This week marks the last week of the 4th Phase called “Your Personal Brand” and what a journey this has been. One of the highlights of this week was the mock interviews I had inside of the company.
Interviewmania activity
An important part of this week was that I played the role of the interviewer related to a coding task. The very first learning I had was, how to select a problem that did not involve a brain teaser. A brain teaser is a problem that makes think in very particular ways, forces the brain to think in a very creative manner. So, for a code related task, we usually assess the problem thinking skills.
The problem I chose to test with my partner in the Academy was: do a function that passes true or false is the given string is a balanced parenthesis.
During the interview I was challenged in many different ways, the first was how to give hints to the interviewee without actually given the answer. Then, how to keep on track the interviewee so he/she/they don’t lose track of the solution.
After the interview, I had to provide written feedback. In this part is really important to focus on the communication and coding skills the participant gave. And remember that everything must be handle in a professional manner.
Mock interview with a Senior Engineer
On Wednesday I participated in a mock interview where I was assessed in very different manners:
- Technical questions
- Behavioral questions
- English communication
I am not going to lie; I was really nervous. But as soon as the interview began, I started to feel really comfortable with the environment and the questions. The part, I struggle with the most was that I did not how to tell my professional experience in a most structured way, so there is room for improvement in that.
Also, always have questions for your interviewers prepared! You give yourself away when you do not do the appropriate research. So, try to always have at least to 3–4 questions to ask your interviewer.
Interprate the feedback
Make notes or have a reminder of any type of improvement you may have in the future within yourself or your technical answers when the feedback is provided.
Take nothing personally, remember that everything is for rocking your next interview or code task.
What comes next?
The next phase is applying all the learning from the mock interviews into real-life scenarios. Finding a client and start that developer career. Exciting, right?
