Avinash Dalvi for This is Learning

Posted on Apr 14, 2021 • Edited on Apr 16, 2021 • Originally published at internetkatta.com

Experience about applying and attending interviews in last six months

#interview #developer #webdev #beginners

What I will cover in this story :

Multiple rejections
Feedback from multiple HR across the globe
Feedback from technical interviewers
Resume analysis
Stack overflow contribution
HackerRank activeness
Recommendations for all candidates
Learn any framework in depth how it works?
Used “Cracking the coding interview” book for preparation

1. Received Multiple rejections

Everything in life whether it’s acceptance or rejection teaches you a lesson which helps us in moving forward with some action take away from it. Few of the learnings from this process which I received are:

Rejections at HR level help you to understand how impressive is your profile & where do you stand amongst competition?
In most cases there are things that you need to improve in your resume/profile or improvement in presentation of resume. In my case, I worked on company profiles block and introduction summary block to reduce the length. Previously it was a bit lengthier for an introduction.
Don’t add too many technologies. Add only the most important ones, which you know in depth. Adding relevant technologies will put added value to your interviews and jobs where you applied.
Try to keep company profile short, add a bullet pointer of your job profile.
Online community presence/contribution gives you more weightage while doing a glimpse of your resume.

2. Feedback from HR

Try to get feedback from every HR if possible. Even if you get at least 1% feedback from application it can prove helpful in improvement of your profile. Key is to be patient, some HR take time to share detailed feedback about your profile rejection.

“While we found your profile to be interesting, it didn’t quite fit our current role. We have saved your details and would love to stay in touch.”

Above line is what you will hear from most HR while conveying reason for rejection. Although these are general lines they certainly give some take away. Receiving such feedback generally means your profile technology, your work history, salary, notice period or years of experience such parameters may not fit to their criteria. In case you receive this feedback more often you need to check if you are applying for relevant jobs keeping in mind your technology, work experience and factors as such.

3. Feedback from technical interviewers:

“Suggestion for future candidates” One of the company recommended me to:

Have a blog or portfolio to show that you can set up a basic website yourself (more of showcasing your web development skills)
Regularly write technical posts or tweets which can show that you are looking to be an opinion leader in your favorite technologies (make sure you don’t sound too synthetic in your approach, make an honest effort)
Be active in open source projects, make issues, comments, pull requests
Be active on Stack Overflow and help others (boosts your reputation in community)
Some more pointers :

— Role mismatch

— Completion of hands-on round

— Technical qualification & strength

— Cultural fit

— Vision alignment

— Value add to the team & company

— Role fit

— Ability to scale with the company

4. Resume analysis:

Good lines from book “Cracking-the-Coding-Interview”

Think twice before cutting more technical lines just to allow space for your non-technical hobbies. (prioritize smartly)
If you are thinking right now that you have too much experience and can’t fit it all on one or two pages, trust me, you can. Long resumes are not a reflection of having tons of experience; they’re a reflection of not understanding how to prioritize content.
Recruiters only spend a fixed amount of time (about 10 seconds) looking at your resume. If you limit the content to the most impressive items, the recruiter is sure to see them.

Main important pointers to consider while writing resume:

Appropriate Resume Length
Employment History
Projects
Programming Languages and Software
Some companies will throw out your resume just because of a typo.

For more details read the topic “Before the Interview ‘’ from books mentioned above.

5. Stack overflow contribution

When you apply as a developer or programmer, StackOverflow presence makes your interviewer more attentive to you as he/she might look at you as an opinion leader or contributor to the Developer community. I started using StackOverflow in 2016 but never used it actively until I received feedback from a recruiter who advised me for it. Since then I have started to contribute on StackOverflow in different ways like asking questions, voting, commenting and solving queries from others more frequently. This helped me in gaining reputation which means the more you contribute, the more your community will trust you. Better reputation indicates your contribution is trustworthy which will attract the eyesight of recruiter or an interviewer. In 2016, I was at 0 reputation whereas now I stand at 2k reputation with having more than 14k profile views. In fact, in one quarter I was able to gain 366 rank which is a definite booster for my community presence & reputation both.

My recommendation to all candidates, if you have not started it yet do it now. Not only for hiring but its open source means helping each other in community free of cost. This makes you a more trustworthy and valuable contributor to the fellow developer community.

6. HackerRank activeness

Hacker rank or CodeWars or any other platform engagement can help you keep updated with problem solving skills. You can use it actively to improve problem solving skills. Personally, solving the HackerRank problem and coding test of the interview process helped me understand where I stand in big competition (more of self-evaluation), which in return helped me in understanding where do I need to focus in order to improve.

7. Summary of recommendation to all candidates

Choose the framework you wish to master. Be it any framework, try to learn it in depth. It is always valuable having deeper understanding or knowledge of a certain framework than just knowing all different frameworks (I was having knowledge of numerous framework but none in detail)
Start to contribute more on open source platforms or frameworks.
Start using StackOverflow actively. Don’t forget to vote if any answer or question helped you (this is a way we can show our gratitude to fellow contributors).
Work on resume, resume is key to enter the interview process. Give time & invest efforts to build a good resume.
Read “Cracking-the-Coding-Interview” this book.
Use your Linkedin profile efficiently to impress the recruiter (as a wild card).
When you help others, community will help you grow as well.

While solving problem consider repetitive steps: