How to prepare for job interviews #2 : At the interview

Interview lifecycle

This is subjective from a company to another, but from my experience (I've done almost +15 interviews)

1. Screen interview (10-20 minutes) : here an HR recruiter is trying to know these points:

   1. General feeling and first impression

   2. Where you fit inside the team: what is the possible position that you maybe a good candidate for

   3. The most important point: your current salary, and expected total package

2. Technical Interview (1-2 hours): This is also different (Specially in Saudi)

   1. General technical walkthrough (system design)

   2. White-board problems

3. Technical assessment: implement a small project based on some functional requirements

4. Personal interview (maybe) with VP/CTO/Director depending on the company size

5. Sending the job offer

General Advice

• Know the company & interviewers

• Communicate clearly with clear voice

• Be honest

My approach to "can you talk about yourself?"

I heard so many people hating this question and saying "I don't know what to say", I think this question is the best chance to express yourself, talking about your experiences, what did you like working on, and what things excited you about your internships/work experiences.

• It should take maximum 2 and half minute

• Give a general overview of university curriculum (emphasis on CS courses)

• For each experience (work or internships) explain in 10s what the company business model is, for example "I worked on x company, which is a fintech company specialized on contactless payment solutions"

• Do not go deep into the tech stack yet, the interviewer is interested for sure in details about what technologies you worked on but leave it for later, for example "My responsibilities their were mostly backend engineering where I designed and developed API gateway and couple of microservices. I'm happy to dig deeper into the tech stack but that's it for me."

• Now you done a great job at helping the interviewer to feel comfortable and creating the foundation of the whole discussion. Also, you provided him with a lot of concise information about your whole experience that he can inspect and asks you about

Technical interview

• Don't solve the wrong problem

• Construct sample input/output

• Think out loud

• Assume valid inputs first

• Then, test for corner cases