Interview Prep: Putting it all Together

Career Development Skills

TURING SCHOOL OF SOFTWARE & DESIGN

Expectations

Agenda

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• Learning Goals
• Icebreaker
• Overview of Interview Components & Strategy
• Interview Practice!
• Next steps

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Expectations

Learning Goals

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(Note: SIAT = Student is able to)

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• SIAT refine how to describe their strengths and discuss professional goals in interview settings
• SIAT make connections between skills/mindsets from previous career to new career
• SIAT provide relevant examples/utilize STAR in interview prep

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Icebreaker

Icebreaker

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• Share your name and pronouns (if you’d like)
• Give everyone space to respond to:
• Why will the tech industry benefit from having you be a part of it? There are many reasons, but pick 1-2 to share!

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Interview Prep Overview

Interview Prep Strategies

Interviews in the Tech Industry: What do they look like?

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• Phone Screen
• Technical Screen
• Final Interview

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Interview Prep Strategies

Interviews in the Tech Industry: Phone Screen

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• Behavioral Interview
• Prepare to discuss:
• Elevator pitch of your professional story
• Anything on your resume
• Information about your experience to show why you’re a good fit for the role
• That you’ve done your research and understand what they’re looking for

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Interview Prep Strategies

Interviews in the Tech Industry: Technical Screen

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• This could take different forms:
• Technical phone screen (no actual coding but questions about technical topics and best practices)
• Live coding or whiteboard
• Take-home challenge

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Interview Prep Strategies

Interviews in the Tech Industry: Final Interview

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• Most likely a mixture of behavioral and technical questions
• Opportunity to meet with multiple members of the team
• Be prepared to go more in-depth on any of the topics you’ve discussed so far
• Bottom line:
• Demonstrate you understand the company and can describe both why you want to work there and why you’re a good fit

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Interview Prep Strategies

Interviews: You’re more prepared than you think

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• You’ve been preparing for these interviews since your first day at Turing!
• What are some of the ways you’ve already been practicing for interviews at Turing?

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Preparing for the Interview

Interview Prep Strategies

Want to know how to ace an interview?

• Know who you are and how to talk about yourself
• Self-awareness is key
• To get there, follow these strategies:
• 1. Answer the whole question
• 2. Tell stories
• 3. Know how to talk about your experience
• 4. Research & prep

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Interview Prep Strategies

Answer the whole question

Consider:

• What is the question asking?
• What subtext is present?

Example:

• How do you deal with failure?
• Acknowledge that you fail
• Describe what you do after you fail
• Give a specific example

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Interview Prep Strategies

Tell Stories

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• Structure your response as a story tailored to the question
• STAR Method
• Situation: Present a recent challenge and situation in which you found yourself.
• Task/Target: What were you required to achieve?
• Action: What did you do? Why did you do that? What were the alternatives?
• Results: What was the outcome of your actions?
• What did you achieve?
• Did you meet your objectives?
• What did you learn from this experience?
• Have you used this learning since?

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Interview Prep Workshop

Try it out

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Example:

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• Tell me about a successful project that you've worked on
• Situation
• Task/Target
• Action
• Result

Interview Prep Strategies

Know how to talk about your experience

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• Talk about Turing:
• Do
• Give a high-level description
• Talk about Turing as professional experience
• Don’t
• Assume the interviewer knows anything about Turing
• No jargon: “In Mod 2…”
• Example:
• “Is Turing another bootcamp? How did that prepare you for this job?”

Interview Prep Strategies

Know how to talk about your experience

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• Previous experiences/background:
• Pull out transferable skills
• Consider how your experience makes you uniquely qualified
• Worked with customers before?
• Delivered on tight deadlines?
• Communicated with different teams?

Interview Prep Strategies

Research & Prep

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• Research your companies:
• What are their tech stacks?
• What do you already know? What can you compare to your own learning?
• How can you learn more?

Interview Prep Strategies

Research & Prep

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• Prepare your stories:
• Projects
• Team situations
• Successes
• Failures
• More interview prep resources

Time to Practice!

Work Time

Reflect on your own

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• Use STAR to write out some stories:
• Add to the stories you started yesterday on your projects
• Write about a time you failed and what you learned from that experience.
• Write about how you've approached working with a team using a specific example.
• Do some research into your top companies' tech stacks:
• What do you already know? What can you compare to your own learning? What do you need to learn more about?
• Pick 1-2 other questions from the list at the bottom of the resources page

Interview Practice

Small Group Interview Practice

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Reminder of Breakout norms:

• Introduce yourself: name, pronouns, program
• Give everyone space to share

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Activity

• Each person take turns:
• Share your professional story elevator pitch; tailor it to a specific company if you have one in mind
• Pick 1 other interview question to practice
• Provide feedback for each other that is:
• Specific
• Actionable
• Kind

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Closing

Closing

Share Out

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• What went well in the interview practice?
• What specific steps will you take to prepare for interviews?
• What concerns do you still have about preparing for interviews in the tech industry?