Almost one year ago, I graduated with a B.Sc. in Information Systems in Germany. I am currently working for a company. My current company is an unconventional one. It is 20%-30% charity. (I don’t know how this information is relevant here tough :D) My position is a multirole position: IT Support, supervision of contracts, System and server administration, a little of programming (for company intern tasks, i.e. small tools). Now, I just got an interview for a traineeship position in Germany. A traineeship program for Software Engineering.
How different is this interview going to be as the position name is an unconventional one?
It is a fulltime position but it is not like an internship and it is also NOT like a regular software engineering/development position. What kind of questions should I expect? I am almost a hundred percent sure that they are going to ask why I want to leave my current company. But what else should I expect?
My REAL answer to “why do you want to leave your current company?”:
(1) I am working for a gambling organization and I don’t like it.
(2) The company culture is horrible: They talk down each other and my bosses are bullies.
(3)The computer(s) which I am working with/on are extremely old and it disturbs me that others in the company have much nicer things. It is not that company is poor.
(4) The one of the important ones: IT IS NOT A SOFTWARE DEVELOPMENT POSITION FOR GOD’S SAKE. I always want to develop a career in the direction of software engineering but I always got rejected.
How should I formulate these reasons into words in order to be able to appropriately answer the question “Why do you want to leave your current company?”***
I don’t have specific knowledge of Germany or this organization. My experience both as the applicant and the person giving the interview for Silicon Valley / Seattle based software companies is that they are a series of grueling technical interviews (e.g. a full day of say six interviews with six other developers each of which will give you some problem solving or programming problems to solve). We do ask the “soft” questions you’re asking about, but honestly “boring” answers wouldn’t sink you … although there are some red flags that might. So, no doubt think about good answers for these, but also try to figure out how they’re going to evaluate your technical skills. At least in my experience that will make or break you quicker than the rest.
That you’re frustrated about any of those things is perfectly reasonable. In fact, every one of them can be spun as a positive trait about you: (1) you’re passionate about solving real life problems, (2) you’d thrive working in a team of professionals, (3) you value having the tools and resources to do your job properly, and (4) you’re specifically looking for work as software developer, which is what they’re looking for too.
I think you can be honest about (1)-(4), they’re totally legit reasons for wanting to move on and the sort of thing a desirable employee would be keen to leave behind. But you can “soften” them to avoid coming across as negative. One way to do that is to talk about the things you value, and almost as an aside mention that you’re not currently experiencing them.
Also, I wouldn’t assume that this is true. It very well might be. Personally, I can’t remember having asked this question directly. It feels expected in the industry that people will move on quicker than in decades past and in other industries. Maybe I would given you’ve only been there a year. But I’ve tended to ask more indirectly related questions, like “what are you looking for?” and perhaps asking them to talk about some of their projects (where allowed). But we’re a fairly specialized branch of computer science, so gauging how comfortable they’d be with it is important.
I have both interviewed a lot, and been interviewed a lot, but I don’t think I have ever been asked why I’m leaving my current company, nor have I ever asked it. This is in the US; maybe things are different in Germany. However, if you are asked that question, your answer #4 is the ONLY one you should give. It’s perfectly reasonable to leave a company to get a job more in line with your long-term goals. It is NOT reasonable or acceptable to bad-mouth your previous employer(s), no matter how justified your reasons are. If a candidate I was interviewing started giving me a big sob story about how crappy his current job is, it would raise some red flags with me.
I went to the interview. They asked why I want to leave my current company and they also asked why I left my previous company (the one which I had worked for before my current company).
They also asked why kind of a leader I want to have. 
The rest of the questions were about technical stuff.
I was right in my prediction. 