I got interviewed for a entry level software dev job and i completely failed it. I’m so embarrassed and disappointed. Like i barely answered any of the technical questions correctly. I didnt even know what a delegate was. Idk how to get over this failure and get back on my feet. Cuz i feel like if i dont even know the basics, whats the point of applying.. i’m such an idiot
While searching for an internship last year, I went to multiple interviews. I had an impressive resume - side projects, volunteer work, high GPA, previous work experience. Basically any job I applied to, I got asked in for an interview. I also didn’t getting any offers for the first 3 months.
Does this make me stupid? Was my resume a lie? Was I a failure? It sure felt like it at the time. But the truth was I wasn’t good at interviewing. For example:
At my first white board interview I got a very simple anagram questions. I spent half an hour solving it because I kept doubting my self and my approach. I didn’t get the job.
At another interview I had a take home assignment and my solution didn’t compile without errors and was more complicated then it needed to be. I didn’t get the job.
At another interview, I got asked questions about trees where the edge case had to be spoon fed to me cause I couldn’t think of it on my own. I was asked back for a second interview but still didn’t get the job.
At another interview I struggled to answer the question and I got all the java questions wrong. But at this point, I was getting a bit better at interviews so I illustrated my thought process better and was honest about what facts I knew confidently and which I was a bit uncertain about. I was nervous the entire time since my interviewer never once smiled at me. I got a job offer but it was a month later (I’m pretty sure that I was not their first choice).
I was devastated. My friend had managed to get an job offer on her first interview and it was at one the companies that rejected me. What good was my resume if I was a terrible at coding?
At this point, I applied for a position for a company that I didn’t find that interesting (it was fintech) but I decided to apply anyway. I went to the interview and I talked about my side projects a bit. My interviewers were nice and asked me some questions about what I was interested in. I answered, told some jokes, they laughed. I asked some questions, they answered. We laughed. I did an technical question - I made some mistakes but I explained my process. We talked some more, we laughed a bit. I left that interview thinking that the people who interviewed me were great but I had no expectations for an offer. That night I got an offer. The next day I got that other job offer I mentioned before. I took the fintech offer - I wanted to work with people who I could laugh with.
I’m 8 months into my internship. Remember how I wasn’t interested in the company? Well, everyday I love coming to work. I work with people who help me become a better coder. I get so many opportunities to work on projects vital to the business. I’ve met so many cool and interesting people. These are the things I’ll mention about on social media - not all the struggle that came before. (I also don’t post about my failures at work - like when I break something in production, or code reviews with a million changes.) People tend to only post their success - but don’t think that means they have never failed.
So, how did I get to the point where I could get 2 job offers? Well, I tried to improve after each interview by reflecting on what I did wrong and improving on these skills so I could do better next time.
For me, the big thing was that I stopped trying to get the right answer the first time. Normally, I would sit silently and try to come up with the correct answer really fast. So I started practicing walking the interviewers through my thought process - I would point out things I knew were wrong or edge cases that I was going to ignore for a moment while I figured something else out. If I didn’t know something, I would say that but then also proceed to give my best educated guess.
Before each interview I also reviewed a list of my experiences and what I learned from them. That way, they were fresh in my mind and I could bring them up while answering questions about my skills, strengths, weaknesses etc.
I reviewed my data structure knowledge and did practice leet code questions so that I could get better at technical questions.
Basically, I built my skills to be better at technical interviews. It was hard work but at least I got a job in the end. And you know what? Even with these tips you can still fail at an interview. The point is that you have to pick yourself up and try to do better next time.
Anyway, the point of this terribly long answer is that “yes failure sucks but everyone fails. Don’t be too hard on yourself.”
(Oh, and that great resume I mentioned at the beginning? I got that through six years of learning to program which had its many failures along the way. Failures that I definitely didn’t put on the resume. )
