-depth questions
Most of the time, in-depth questions are about the job you’re applying for. Interviewers may also ask more complicated questions that require answers to specific technical situations or examples of how certain functions and ideas work. Here is a list of questions about HTTP that go into more depth:
- What are HTTP request messages?
- What does the acronym HTTP mean?
- What do you think is the best way to improve the efficiency of a technical setting?
- Tell me about a time you had to wait your turn at work.
- How do you keep an online network safe?
- Which HTTP methods are safe and which ones aren’t?
- What happens to an undeliverable datagram?
- How does DNS spoofing work?
- What do you know about an HTTP request and an HTTP response?
- Explain the “request timed out” HTTP response code 408.
- Sample interview questions and how to answer them
- Show how you can hide an HTTP request action and have the browser instead show a message.
- How does HTTPS know that a web server is real?
- What’s the difference between HTTP and HTTPS?
- What are some important things you think about when you start a new project?
- Name the different types of HTTP content negotiation and explain how they work.
- When the server says “500 Internal Server Error,” what does that mean?
- What high-level programming languages have you used on projects you’ve worked on?
- When there are several choices, what does the HTTP code 300 mean?
- How do you do HTTP tasks? What tools and technical resources do you need?
Here is a list of four interview questions and examples of how to answer them:
1. Do you have any questions we can answer about the job or the company?
When interviewers ask this question, they usually want to help you learn anything about the company, its policies, the job role, or the work environment that you might not have learned from your online research. When you answer this question, ask questions that you really want to know the answer to. This question is a great chance to go into more detail about some things. You could ask about details in the job description, the work environment, or what a typical day is like for someone in your role.
Example: “There are three things I’d like to know about this job and the company. First, tell me what your short-term and long-term goals are for the person you hire for this job. How would you describe the way the company works? And lastly, if I had this job, how would you judge how well I did?”
2. What was your favourite part of the last job you had?
This is a question that interviewers might ask to find out how you felt about your last job. They may also find out what the company can do to make you feel as good as you did at your last job. Instead of talking about the people you worked with, talk about something good about your last job and the work you did. You could also talk about how that job prepared you for this one and why you like this one better.
Example: “I loved having a lot of freedom and control over what I did at my last job. Even though I sometimes worked from home and sometimes at the office, my boss trusted me to do good work. I kept a good balance between work and family life, which let me enjoy both of my interests, network security and spending time with my family. This freedom and control helped me get ready for this job, which requires me to be self-motivated and good at managing my time. I’m sure that this job will give me a good balance between work and life and make it easier for supervisors and teams to talk to each other.”
3. Name the different types of HTTP content negotiation and explain how they work.
Most of the time, interviewers ask this question to see if you know and can do the most important duties and responsibilities of the job. There are a lot of chances to show how smart you are with questions about HTTP terms and best practises. When answering this question, explain the different kinds of HTTP content negotiation in a way that is clear but not too long.
Example: “There are three different ways that HTTP content negotiation can be done. Server-driven negotiation is when I use an algorithm on the server to figure out the best way to represent a response. I make decisions based on these representations of the response, details about the request, and information in the request message’s header fields. I use agent-driven negotiation to choose a representation for a response after I get the first response from the origin server. Transparent negotiation is a combination of server-driven and agent-driven negotiation.”
4. What’s different about HTTP and HTTPS?
This is a question that interviewers often ask to see how well you know HTTP in general. Give a short explanation of how they are different in your answer. Since this HTTP question is pretty simple, you can give a short answer that gets right to the point.
Example: “HTTP is a protocol, and it doesn’t use encryption, TLS, or SSL. This means that there is no security for HTTP requests and responses. This means that anyone who is watching the internet connection can read this content in plaintext. TLS is used to keep requests and responses safe because HTTPS is an encrypted protocol. This means that anyone watching the connection won’t be able to see what’s on it. Instead of seeing plaintext, they can only see random characters.”
How to prepare for a job interview
As you prepare for your technical interview, here are some things to think about:
- Use the STAR method to answer questions as often as you can. STAR stands for Situation, Task, Action, and Result. When you answer questions this way, you can usually give answers that are clear, focused, and show off your skills.
- Bring as many copies as possible of your resume. Bring at least two copies of your resume to the interview so that the interviewer has something to look at while you talk about your qualifications. Extra copies also make sure that if there are more than one interviewer, they can all read your information.
- Get ready for your interview before the day of it. If you choose a professional outfit at least 24 hours before your interview, it may take you less time to get ready. It might also help you find clothes that aren’t torn, stained, or missing buttons.
- For the interview, get there early. You might be able to calm your nerves and keep practising how to answer questions in your head if you get to your interview early. Coming early can also show the interviewer that you are professional and respect their time.
- Try looking in the mirror as you answer interview questions. If you answer sample questions in front of a mirror, you can practise making eye contact and standing up straight. Most of the time, these habits show how sure you are of yourself and how interested you are in the interviewer.