Roadmap to a Successful Interview

(Photo Credit @markkonig)

As I mentioned yesterday, all of my clients have used my interview prep methods to be prepared and know what’s coming their way, which leads to successful outcomes & offers. 

I’m going to lay out my Interview Prep Roadmap for you here. Over the next few days, I’ll also provide links to free worksheets and common non-coding tech interview questions. For some, this will be new & for others, this will be a nice refresher. If you use any of these tools, I’d love to hear how they helped you be more successful in your interviews! 

Step 1: Developing Your Interview Intro, aka Pitch

Step 2: 3 Main Types of Tech Interview Questions

Step 3: STAR Interview Basics

Step 4: My List of Intro Tech & Startup Interview Questions

Step 5: When to use Tech Interview Prep Sites

Step 6: How to Create a Custom Interview Prep Guide

Step 7: How to Structure an Offer Negotiation Conversation

Think of this Interview Prep Roadmap as your training schedule. 

When you train for a 10K, you don’t just lace up your shoes & run (well, most of us don’t). Instead, you develop a training plan that looks at your current fitness level, your goals, and helps you get from A to B. 

My Interview Prep Roadmap does the same thing: helps you assess your current interview readiness and devise a personalized plan for action. 

Curious to know more about how I can help you with your interview prep? Head over to the Contact Me page and let me know more about your situation.

To interview well, you need to prepare, prepare, prepare!

(Photo credit The Jopwell Collection)

To interview well, you really do need to prepare, prepare, prepare! It’s a mistake to assume that glancing at your resume and the job description for 10-15 minutes before an interview will be enough to help you be a prepared interview candidate. It’s also a mistake to prepare several ‘perfectly written responses’ and expect that you’ll remember them word for word in an interview situation. 

Over the past decade or so, I’ve conducted countless interviews and mock interviews, and provided critical feedback to help candidates improve their responses. I’ve found that there are 3 main stereotypes of interviewees that I’ve encountered – do you recognize yourself in any of them? 

• Type 1: Overly confident in their speaking abilities. Verbal storytelling comes naturally to this candidate, so they tend to over-rely on this ability and don’t do much interview preparation. 

  • Does this sound like you? 

    • “If I prepare too much, I will get bogged down in trying to remember too many things and sound too rehearsed – and I’m pretty confident that I know my own resume and that I can answer just about any question that comes my way.” 

  • Challenge to overcome: 

    • Just because you feel confident and speak well doesn’t mean that you actually come across that way to a practiced interviewer. An interview is an important opportunity to show you can be focused with your answers and your allotted interview time slot. 

    • I find that this type of candidate is most likely to ramble when telling their interview stories and forget to emphasize key points. 

    • This can become a big problem because while the candidate may be highly engaging, I worry about their ability to think ahead on projects and be efficient with their time. It also causes problems in future interview rounds where interviewers are expecting to hear concise responses. 

  • What can you do? 

    • Recognize that preparation will help those who are good at storytelling to become stellar at it, and will not diminish your ability to sound natural. 

• Type 2: Overly confident in their writing abilities. Crafting well-written interview responses is a strength for this type of candidate, however many do not practice translating these statements into the spoken word. And since most interviews require you to speak at some point, you’ll need to become good at this. 

  • Does this sound like you? 

    • “I have written down the perfect responses to a zillion types of interview questions. All of those sentences are floating around in my head, and I feel confident that I will be able to find the right one, remember all of its components, and speak it out loud at the right time.” 

  • Challenge to overcome: 

    • Two challenges - the written word rarely translates perfectly to spoken word. Don’t believe me? Try reading your cover letter out loud to a potential interviewer as your introduction about yourself - trust me, it’ll feel really awkward. 

    • Trying to remember the ‘perfect statement’ slows you down. 

  • What can you do? Recognize that preparation will help those who are good at storytelling to become stellar at it, and will not diminish your ability to sound natural. 

• Type 3: Practiced yet not robotic, feeling confident with defined areas for improvement.  

  • Does this sound like you? 

    • “I am feeling pretty good about any upcoming interview. I’ve practiced my interview responses, both written and spoken, so I know what key skills I want to emphasize. I’ve reviewed the job description and feel confident I know ~80% of the questions that will be asked.” 

  • Challenges to overcome: 

    • Working on how to prepare for the less common ~20% interview questions that will come your way (instead of feeling completely unsure of what’s coming next). 

  • What can you do? 

    • Pat yourself on the back for recognizing that interview prep is important and that you’ve found a successful strategy for balancing preparedness and still sounding like a real person. 

** Using my methods, I’ve had multiple candidates who became Type 3 - and would tell me that they came out of their interview having prepared answers to >80% of the questions asked.** 

Let me help you move successfully from interview rounds to the offer stage. Head over to the Contact Me page and let me know more about your needs.

Understanding how to identify a good manager

(Photo credit @mariogogh)

One piece of advice for job seekers that is often repeated: look for a good manager and they will help move you along your career faster. But there is a lot less advice on *how* to identify a good manager during the interview process! And even if your manager is good, are they able to function effectively in the workplace you’re joining, and will you also be able to? As an interviewee, you need to assess both the workplace culture *and* your future manager to ensure a good fit. 

Here are 3 tips on how to assess both during the interview: 

1. Understand what type of management style helps YOU thrive in a job. 

   • Are you someone who likes to be autonomous or be guided? Do you enjoy supportive bosses or ones who challenge you to achieve? Do you like to be publicly recognized for your achievements or quietly with flowers or stock refresh grants?

   • One person’s favorite boss can be another’s worst nightmare -- because we all have different work styles and preferences. Make sure to know yours to help you evaluate for fit. 

2. Ask your prospective manager questions that force them to respond with specific examples of interactions between themselves and someone on the team. 

   • Here are 3 good questions to ask initially (with good explanations for each one found here). I like these because they help you understand how the manager interacts with the entire team as well as individuals on the team.

     • Tell me about a time when a team member changed your mind. 

     • Describe a recent success or win. 

     • Tell me about the last person you recognized. 

   • Try to push past the surface-level cheerleading or obfuscation that some interviewers do. If the interviewer can’t or won’t answer these 3 questions directly, it’s likely that they have not received a lot of management coaching themselves -- so be wary. Here are a few additional tips to identify a potentially toxic manager.

3. Ask all of your interviewers questions geared towards understanding the work environment on a day-to-day basis.

   • You want to identify a work culture that values psychological safety to help you and your team be as successful as you all can be. Research at Google showed that psychological safety was the number one predictor of success for high-performing teams. And many companies are adept at plastering platitudes all over the place, but how do those values play out on a daily basis on your future team/department?

   • Here are some sample questions from HBR to ask your interviewees to help you assess the workplace culture: 

     • Can you tell me about a time when your teammates and your manager had your back during a project? 

     • How often do people in the organization apologize to one another? 

     • Can you tell me how your company encourages individuals and teams to recognize one another for achievements large and small? 

     • Do people with diverse backgrounds work at every level of your company?

     • How did you (or your manager) start your last team meeting? What happens during the first 5-10 minutes?

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WANT A CAREER IN TECH BUT AREN’T SURE WHERE TO START? TAKE A LOOK AT MY COURSE, ‘TECH SEARCH COMPASS’ FOR STEP-BY-STEP SUPPORT