An unfortunate part of any interview process is rejection. Unless you’re very lucky you’re going to be turned away from more opportunities than you’re offered. Especially when you’re trying to make a particuarly large leap – such as the one from student to professional.
In an attempt to gather some good advice for people who have been rejected from a role I reached out to my LinkedIn network. Not because of any lack of experience on my part but because there are probably people out there who handle it better than I do (seriously the sulking isn’t a good look for anyone).
If you’re on LinkedIn (and if you’re not I strongly recommend you join) then have a read of the question here. However, I wanted to capture some of the advice I got in this post.
Ask for feedback, one of the most important parts of a successful DevOps culture is getting, understanding and implementing feedback into everything we do.
Connect with people, by making connections in the industry we can gain more insight into what goes on in the company you were rejected by.
Apply again, if you can demonstrate you have improved why wouldn’t a potential employer want to interview you again
Kurt
I used to work with Kurt and he’s a good guy. He’s also a DevOps evangalist and hired lots of people himself. I think this is great advice, we’re in an industry where we gather feedback and respond accordingly. Why not do this with your own career? Listen to what the feedback was from the company, look at any weaknesses they highlight and use them to drive your next stage of learning. Kurt wasn’t the only person to stress the importance of taking feedback on board.
A lot of what we do is iterative: try to analyse your performance and work out where you didn’t fully elaborate on something you may feel was obvious or forget to emphasise a key challenge or innovative solution. Assume that people will understand the language you use but not necessarily the details of a technology or situation.
Practice will make talking about yourself, to new people and about your achievements and approach easier.
Nick
Being rejected for a role is never easy. However, it can be extremely useful. Photo by Andrew Neel on Pexels.com
Don’t take it personally. Mope for a day, dust yourself off and don’t get discouraged. Work on any areas you got the negative feedback on (appreciate you don’t always get any). It might just simply be that another candidate just pipped you to the post. If there is only one role, someone is going to lose out and a client will have to nit pick in order to select someone. The worst part of my job is declining someone after an interview, especially if I know they really want it.
I’ve worked with Simone before and she really knows her stuff. She also understands that sometimes it can be very difficult to seperate clients and sometimes it comes down to things like team fit and how they performed on a single question in the interview. Not every rejection is a huge blow, you never know just how close you were to getting that offer. Don’t get disheartened!
Rejection is rubbish, there’s no two ways about it. But one person saying no does not mean you’re at the end of your journey. Keep going and keep learning! Photo by Alex Green on Pexels.com
You can drive yourself nuts worrying what you did wrong and the chances are it wasn’t anything that, on a different day, would have mattered.
Michael
Philip echoed this sentiment. Sometimes it’s the smallest things which seperate the successful candidate and the ones who were rejected. Don’t assume that you were nowhere near because you may have very well been a close second.
It’s a bit like asking someone on a date – not everyone is going to say yes, and often they’ll have reasons for doing so that range far beyond “you’re not good enough” or “we don’t like you”.
It can just mean you’re not exactly what the company is looking for at the time – they may be looking for something slightly different next time.
Philip
However, I’ll leave you with an optimistic idea from Nick. He says:
Being rejected from one role gives you the opportunity to accept another that may be better. You may miss out on a job that you thought you would love and end up with one you actually do
I have been lucky to work with a number of recruiters over the years. They provide an essential service advertising and pre-screening candidates who come for the roles I’m looking for.
I recently discussed this series of blog posts with Matt, a friend of mine at 4IT Recruitment and he was keen to offer his advice for people looking to get involved in the industry.
Recruiters do a great job advertising roles and preparing candidates for interview. Photo by Polina Zimmerman on Pexels.com
I wanted to know more about the work that Matt and his colleagues do between getting a CV from a prospective candidate and brining them to my attention.
What makes a candidate’s CV stand out to you?
A Simple layout – Name and contact details at the top and easy to find’. Don’t use fancy boxes or colours and there’s no need for pictures etc (unless it’s for a UX role). You should include a a brief but non-generic profile at the top of the page with a bit of insight into your skills and experience. Consider adding a technical skills matrix right at the top where it’s really visible and always start with your strongest development language at the top.
We like to see projects you been involved in and where you used your skills, what methodologies you used, any associated technologies (e.g. if was a full stack role say that it was). Universities and schools should go at at the bottom with hobbies – for graduates you should put all the experience you’ve gained from university modules at the top in place of professional experience and start with any experience you have. Always include details of any placements or work experience opportunities you’ve had. Include details of the technologies you’ve used in the roles.
What advice do you always give a candidate before an interview?
Always research the company and understand what service/ product they offer before you go to speak to them. Review the job spec if you have one and think how you can speak about your skills with regards to the criteria for the role.
Talk about what you have been responsible for delivering personally, rather than listing the achievements of the the wider team and use as many examples with how you have used your skills in the past in ‘real life’.
Try to relax…it is as much an opportunity for you to find out about the company and role as the other way around.
Remember to ask the company questions about the role and about current staff… Why is the best developer you have the ‘best developer’ etc.what do they bring extra than all others to the team?
What do you wish more candidates knew when they went for an interview?
Candidates should always remember that hiring managers’ time is very limited so they should try to give detailed answers but stick to the point and then move on.
You only get one chance to make a first impression so don’t be afraid to be yourself.
Don’t be afraid to ask questions!
Never be afraid to ask for advice before going for an interview. Photo by mentatdgt on Pexels.com
Matt has given lots of great advice for anyone coming to an interview. If you’d like to get in touch with 4IT you either via LinkedIn or email.
Do you have any advice to give candidates preparing for their first big interview? What have you found that works for you – drop a comment below or contact me on Twitter. Don’t forget to subscribe so you don’t miss next week’s post!
The interview is the most famous part of any job application process. Some senior jobs require you to go through two or more interviews but nearly all roles require you to sit down face to face with two or more people and answer questions. Even in these socially distance times when interviews are being conducted remotely it’s still an important skill to master.
The internet is full of interview advice (some of it good) so I’m going to try to approach this slightly differently and describe it from a hiring manager’s point of view.
Knowing what the interviewer is looking for goes a long way in an interview. Photo by Alex Green on Pexels.com
I’ve run through CVs and I’ve selected a short list of candidates I want to speak with. I may have had a few phone conversations along the way. Personally I only have two or three people on my interview list at any one time, different people may have different styles here but if I find someone I want to make an offer to I don’t want to have to wait while I interview ten other people before making that offer. I’d rather have a pipeline of candidates coming through the process knowing I can stop and offer whenever the right person comes along.
There’s a lot of time and effort invested from both sides for an interview (usually a good half a day for even a one hour interview) and you may be asking the candidate to travel and take time away from courses or work so I don’t invite someone in on a whim, I only invite people I believe could fulfil the job’s requirements.
Let’s start with the obvious stuff. Don’t be late. I don’t care if that means you have to sit in a carpark for an hour. Don’t be late and don’t get lost. Scout out your route to the interview location beforehand if that helps, if you’re making a more substantial trip then make sure you leave enough time for Murphy. If you are unavoidably delayed then call ahead and get a message to me. Trains break down on everyone, a professional will get in touch and let me know rather than leaving me sitting in an empty meeting room by myself. Believe me, that’s not a good way to make a great impression!
What to wear? I’m far from a fashion guru so I don’t want to give bad advice here. However, over the last few years I’ve been a bit less formal with my dress when I’m being interviewed (in other words I’ve lost the tie). However, I still wear a suit. The best advice I can give is dress how you would if you were representing the prospective company to a client. You want to be smarter than regular office wear but you’re not going to a black tie event. Personally I’d never wear jeans.
Try to dress how you would if you were representing the company at a visit to one of their clients. Photo by mentatdgt on Pexels.com
You’ll most likely be interviewed by two people. This is for a couple of reasons but the most important is to get two different points of view. Don’t try and work out who the decision maker is, if they’re worth working for they’ll take their colleague’s view very seriously. Address anwers to the person who asked them and (I’m sure this is obvious) be polite and repectful to everyone you meet.
In terms of the interview itself I usually try to start simple. I want the candidate to relax and lose a few of the inevitable nerves. I usually ask something about what you’re currently studying or what you’re working on. Remember that I’ve read your CV. Don’t go overboard here, don’t bore me but tell me the interesting bits. Try not to turn a five minute question into a twenty five minute one because of nerves!
At some point early in the interview I’ll most likely describe the company and the role. Again, I’m expecting you already know most of this so the point of this is to give you a chance to ask any questions and to engage in a little light conversation before we move onto some of the more technical stuff.
There will inevitably be some questions coming. These usually fall into one of two camps, either they’re competency questions or they’re skills question.
Skills questions are designed to assess your knowledge in a particular technology. For example, one of my favourites for a C# role is to ask someone the difference between an array of strings, a list of strings, and an IEnumerable of type string. This isn’t an easy question, I like it because a junior will give me one answer and a much more senior will give me another – but they could both be correct. However, the real question here is what to do when you’re faced with a skills question you don’t know?
What can you do in an interview when someone asks you a question you don’t know the anser to? Photo by Andrea Piacquadio on Pexels.com
That’s easy. You should simply say you don’t know. Or (assuming it’s true) tell me that you are having a mind blank and can’t remember. We’re engineers, we’re not search engines. We look things up and use intellisense. You may know more about garbage collection than I do, I may know more about IoC than you. The point of the skills questions are to get an idea of your technical strengths and weakesses. I don’t want to hire someone who will simply doesn’t possess the skills I require of them. For entry and junior roles I’m assuming you won’t know everything, it’s ok not to now!
I’m sure it goes without saying, but please don’t try to bluff me. Not only will it not work (I’ve hired a lot of engineers) but it won’t help, all that will happen is you’ll find yourself in a role which won’t suit you.
The second type of question you’re likely to encounter is the Competency Question. A competency is something like Problem Solving, or Personal Development. You can often work out which of these you’re going to be faced with by looking at the job advert. If the job description says that I’m looking for someone with A Proven Ability to Learn, Problem Solving Skills, and Resilience then there is a fair chance I’m going to have a question for each of those asking you how you’ve demonstrated them in the past.
For example, if I may ask you to describe a problem you had no idea how to solve and how you overcame it. Or I could ask how you’ve recovered from a severe setback. These are not easy questions to answer but with a little up front planning you can think of the answers you’re going to need through well before the interview. The best answers give a good example and don’t waffle. For example if I was asked about a problem I didn’t know how to overcome I could describe who I sought advice from, or how I wrote down fifty ideas and selected the best five, or I could talk about the time I needed help with my disseration and I asked my professor for advice.
It’s important to note, especially with junior roles that I’m not expecting you to be able to walk in and do the job. What I want you to persuade me is that if I made you an offer you’d be able to grow into the role. That’s why these questions are really important. Fail to prepare at your peril!
Most interviews for junior positions will last around an hour although some may last longer, especially if they involve technical tests (which I’ll cover in a future post) or form part of a larger assesment centre (again, hopefully a future post).
Towards the end of the interview I will usually offer the chance for the candidate to ask me any questions (although there’s no reason they can’t raise them before then). Honestly, I’ve heard them all. My suggestion is that you focus on questions about the role and the company and show interest in the opportunity. For example “Can you describe what the team are working on now?” is a better question than “How many days holiday do I get?”
One final point, despite what you see on TV it’s very rare to be offered the role in the interview. Don’t lose faith if it takes a few days.
I hope this has been of some help. Please feel free to get in touch if you have any questions. What are your best suggestions for good interviews? Remember to subscribe and follow me on twitter so you don’t miss out!
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