FAQ: How to improve during job interviews

I shared the results of my recent job search (read Part 1 and Part 2) and got a lot of follow-up questions:

• How to stay motivated during such a long job search

• How to stand out among such a competitive field

• And how to improve during job interviews (below)

Photo by Christin Hume on Unsplash

Curious what your biggest pain point was throughout the process.

Having to figure out how to improve with each step - but you can't work on that until you get there.

First was iterating on my resume until I could consistently get interviews.

And then I could get them but kept failing at the technical round, so I had to work on coding challenges as well as remembering and explaining various technical, statistical, and machine learning concepts.

And then I could pass that round, but I'd fail at the business/product sense round.

So then I worked on improving for product sense… but then I failed at the final panel round. So I had to work on behavioral questions and framing my experience in a way that would resonate with executives.

Considering that you have to wait for interviews to be scheduled to test your ideas for improvement - it can be a really drawn out process.

Would love the deets on the interviews and how you improved over time!

As for the interviews themselves, they usually followed a similar pattern:

1. Recruiter screen. This was usually 15-30 minutes with the recruiter and was pretty straightforward.

   1. Tell me about yourself

   2. 1-2 questions about my experience or a specific project

   3. Ask about my competency or experience with specific technologies (SQL, Python, etc)

   4. Housekeeping (salary, if hybrid - am I fine with that, do I have any pending offers, etc)

2. Technical screen. 30-60 minutes usually with a peer level employee. Usually a live coding challenge via CoderPad or similar.

   1. SQL was by far the most common language. Most companies prepared anywhere from 2-5 questions that would get progressively harder.

   2. Maybe 10-20% of the time, there were also Python questions. There wasn’t much consistency in what they asked me to do - it was all over the place which made it very hard to prepare.

   3. Some would also ask questions on statistics, probability, machine learning and other similar topics.

3. Hiring Manager. Sometimes this came before the technical. Usually 30-60 minutes.

   1. Ask about my background and questions about my specific projects. The STAR method is very useful for this round.

   2. Sometimes ask case study style questions.

   3. Opportunity for me to ask questions - this is important! Your boss has a huge impact on your job satisfaction.

4. Product Sense. Sometimes this was included with the technical round or handled by the Hiring Manager.

   1. Expect one or more hypothetical open-ended business problems.

   2. You have to talk through a solution.

   3. These are really hard, even if you have a lot of experience.

   4. Ask questions before jumping into your solution. You might be making some very wrong assumptions.

5. Panel or Virtual On-site. (Or actual on-site if hybrid.)

   1. Multiple back-to-back rounds of 30-60 minutes each.

   2. Usually meet with some combination of these people:

      1. A peer on the same team

      2. A peer on a different team

      3. Skip-level manager (the hiring manager’s boss)

      4. Highest ranking member of the team (VP, Chief whoever)

      5. Someone not on the team to ask culture questions

If you need help preparing for interviews, check out these posts.