Rants of an Interviewer
In the last 45–60 days, I reviewed close to 120 resumes and conducted close to 40 interviews which includes initial screening, coding round and role specific interviews. These are the numbers for 4 different roles in our company out of which 3 of the roles need coding on a daily basis.
Very rarely I feel happy after talking to a candidate. I will be listing some of the common mistakes people make in an interview in this post. Do remember that these are my observations based on the interviews I conducted just in the last two months.
First Impression
Resume is the first time any interviewer meets the candidate. This is what they see before they even hear one word from you. It is really important to convey your skills in an effective manner to be considered for the next round.
Length of your resume: A 5 page resume does not mean an impressive resume. Remember to keep it short and relevant to the role you are applying to.
Font: Keep it standard and pleasing to the eye. Do not use font size 36 to write about anything in your resume. I did not even go past the 1st page of a resume for this reason.
Proof read: It is very important to proof read what you have written. It can be for correcting spelling mistakes / technical mistakes. I recently saw a resume which listed Node.js as a database technology. I had to check with my teammate if there is something which i really missed out in all these years of using Node.js
Resume preparedness
Be ready to answer any questions about what you have written in your resume. Especially if it is in the recent past. You can not tell in an interview that you need to brush up on something which is very basic.
I have seen a candidate who wrote about API testing in their resume and when asked to list the REST API methods that they tested, told me that they used it a few months back and need some time to brush up and will be able to answer after that.
Interview schedules
Postpone your interview if you are not ready to face it. Especially when each round is a knock-off.
There was a candidate who after the entire conversation told me that they were not ready to give the interview on that day and was asking not to consider that round.
Understand the role
This applies to candidates applying for senior roles in any company. Understand if they are looking for an individual contributor or a team lead or a manager. Make sure you are applying to the right job posting.
Given that ours is an early stage startup, we expect all the members in the engineering team to be a hands on developer. I spoke to a candidate who was already a team lead and told me that these days anyone even with 2–3 years experience can code. They are looking for a role where they can manage the team and guide the team.
Be Open
If you do not know something, accept it. The interviewers will appreciate your honesty. This point is more closely coupled with resume preparedness. Do not start giving some random answer and expect the interviewer to be impressed by it. The interviewer is mostly smart enough to understand.
Coding
As a programmer with years of experience, you should not be seen struggling to code.
I usually plan to ask two programming questions. One of them being a easy one. And depending on the time remaining, either an easy or a difficult 2nd problem. If you are an engineer, please try to check how long you will take to code the below problem.
Problem: Count And Say
Input: 11122311
Three 1s, Two 2s, One 3, Two 1s
31, 22, 13, 21
Output: 31221321All you need in this is a loop, if condition, a counter and probably an edge case to consider. No need to remember some complicated method signature or syntax. I have seen developers with more than 5 years experience struggle to code for this and took almost 45 minutes to come up with a working solution.
Metrics
Have some metrics handy!
I was having a conversation with an automation engineer who was, is and wants to work only on automation. I asked the candidate a simple question. What % of your test cases are automated? They could have given me any number and there was no way for me to verify if they are speaking the truth. But the candidate was so confused and panicked and finally gave a number which was ~ 20%.
Know the company
Make sure you know a little bit about the company at least before your first interview!
There were instances when I asked the candidate if they have any questions for me, they ask me to tell about the company. Or worse, there was once a candidate who asked me the name of the company (This even after I introduced myself along with the company name when I called)
Feedback
Do not force the interviewers to give the feedback immediately. If they are ready to give, its well and good.
I spoke to 3–4 candidates who wanted me to give them feedback on the spot. One of them was more like a short exploratory call to understand more about the candidate and see if they fit our requirements. If the interviewer says the HR will reach out to you, it is probably time to bug the HR :-)
These are some of my observations. I can probably go on and on.
Do not show you are desperate for a job. Do not say something like, just give me an opportunity, I will learn and do it. Instead speak of circumstances when you did such things. Though the interviewer can’t verify this, they will like your attitude.
Be prepared to speak about your experiences in case it is a behavioural round. You can ask your HR contact for more information on what to expect from that round and be prepared for it.
Show genuine interest in the company that you are interviewing for. If you are not confident, inform them in advance. You are wasting the interviewers time as well by just applying and interviewing for random jobs.
