Hello and welcome again to my dead blog. As you may know from last time, I’ve started doing tech interviews again and things are definitely off to a bit of a rocky start. 

This article will go over my past few interviews and discuss the results and where I could improve.

As mentioned in the previous article, I am absolutely tragic when it comes to interviews. But hopefully, if I keep practising, I'll eventually stick the landing.

Anyway let’s get on with the review.

Interview 1 - Finance Company

Reached: Stage 1

Result: Ghosted

This one was kind of weird, as the recruiter screen was skipped so I was slammed right into the first stage and I hadn’t done that much preparation yet.

I spent a lot of the interview remembering things mid-interview, which wasn’t a good look. But it did help me to highlight areas that I need to brush up on. 

Interview 2 - AI Company

Reached: Recruiter

Result: Ghosted

Not too many notes for this one, we simply went over my experience and I believe they were looking for someone with strong front-end skills, which based on my CV I do not have. 

The recruiter mentioned reaching out to the hiring manager to see if I could continue and then I never heard back so presumably the answer was no. 

Interview 3 - SAAS Company

Reached: Recruiter

Result: Rejected

This is the first interview where the ‘gap’ in my CV highlighted a potential issue I have to face in this search. I was a Go developer advocate for a year and then I pursued something else non-tech related for six months. 

So my last time working on production software would’ve been in 2022. Which, from what I can tell, makes me a more difficult hire. Or, at least in this case, invalidated me from continuing the interview process.

Interview 4 - Security Company

Reached: Stage 2

Result: Rejected

This one was a relatively positive experience. I was finally able to reach some code! 

The hiring manager stage was also a bit interesting. It felt like it was a behavioural interview as I was asked things like “How do I build trust?”, and I don’t mind those types of interviews because those play into my strengths. 

However, what’s even more important in tech interviews is your technical skills and I was faced with coding in front of 3 people for the first time in 2 years. Oh the fun we had. 

This interview was 90 minutes and involved reviewing a PR explaining different ways to improve it and then live-coding one of the changes you mentioned. 

In my opinion… I think I did ok. I identified most of the things I thought were a bit schwhiff and used concurrency to speed up the program by a factor of 10, although I did fumble the error handle. 

The result begs to differ.

There were definitely mistakes, make no mistake of that (ha), and if they cost me the interview, fair enough. But there’s one thing I noticed in this interview, that I think is a major problem I have right now. 

I talk too much. 

But we’ll get to that. 

Unfortunately I was unable to get any feedback from this one which is a shame, as I essentially had 3 senior engineers assess me for 90 minutes so it would’ve been really awesome to have known what their thoughts were. 

Interview 5 - SAAS Company

Reached: Recruiter

Result: Ghosted?

I think this one is another casualty of my ‘gap’. It seemed positive and they said they’d talk to the hiring manager to decide if we’d move onto the next stage, and then nothing happened since so, if I eventually hear back, cool, but I’m assuming the hiring manager wasn’t interested. 

Interview 6 - Finance Company

Reached: Stage 1

Result: Rejected

And here we reach the final one for now. This one stung a bit because a younger version of myself (5 years ago) got to stage 2, at the same company, before getting rejected. 

But maybe they were more lenient on younger me (is what I’ll tell myself)

This is another one that I think may have been poisoned by my gift of the gab.

Not too much to say here, I was tasked with explaining a project I worked on a few years ago, and I guess I didn’t explain in enough technical detail or to the level they were looking for.

What I did learn from this process is that I do need to really refresh on how certain tools work at 'first principles', because I went back over what I’d been saying and it’s annoying some of the parts I got wrong. 

So I wasn’t too surprised when the rejection came through. Would've been nice to try to shake my stuff in later stages, but we’ll get there one day.  

EDIT: I actually got some feedback for this one as I was writing this article! And as I thought, the gap of 2 years played an effect on the decision. 

It appears that because of my gap, I may be judged harsher in interviews if I make too many mistakes or show a lack of knowledge in areas that they are looking for. 

Which means I’ll basically just keep doing what I am doing which is studying the areas I discover I am weaker in and continue doing interviews. It just means this process of landing a position has a higher chance of taking a longer time. 

They enjoyed my personality though, which is always fun to hear. (I swear it’s the only part of myself I don’t need to work on). 

But, it’s good to see these reasons on paper instead of simply being an assumption on my part, it’s given me a much better insight in how interviewers may be looking at me during these processes. So thank you company 6 for the feedback!

So, What Did We Learn So Far?

Well… we’ve not really gotten that far into all these processes, which is a bit unfortunate, but for the ones where we did get a little further in, there are definitely areas I can improve in. Which is what will be covered next. 

Here is What I Think My Current Issues Are and How To Improve Them

I Talk Waaaaaaay Too Much

Talking is fine. Waffling is a tragedy. Now I’ve not received feedback on it, but I’ve been interrupted enough times to know I’m the problem. 

And more importantly, I feel like I’m waffling. Which means the people on the receiving end must be losing their minds. 

The thing is, I know why I do it. It’s how my nervousness manifests. I think over time and with increased knowledge and practice, it will get better. 

I have an idea of how to counteract it though. ↓

I Don’t Know Things, And That’s Ok

I’ve developed a bad habit.

When I don't know something I am open about not knowing it, but I have a stab at guessing what it is and then say ‘I’m not sure or I don’t know’.

In interviews, there is the advice of  ‘make sure you don’t stay silent’, and ‘make sure the interviewer knows what you're thinking’. But I’ve massively over-corrected on this. 

Essentially as I try to remember and think about if I do or do not know about the thing I’ve been asked, I vocalize my attempt to reach that understanding. 

Is there any version of reality where this could ever be good?

I think what I should be doing instead is this:

I should say. “I don’t know. But I can take a guess?” or “I don’t know. But can I explain what my current understanding is?”

Or just anything where I put the fact I don’t know as front and centre and then ask for permission to delve deeper into the topic.

I think by saying “I don’t know” upfront and then asking permission to discuss any thoughts further gives the interviewer the power to move to the next question or hear what I have to say, but in a way where they already understand that I do not have in-depth knowledge of the subject. 

I don’t know. ¯\_(ツ)_/¯

It just seems better than waffling for a bit and then saying “I don’t know” anyway. 

EDIT: And now that we know that mistakes are likely going to be judged harsher because of my gap, I think being clear and concise about my knowledge and areas I do not know (at the time) and asking for permission to discuss my thoughts will come across better than what I have been doing. 

Finally:

I Lack Confidence in Interviews

I mean… duh. 

This has always been an issue. But, it’s a really really really annoying quality to have. 

Because as we all know from the dating world, unconfidence is hella unattractive. 

The first way to improve this is obviously studying and gaining familiarity with the interview process again, which we have been doing, but lord knows I’d love a second way. Any advice?

Alas, I think dealing with the first two problems above will go a long way to fixing this one.

That’s All For Now

I must return to the rings of the interview process. If by any chance you may be looking for a referral bonus feel free to reach out or if you have any interesting opportunities for a mid/senior level Go engineer. 

As it says on my CV: Looking to work with newer technologies and provide an impactful voice to projects while bolstering the productivity and camaraderie of your team.

If that fluffles your jimmies, then let’s chat and I can send you the rest of the CV. 

Until next time. Ciao!