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What is your job interview ritual?
(lemm.ee)
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this post was submitted on 22 Sep 2023
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Programming
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Head over to the website of the company go to the about section and read about their values. They usually list something like teamwork, communication, working autonomously, speed, or quality. You pick 2-3 of these values and that's what you talk about when they ask about yourself.
For the actual technical part it's hard to prepare for. Most people don't actually care about you being perfect but just want to see if you actually are familiar with what you said you are. So as long as you have an idea what you are talking about you will be fine.
Even if you don't know the answer, just come up with something that could work. Don't just say you don't know. Explain your train of thought as to why your solution could work. And any other ideas you might have.
I disagree with not saying "I don't know". I've interviewed people who refuse to say it and it's pretty easy to tell. And I've worked with people who don't know something and are afraid to admit it - often at the 11th hour, they have to be rescued. It's pretty aggravating IMO
Ultimately, I'd want a team member who was comfortable with admitting that and then had methods to find the answer.
I had this just the other day actually. I am in SRE and the overwhelming majority of the code I write is terraform, instructions for a Dockerfile or CI pipeline, or just some random ass bash to compile information.. I don't actually do that much coding at all and what I do end up doing is pretty rudimentary.
EVERY job interview I go on though wants to do some leetcode style code puzzle. The one I got the other day I just said to the guy, "I honestly don't know how to do this. The code I write isn't fancy or clever. It's mostly just to get things done." We worked through it together though and I understood the logic by the end but they were mostly holding my hand. What I was doing was throwing out ideas and trying to work out pros/cons with the interviewer. That was enough apparently because he green-lit me for the next round..
These type of interview questions really annoy me because they are not representative of the job in any way. In addition to work, I also have a life that does not involve computers. After putting in a 40 hour week on engineering stuff, grinding leetcode over a weekend is a hard sell.