Most companies have several steps of interviewing, and they all have their own structure for that. Some will tell you before how the application process steps will look like - and some don't. If they don't tell you about the process right before, just reach out to your contact person and ask. Knowing what kind of interview is coming will make the preparation for the next step easier. Some companies start with a technical interview immediately, some have an initial interview with a recruiter at first, and some do a mix of initial, tech and cultural fit. Even if most people fear the technical part the most, you should still prepare other interviews too.
If you want to find out more about an application process regarding a specific company, you can use glassdoor to read about experiences from other people. Keep in mind that people most likely share a negative experience rather than a positive. Some people also share they're interview experience on Leetcode.
Big companies often have longer interview processes than small companies and startups. However, the intensity of the interview process says nothing about how hard the job itself will be.
The trick is to prepare, without stressing and over preparing ✨
An initial phone (or video) call with a recruiter is something a lot of companies do in their application process. Sometimes the initial interview is done with a developer or another technical person instead of a recruiter. To be sure what kind of professional background the interviewer has, look on LinkedIn (if you don't know already). The initial interview is often a short interview to get to know you and pre-check if you could be a good match both technical and personal. You will most likely get asked to tell something about yourself.
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Prepare a short talk about yourself and use the opportunity to highlight the things that are important to you and relevant for the position.
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If you're switching jobs you'll also need to answer why you want to leave your previous job and why you chose this position to apply to.
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Sometimes you also get asked some technical questions. With a company recruiter they probably want to check if you can explain some technical context to a non-technical person. If the initial interview is with a person from the technical field, they probably do pre-check your tech skills.
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Behavioral / cultural fit questions can be also asked in an initial interview. This is not often the case, but it's still good to be aware that this can happen.
👯 An initial interview is your first chance to make a good impression and because initial interviews can vary a lot between companies, it's good to be prepared for different scenarios.
Technical interviews are hard 🔥 You'll never know what will happen. You will have to answer a lot of technical questions and sometimes you have to do live coding or even writing pseudo code on a white board (luckily, I never had to do that). Not knowing how to answer all the questions is totally fine, your potential future colleagues just want to grasp your knowledge very well to assess your current level.
Try to not rage study everything at once and instead prepare with structure.
Having blind spots in the companies tech stack is totally normal. Every job requires a different set of technologies, and you don't need to be a pro in all of them.
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Make a list of your technical skills (from your CV) and compare it to the tech stack from the job you're applying to. Highlight the matches ➡️ this will be your focus.
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Take all the technologies from the stack that you didn't highlight and do a small research. Write down what this technology is used for, and a bit of common information about it. Don't spent too much time on that. When you get asked about these technologies, you can show that you have some common knowledge about it and show some interest about it, but also be honest and say that you don't have experience in using it.
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More important than knowing how to answer ✨everything✨ from the tech stack is to have solid answers for the technologies you know. Take all the highlighted technologies from the list and prepare common interview questions for these technologies. F.e. if you have Javascript experience, and the job also asks for Javascript knowledge research common Javascript interview questions. Look at 3-4 resources. You will see that some resources have similar questions on their list. Focus on the most mentioned questions first, as you can't prepare every single question that exists. Take notes ✏️ or create tables in notion, excel or a program of your choice. Make sure to also bookmark 📌 useful websites and resources.
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Preparing questions is also a very important part for interviews. Some of your questions might get answered during the interview, so I would suggest preparing a few backup questions (ask 2-4 questions, prepare 6-8).
During the interview the most important thing is to stay calm. Have some water by your side and pen + paper to take some notes.
Don't try to make something up, be honest or ask questions to get further information on what they want to refer to. It's fine if you can't answer some things. They ask a lot of questions to evaluate your current level. Note the questions you couldn't answer 📋 (especially if there were questions about a technology you know that you couldn't answer).
This is your moment to shine ✨ Take your time and don't talk to fast. Show that you have experience in the asked area. Don't answer too short, it's fine to show a little of 🎇extra🎇 information about the asked topic. Talking too much unnecessary stuff is also not recommended. Balance is key
Ask your questions, take some notes and ask when you can expect feedback.
Take notes about your impressions. Things that you liked about the interview/people/tech stack and what you didn't like. During an interview you're excited and pumped with adrenaline, so sometimes you forget a few details afterwards. I personally found that having notes during an interview process was beneficial for me.
Cultural fit interviews are part of the interview process in a lot of cases. Some companies just try to find out what's important to you considering colleagues, managers, decision processes etc. Try to think of that beforehand and consider what your core values are.
Some companies have a catalogue of behavioral questions. These can be overwhelming and stressful to answer if you face these questions unprepared 🙏 Behavioral questions are used to find out how you handled previous situations when collaborating with other people. A lot of questions are targeted at finding out how you dealt with situations where something went wrong or where you were in a conflict with another person 😰 It's extremely useful to think about good examples beforehand because handling these questions unprepared can lead to either not knowing any examples or talking about a ⚡very bad⚡ work experience that makes you stand in a very poor light. Acting like you never had a bad experience or nothing ever went wrong is also not recommended. Try to find examples where you can talk about your learning from the mistakes that were made and how you were able to turn the situation around. Don't talk negatively about ex colleagues, managers and projects.
Similar to the technical interview questions I suggest you to research common behavioral interview questions and try to find good examples for the most mentioned questions.
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