My first technical interview
I recently had my first technical interview. I haven't done an interview like this before. It was an interesting experience.
Here's how it went:
I was told that the interviewer would be contacting me via google hangouts, however they decided to give me a call instead. I was sent a link to a codepen like website (I don't remember the name). While the interviewer was on the phone, I was to solve the problem on the screen.
Normally, interviews aren't that hard for me. I do have some anxiety around them (who doesn't???), but I can usually work through it. Not so much for this technical interview. The same thing happened when I do some type of public speaking event. MY MIND WENT BLANK! I knew there were words on the screen but it's like I couldn't read. Everything I had been taught seemed to escape out my head like a 5 alarm fire.
Thankfully, it started to come back and I was able to slowly work through the problem. It could have been my interpretation, but the interviewer seemed to be rushing things. I'm not that surprised though. I am sure I sounded like I knew nothing. The interviewer was nice and polite and didn't get frustrated with me, but it felt more like a training session, rather than what I imagined a technical interview would be like.
Lessons learned:
Here's how it went:
I was told that the interviewer would be contacting me via google hangouts, however they decided to give me a call instead. I was sent a link to a codepen like website (I don't remember the name). While the interviewer was on the phone, I was to solve the problem on the screen.
Normally, interviews aren't that hard for me. I do have some anxiety around them (who doesn't???), but I can usually work through it. Not so much for this technical interview. The same thing happened when I do some type of public speaking event. MY MIND WENT BLANK! I knew there were words on the screen but it's like I couldn't read. Everything I had been taught seemed to escape out my head like a 5 alarm fire.
Thankfully, it started to come back and I was able to slowly work through the problem. It could have been my interpretation, but the interviewer seemed to be rushing things. I'm not that surprised though. I am sure I sounded like I knew nothing. The interviewer was nice and polite and didn't get frustrated with me, but it felt more like a training session, rather than what I imagined a technical interview would be like.
Lessons learned:
- Practice more ruby, javascript etc problems. I think, going through rails and react has kind of shoved that information to a part of my brain that I barely know about. I know it will come back to me, but I may need to coax it out of hiding. It's like getting on a bike again. You look like you are going to keep falling but you don't...and then you figure out what you are doing and start to go faster.
- Read up on technical interviews. Figure out how to sound more professional and don't apologize for mistakes, just keep going.
I know that this is going to be one of many on my journey to be a Full Stack Web Developer and I'll have even more throughout my career. Overall the experience was not horrible, but for sure could have better on my part. Hopefully, the more technical interviews that I do, the better I get.
I can't wait until I can start working as a developer.
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