How to prepare for a tech interview

This is it! You have crossed the CV screening or the quick phone screening. You are no longer part of the 50 interested applicants most of whom uploaded an outdated CV and a generic cover letter. You are part of the 5 or 10 who might have a programming challenge or might even be hired if you succeed this step. Problem is there exist a few other people who also believe very strongly they deserve the role. Another problem is that you have a set period of time to convince your potential employers that they ought to pick you instead of them.

Over the years, I have discovered there are a few things one can do to address this. Part of this material is from interviews that I aced and other parts are from interviews that I failed miserably. But most of it is from interviews from which I came out absolutely convinced that the job is mine for the taking only to learn a week later that will never be the case. If you are in the 3rd boat or have been for a long time, it might make you feel that maybe you just don’t have the charm or the employer is not capable of appreciating your worth. I believe you will find some value in reading the rest of the article.

I have divided this article into 4 broad aspects:

• Make Sure - aim to achive these during the interview
• Don’t Assume - do not consider these as given
• Clarify - actively seek to learn about these before and during the interview
• Bear in mind - things that are generally understood you ought to know about

Make Sure

Like in a date, you might do/say something(s) that make the other person not like you. Easy advice for me would be to tell you ‘make sure they like you’. But we both know, it is neither useful nor actionable advice. The ones below are:

Make sure you pay full attention to each question.

EVERY - SINGLE - WORD. There are very few open ended questions in an interview so it is always possible to narrow down the scope of the answer. ‘Tell us a bit about yourself’, in the beginning of many interviews is as open as it gets and even this one is not necessarily a license to speak at length about your captaincy for your high school basketball team 10 years ago (unless you are applying for a basketball/sports analytics company). Almost every other question is more specific. ‘Tell us about a time when you made a mistake on the job’. This is particularly difficult to identify in a conversational style interview where it may be difficult to identify if there is a question there. There is definitely a question. More conversational it is, more difficult it is to identify that question and even answer them, but there is definitely a question. You have just not been paying attention. And you had to have been paying enough attention to know that the context of the question might have changed from the previous quesiton (read below on Don't Assume to learn more about this. If need be, clarify!

Make sure you go deep into your skills when it comes to it

In depth might mean technical knowledge in a technical interview, intuitive knowledge in a behavioral question. This will depend on the background / expertise of the interviewrs in the room (read below for more about how to address multiple interviewers). The modern movement when it comes to expertise is to be a T-Shaped Person.

Make sure you hear yourself speak and check your own body language

Are you nagging about your current job? Is your confidence undersubstantiated? Are you explaining your weaknesses with humble brags? Are you repeating yourself? Are you using terms such as ‘like I said’ (instead use ‘I mentioned while talking about [something you said earlier]’). Are you using obscene language or something a bit too informal? Are you using a lot of ‘but’? Here is an article on why you Using the word

Make sure you are being professional

Professionalism may sometimes seem too mundane and boring but lack of it is extremely risky. It is easy to lose sight of it especially once you have built some rapport with one of the interviewers. You may feel you have demonstrated nuance in your character. But there are other people in the room and also, other people you will be working with should you get hired. There is no other attitude you can hold throughout an entire interview, e.g. humorous, confidence or even charming. The cost of losing professionalism is extremely high. If an interview goes horribly wrong and you come off as an unlikable person, professionalism will save you some face.

Make sure you are not ignoring other interviewers

There is usually more than 1. The other person could influence the outcome of the interview in a range of capacity especially if they are asking questions. If they are not, chances are they are just shadowing the main interviewer. In any case, ensure you at least address them and if necessary engage with them.

Don’t Assume

Don’t assume you already know the role

The organisation has its own tech stack, policies, visions as well as limitations. the vision of the role or what you can bring to the role. The interviewer(s) are trying to find out if you are fit for the role. They will try to achieve that by explicitly asking you a specific set of questions or they will try to achieve that by picking up content of your response to see if it meets their selection criteria. This is not to say you should not talk about what value you can bring to the role, especially when asked. But not before you actually learn what it is you can bring.

Don’t assume they have figured out your CV

Let’s be honest here! Have you looked at anybody’s CV for more than a couple minutes other than your own? If you are color-coding or leaving similar clues in your CV, chances are it only makes sense to you and those who proofread your CV. Your interviewer may view your CV once when the interview meeting is scheduled for them with the CV attached and then later right before the beginning of the interview.

Don’t assume every question has the same context

Consider a situation where you have done a good job of answering the ‘Tell us a bit about yourself’ question. Perhaps you had also catered the response to the requirements of the role in question. It’s good to avoid anchoring onto it for every other question. Do not assume that the context from the previous questions (even the ones you have set up yourself) will carry forward. It opens up a more wholesome way of thinking about each question. This is because each question is more than likely to have their own premise and context. If it goes well for you, you will be able to capitalize on the new context and share a new skill / experience you have not had the change to talk about.

The interview is about them answering your questions

Of course, you want to learn more about the organisation. This ensure that the organization’s culture fits well with your values and vice versa. Curiosity about the organisation is also one of the best ways to signal you are genuinely interested in the role. However, asking too many questions might take you to unsolicited problem solving mode, probing about issues that are just not relevant to the role right now. It’s important not to make your curiosity the point of prolonged discussion about the interview. You will limit the duration you have to showcase your own skill and values.

Clarify

Going into an interview with a blank slate will provide you with a sense of unfounded confidence. Coming out of the interview with the same blank slate

Clarify the duration and format of the interview

Mindset is important. Some interviews require pen and paper for problem solving. These days, screensharing with a notepad or drawing apps are popular.

Clarify what the DELIVERABLES / would be DELIVERABLES are

Sometimes this is clear from the job description. If that’s is the case, no action required. But if not, ask the interviewing at least what role the application is for.

Clarify each question if you have to but don’t be defensive

Bear in mind

Bear in mind, interviewers assume you are well versed in your skills until they find out you are not

Once the CV screening is done, you are already past the stage where you establish the value of your skills. Now you are in the interview to communicate how proficient you are at those skills. So it is important for an interviewer to probe more into aspects about yourself that may be too good to be true. Remember, they are not coming at you from a position of mistrust or wanting to catch you on inconsistencies. Although, if you do not handle this situation well, that ends up being the case. If handled well however, they will go to bat for you.

Bear in mind, you may not get real time feedback

And that’s fine. That’s why at least one of them has a notebook or questionaire in from of them which they will refer to when the interview is over. Once you feel you have provided a satisfactory answer, wrap up and close it.

Bear in mind, a question may be a larva question

This is particularly important for interviewees who have a tendency to come up with elaborate answers. Consider a scenario where you have git as a skill in your CV. The interviewers asks, ‘what is your experience with git?’ and has a follow up question in mind, ‘how would you merge conflict between an upstream repository and local master branch?’. The interviewer really wants to know the answer to the second question which provides information about the interviewee’s techinical knowledge of the skill they are interested in. It may be tempting to answer the first question by:

• taking the listeners through a journey of how you went about learning git
• discussing how important git is for version controlling and documentation and collaborative work
• highlighting power of git is best realized by capitalising on GitHub Actions or its CI/CD capabilities
• bring up how Microsoft has acquired git and this might have all sorts of positive and negative ramifications in the IT industry.

You mean well but by doing this, you are depriving yourself the opportunity to answer the second question and demonstrating your skills

Bear in mind, what an ideal data analyst, engineer or scientist role should do

This field is diverse and requirements that fulfill the roles are changing everyday - and are different across organisations. It is still the interviewee’s responsibility to demonstrate how a data expert can be useful in an organisation.

Bear in mind, there is nothing wrong with a confident ‘I do not know the answer to that.’

This is because the alternative is worse. If the issue is imporant, there will be follow up questions.

Miscellaneous

Make sure you are not lacking substance or depth

Make sure you are not too confident for what you were providing

Interview notes should never be about: what would be the answer to potential questions.

It should be about coming up with many many stories so that you can fit them in potential quesitons.