Interviewing with Confidence

Interviewing can feel like a full-time job. When preparing for technical challenges, answering behavioral questions and keeping track of different opportunities, it’s helpful to crowdsource advice so you’re not reinventing the wheel.

We asked the WWCode San Francisco leadership team for tips on making the interview process more enjoyable.

Get Organized and Research 

 "When you start interviewing, you’ll want to find a process or system that helps you stay organized. When I started my job hunt, I used an excel to track what stage I was at for each company. It’s great to get organized from the beginning because you might have multiple things in your pipeline and you’ll want to keep track of last interactions (i.e. when you spoke to a recruiter or hiring manager, when you submitted an application)." 

– Michelle Macaraeg (Director)

 "Refer to Glassdoor/Blind to see what interview experience recent candidates have. Many common interview questions are also posted on such forums."

 – Prachi Shah (Director)

Maintain a Virtual Presence

 "Make a connection with your interviewer: Who are they? Did you research them?" 

– Ainne Oum (Director)

"Keep your video on while interviewing (especially for on-sites even if you have an option not to) and make that human connection instead of just being another zoom box. Nonverbal cues weigh in equally high when it comes to hiring someone you have never met and vice-a-versa"

– Aditi Lonhari (Director)

 "During a technical interview. remember to communicate with your interviewers. We are accustomed to coding quietly, find a buddy or rubber ducky to practice with"

– Monica Parrillo (JS Study Group Lead)

Take Your Time With Technical Questions

 "When the interviewer finishes explaining the question, don't jump in and start writing code right away. It's a big RED flag. Pause for a few seconds, think about the question, ask clarifying questions if you have any, summarize your understanding of the question briefly and then start discussing the solution. In short, do not be in a rush to code!" 

-Harini Rajendran (BE Study Group Lead)

 

"Listen to the interviewer carefully, confirm the approach with the interviewer before beginning to code. Use simple algorithms to write a few lines to explain it to your interviewer and that will be useful to refer to while you're coding as well. A good practice would be to write a few test cases once you have the logic and that will give a great impression to the interviewer."
-Mahalakshmi (Algorithms & Interview Prep Lead)

Learn more about Interviewing with Confidence on Friday, February 18th with an interactive workshop from WWCode SF and Career Nav.