| For behavioral interviews: 1. Write up some really basic bullet points for the stuff that commonly gets asked like, “Tell me about a time where you failed/had a disagreement/etc.” Just something you can quickly glance at and keep your thoughts on track, like “Failure: Project X,” “Success: Project Y,” “Disagreement: Coworker Z”
2. Put that on a sticky note at the edge of your screen or on your desk in front of you so you can glance at it if you need to remind yourself
3. If it’s on the phone instead of a video call or in-person, sit in front of a mirror and watch yourself to help keep yourself engaged, focused, and prevent getting distracted. Walking around a bit can help if your fidgety.
4. I always request a video call instead of an audio-only one so that I can see a face and try to keep my brain engaged with the discussion. For Technical Interviews: It’s sort a crapshoot and you never know what you’re going to get. Some folks succeed by grinding LeetCode so all that stuff is fresh in their brains, but that’s never worked for me. If you can find some way to get interested or curious and get into a flow or hyper focus state, it can work, but it can be hard to find that spot. Advent of Code can be a fun way to basically do LeetCode problems with a little storyline to them. It helps if you can come up with a good framework to help break the puzzles down into their underlying principles. Try to find out as much about the process and expectations as you can. Be honest when you hit a point where you know there’s a better approach, but you aren’t sure what it is right now. If it’s one of those ones where you can’t use the Internet like we all do every day for our jobs, you can always just nope out if it’s going poorly and avoid the anxiety or pseudocode it and talk about the approach you’d take. Most interviewers are human and some companies remember that we are all human, but some are looking for a machine. Your brain might not be a good fit for the machine-seekers. Scour your network, and your network’s network, for good referrals. After you have a couple of interviews that go well and are in a good head space, try to get a referral or two. Don’t spend all day doomscrolling job boards and applying. It’s an easy trap to fall into, but it’s so draining. Good luck out there. The job market is rough right now. Also, remember that some random interviewers opinion after 30 minutes to an hour of talking or whiteboarding or whatever doesn’t mean anything and doesn’t reflect on you or your abilities. |