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5 Mistakes You're Making In Your Technical Interviews & How To Avoid Them

Emma Bostian ✨ on December 25, 2018

Technical interviews are the most nerve-wracking experiences in any engineer's career. Often, you're so worried about impressing the interviewers t...
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Raymond (Remon)

Thanks a lot for your article .

this part I faced two days ago in an interview and Yes , this answer is the best .

If an interviewer asks you "Have you worked with React?" and you say "Yes I have", you'd better be able to answer questions about the library.

There is no quicker way to shoot yourself in the foot than by listing proficiency of a technology you have baseline knowledge of.

Instead, you're welcome to say "I've taken a few introductory React courses, but haven't worked with it in any professional setting. It's something I truly would like to learn."

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LsvMky

Good tips. I've noticed a weird change with interviews lately. 13, 8 and 5 years ago I'd have multiple offers after 2-3 interviews, this time around half of them feel like I'm applying for a best buy position (how would you plan a bachelor party? What are your strengths?)and interviewers seem more interested in making themselves feel smart, at least the American ones in the south. You have to learn how to interview and deal with recruiters that don't know the difference between an API and a language. I've had to go into interviews without even having a summary of the position because they're in such a rush to make a commission.

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swati teke

This is Great Advice! Very honest and practical. This is a comprehensive and helpful list.thanks for providing details related interview tips that really works for me. I want to share experience related to interview. i gave an a interview of online android development at that time interviewer asked me many technical questions I given an proper answer of few questions but some questions are very difficult to asked at that time i am very confuse how i react at that time. by reading this article i got some ideas that i can easily give any answer of question if any of them i didn't know
thankful to you for sharing this great tips with us looking forword for your next article

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RAYNAL JR

That is so true, I have been interviewing a lot of candidates (focusing on their C++ knowledge). Most of them hit at least one of those issues. I would also add that if you are listing a skill that the company require, look at the recent changes in the tech, analyse then with a curious mindset!

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Antonio Cabrero

Thanks so much Emma! I am preparing myself for my first 2nd interview and its my first time ever interviewing as developer. Quite daunting! Specially being a newbie, your article helped me a lot!

Best regards!

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Adrian B.G.

They are all good advice and common sense if you think about it.

Many candidates make the assumption that they have to provide the most optimized, performant solution to an algorithmic coding question.

I had one exception here, in a FANG company they said I was too slow in solving a problem, I tried to explain my reasoning and other alternatives before the logN solution, like they asked but they were not actually looking for this. The HR said one thing the guy who came to interview had different oppinion, which did not share it.

Overall you have to really dig up what the interviewer really wants from you and give it, not what the policy is.

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Sergio Meneses

I found it really helpful, thanks a lot for it!

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phantomread

The problem with modern day's tech interview is that it kinda expects you to know everything about everything. Just software engineering alone has large number of technologies/discipline which probably requires one's life time to master all. Yet many jobs require you to know different programming languages/frameworks/libraries across various domains.

Unless you are ok with limiting your job perspective, I'd say don't be too honest at a job interview. Job interview is about marketing yourself rather than showing who you really are. This doesn't mean you should lie about your experience, what you should do instead is to study and prepare hard beforehand and then paint it in the way so it looks that you've known more than just the basics.

At the end of the day, this is just a game, people who are "perceived" as the best candidate got the job.

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Buari Bola Ahmed

Thanks!

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Jason C. McDonald • Edited

Excellent tips! As an interviewer, I actually watch for these points.

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Emma Bostian ✨

That’s great to know! Thanks!

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Ahmed AbuIriban

Great tips