A job interview is the most stressful situation in the professional life. The success in an interview is entirely dependent on the performance of the interviewee. The personality and behavioral skills are also taken into consideration while interviewing you. While going for a mainframe job interview, if you ensure that you possess good knowledge and skills in this field, then the chances of your selection are much higher. You will surely succeed if you are confident and are ready with the answers to the most common mainframe interview questions.
Mainframe is a huge computer device used by large scale organizations. This device is connected to several terminals and runs complex operating systems. The most unique characteristic of this computer is that it runs on Oss and is extremely fast serving millions of users simultaneously. A mainframe professional is required to provide security solutions in the IT environment. He/she is engaged in development, administration, monitoring, maintenance and implementation of effective security solutions. Mainframe computing job openings are available in the market across reputed organizations. Your abilities will guide you to crack these opportunities and fetch the right job for yourself.
This is a technical domain and the interviewee must have good technical knowledge in this field. Additionally, you need to have a positive attitude, presence of mind, analytical thinking, confident body language and smart presentation skills. Some frequently asked interview questions enumerated below will help you to prepare the answers and be ready to face the interview panel.
General Questions:
Give a detailed profile of yours starting from your name, birthplace, education, specialization and work experience. Also, mention if you have any specific achievements, extra-curricular activities, interesting hobby, etc.
"I have over five years of experience in the field of mainframe with specialization in COBOL."
Be positive towards your past/current employer. Never share any management or personal conflict instances. You may stress on the better opportunity, change or career growth aspects.
"I am currently working as a programmer and aim to move up the career ladder in terms of growth, experience and learning."
You have to do your home work in a detailed way before attending the interview in the organization. This will aid you to face the questions easily. If you have any doubt about any particular information, you can clarify and discuss it with the interviewer.
This is a tricky question. So handle it carefully. Never share any specific number or negative reasons. Rather, explain that you have had the opportunity to grow at a faster pace. Convince the interviewer that you will associate with the company for a long time.
The interviewer wants to know if you can work both ways. So answer tactfully with a natural flow of speaking. Give examples from your work experience.
"Team work becomes fruitful only when we put an individual effort. No work is possible without team effort...."
Please mention your skills, abilities and qualities in this answer. Justify your value to the interviewer.
Technical Questions:
" Mainframe is a large and multi user computer device which helps to perform TIPS per second. It has the most user friendly bandwidth, connectivity, single thread performance and reliability factors."
IBM is the pioneer in the mainframe computing field. Some of their softwares are COBOL, Enterprise COBOL, JCL, VSAM, CICS, DB2 , etc.
Other players in the market are Unisys (Clear path), Hitachi (zSeries), HP (NonStop) and Fujitsu(BS2000/ ICL VME) amongst many others.
Data division, environment division, identification division and procedure division.
Out of these, identification is the most important and mandatory division.
They are the reserved words that specify certain alphabetic or numeric constant values like zero, spaces, quotes, high and low value/s, etc.
66 is used for renaming, 77 for elementary level and 88 for condition names.
JCL stands for Job Control Language. It describes the series of a batch in a mainframe system.
I am specialized in COBOL mainframe. I feel that JCL has few limitations and is full of inconsistencies. But of course, I have good knowledge on JCL as well.
Mention the project details, the scope of work and what were you contributions in the project. Share the points of achievement which have resulted in successful completion of the work.
If you are a fresher, mention about your academic assignments, projects or trainings that you have undergone.
Yes certainly. I will try my level best to answer all of them.
Answer this question to clear any doubts you have in your mind. Do not ask any general question that you are supposed to know before coming to the interview. Rather ask questions related to the particular profile, company, teams, etc.
The mainframe interview questions given above will definitely help you to prepare for the job interview and answer all the questions of the interviewer confidently. We wish you best of luck! Please note that these questions are not restricted in the technical sphere and may expand based on the interviewer's choice.