1) what should I say when an interviewer asked "how much experience you have and why I should hire you instead of someone with more experiences" type of questions.
I hated this type of question (I find it insulting in fact) but tried to put up my best smiley face and answered that "I have experience and expertise in what you looking for and I have very pleasant personality to work with, which is a quality you may not find in every candidate". I get a feeling that they are always skeptical of my capability and productivity, and am always looking for something else. I feel very uneasy and may have showed it visually. After I get out of the office, I felt crushed and hopeless (even disgusted at this company), unable to understand why my interviewer asked such question. I was looking forward to a prospect of working together, not this. If he is skeptical of my ability, test me or ask me to provide work samples, references.
Can someone explain this to me, tell me whether my feeling is rational or irrational?
How should I reason this type of question in future and how should I answer it without personal feelings.
2) I wrote in my resume that I have 9 months in PHP (in practical work) and 1+ year in Java (SCJP + Academic projects/OOP + Self-study). Really I began working hard-core with Java about 3 years ago at univeristy. After that I remained interested in Java and tried to apply Java technologies whenever possible. My problem is that I have only academic projects to show for, and after I graduate, I couldn't find a junior java anywhere (as every java jobs requires 2~3+ years - even for juniors). The only java job I can find was a
JUnit work, but that lasted only 2 months before I was layoff. My 2nd job is similiar but in PHP.
How do I solidify these experience in my resume, especially about the self-study part? I spent a lot of off-work hours studying Java. This is really hard to quantity, but it's close to one year or more experience in a junior role, I believe.
I am at a level where working with JavaSE 6 core libraries is becoming quite easy, and coding requires only looking up reference API in google. I know servlet and JSP quite well. I am almost ready for the SCWCD exam.