Interviews (what interviewers are expecting from developers)

Recently, I gave few interviews as a full stack developer and thought I will summarize my experiences, so that it will help other developers.

We all know that interviewers get to know about you from the following ways:

· LinkedIn profile

· Resume

I will not talk more about it because there are various articles already written on how to write resume and update LinkedIn profile. Unless you have this ready, its not fair to think about getting an interview call!

1. To start off with, keep your answers straight and shout rather than bringing up points which are not relevant to the question asked.

Eg: If you are taking more than a minute to explain a concept then you may have to practise a bit. For example, lets take a basic question: What is meant by looping?

In your answer talk about looping being just being to execute a statement/block of statement repeatedly! Then, give a simple example and proceed to say different types/ways of loops.

2. Always give examples. For example, for above point in looping, where and why you used for loop in your project. If you don’t have an experience using it, then simply state an example for using it! These examples are the way you can show your expertise and experience.

3. Always be honest. Please say not able to recollect/not sure if you don’t know the answer than saying wrong answer and wasting time.

4. Always take a moment to recollect. Recollect your answer and the example you want to use to explain the answer. Remember that there are NO points for answering your question fast!

5. When the interviewer asks “tell me about yourself”. Start off talking about your relevant experience you have that suits the current job(talk about things that would provoke interests for the interviewer to ask some follow up question) Top it of by adding personal touch for example ”personally I am a mom for 4 year old and my hobbies are XX”. PRACTISE this so that you don’t exceed more than one minute(/1.5minutes) because in actual interview it might take more than that.

6. DRIVE the interview. For example, when you are telling about the skills you worked on, try to also tell why you love to use that skill/technology. If you are skilled in React, tell them what you love about that (talk about react hooks/webflux/webpack/ whatever makes react js outstanding) as there will be high chances you will be asked questions related to topics of your interest.

7. Know the basics of your tech stack- latest versions, different between the versions, competitive technologies, technologies that compliment your tech stack (React + spring boot / React +node js)

8. Have two points ready for the following scenarios:

· A time when a project/work was challenging.

· A time when your technology couldn’t successfully address the requirement.

· A time when you had to ask for help/you failed.

· A time when you found a solution that was unique.

While I have shared my experiences here, I would be happy to hear your opinions and thoughts on this in the comments section.