WEBVTT 00:00.290 --> 00:00.590 All right. 00:00.590 --> 00:02.150 This final activity is a fun one. 00:02.150 --> 00:05.660 So we're going to have a mock interview and we're going to see how you do. 00:05.700 --> 00:06.020 Right. 00:06.020 --> 00:11.780 So what's going to happen here is I'm going to play the role of your interviewer and I'm going to ask 00:11.780 --> 00:17.360 you some typical interview questions that aren't really tied to specific technologies but are more general. 00:17.360 --> 00:21.080 And I'm going to be demonstrating behavioral interviewing techniques where I'm going to be asking you 00:21.080 --> 00:23.630 questions about your past experience. 00:23.660 --> 00:25.900 After each question, we're going to pause, right? 00:25.910 --> 00:29.690 And I'm going to say, Well, here are some things you might want to think about when you're answering 00:29.690 --> 00:30.560 this question. 00:30.560 --> 00:34.250 At that point, I want you to pause the video and answer it yourself. 00:34.490 --> 00:37.850 Pretend that I'm actually sitting across from you asking you this question. 00:37.850 --> 00:39.200 How would you respond? 00:39.230 --> 00:40.760 Again, it comes down to practice. 00:40.760 --> 00:44.210 These are real world interview questions that I might ask as a hiring manager. 00:44.210 --> 00:48.190 So try to take this seriously, you know, actually participate in this. 00:48.200 --> 00:49.400 So let's dive in. 00:49.400 --> 00:54.410 Let's pretend that I'm interviewing you across the desk here and we'll see how you respond. 00:55.190 --> 00:58.420 Hi, my name is Frank and I'm the manager of the team you're interviewing with today. 00:58.430 --> 00:59.910 Things going okay so far? 00:59.910 --> 01:05.010 So you want to acknowledge that it's been a challenging day, but it's been fun solving some new problems. 01:05.010 --> 01:06.840 And you think it's going well so far? 01:11.690 --> 01:12.110 Cool. 01:12.110 --> 01:14.030 Need a restroom break or anything like that. 01:14.810 --> 01:18.950 As this isn't a technical interview necessarily, you should have a little bit more time to play with 01:18.950 --> 01:19.700 on this one. 01:19.700 --> 01:25.070 So this would be a good chance to attend to any needs you might have that might distract you during 01:25.070 --> 01:25.850 the interview. 01:31.780 --> 01:34.330 So I'm going to go straight for the elephant in the room here. 01:34.330 --> 01:38.980 I see in your resume that you've built a lot of impressive things in your career, but you seem to have 01:38.980 --> 01:40.700 skipped college along the way. 01:40.720 --> 01:46.870 Now I have an open mind for alternative educational paths and whatnot, But can you tell me a story 01:46.870 --> 01:51.940 about a time when you had to overcome a gap in your academic knowledge, like on computer science fundamentals 01:51.940 --> 01:57.850 and how you quickly taught yourself those skills and those techniques to solve a real world problem? 01:58.390 --> 02:00.580 This is behavioral interviewing in action. 02:00.580 --> 02:05.230 So think of a story, a true one, to tell them about when you had to learn something quickly on the 02:05.230 --> 02:07.330 job and how you apply that knowledge. 02:07.330 --> 02:12.340 To build something with measurable results, you should expect the interviewer to dig in a little bit 02:12.340 --> 02:13.530 deeper on your story. 02:13.540 --> 02:18.340 What can you anticipate for a potential follow up questions about the details of your story and how 02:18.340 --> 02:19.330 would you answer them? 02:24.610 --> 02:26.980 I see you were involved in this open source project. 02:27.010 --> 02:29.860 Can you tell me more about your individual contribution to it? 02:30.160 --> 02:35.470 Whether it's an open source project or something else, prepare a story to tell about an individual 02:35.470 --> 02:37.210 achievement that you're proud of. 02:37.240 --> 02:43.250 Interviewers are wary of people who hide behind large teams and don't contribute much to them directly. 02:43.270 --> 02:48.130 So while teamwork is important, they want to be sure you'll still be a strong individual contributor 02:48.130 --> 02:48.910 as well. 02:54.420 --> 02:59.280 Can you tell me about a time when you had some sort of conflict or disagreement with a co-worker or 02:59.280 --> 03:03.750 a manager or somebody from another team and how you went about resolving that conflict? 03:04.230 --> 03:09.300 Here's where they're trying to figure out if you work well with others, avoid speaking ill of any coworkers 03:09.300 --> 03:11.810 or managers while answering questions like this. 03:11.820 --> 03:15.090 Just state what the disagreement was and how it was resolved. 03:15.180 --> 03:19.980 Think of stories either where you persuaded a team to take a better direction or where you may have 03:19.980 --> 03:24.600 disagreed initially with someone, but ultimately committed to the direction the team chose. 03:30.240 --> 03:35.040 Now I want you to tell me about a time when you were able to simplify a technical solution to a problem 03:35.040 --> 03:38.100 in order to deliver it more quickly and make it more maintainable. 03:38.400 --> 03:44.830 Your traditional background should give you an advantage in favoring pragmatism over complex designs. 03:44.850 --> 03:49.230 Can you think of an example of employing a more straightforward approach to a problem that ended up 03:49.230 --> 03:51.000 saving time in the long run? 03:51.030 --> 03:56.640 Expect follow up questions where you'll be asked to defend that your solution was not too simple. 04:01.310 --> 04:04.670 If you had to pick one thing you've built that you're really proud of, what would it be? 04:04.700 --> 04:06.740 Tell me more about how it works in detail. 04:07.010 --> 04:12.140 This is your chance to demonstrate passion about technology and to demonstrate the depth of your knowledge 04:12.140 --> 04:13.520 on your favorite project. 04:13.550 --> 04:16.370 This is also a test of your communication skills. 04:16.400 --> 04:22.040 Are you able to convey how this project works in detail to someone else who is unfamiliar with it? 04:27.210 --> 04:29.520 Let's talk about this gap in your resume. 04:29.670 --> 04:34.200 I don't need any personal details about it, but tell me how you kept your skills and your knowledge 04:34.230 --> 04:35.790 up to date during that time. 04:35.970 --> 04:40.290 If you were doing something related to technology during that time and want to talk about it, you certainly 04:40.290 --> 04:41.040 can. 04:41.040 --> 04:45.210 But the interviewer mostly wants to hear about how you stayed in touch with your field. 04:45.240 --> 04:50.490 Did you read any books, take online courses or better yet, build things for fun on the side during 04:50.490 --> 04:51.330 that time? 04:51.660 --> 04:55.380 What were the main challenges you had in coming back up to speed if you had to? 05:00.930 --> 05:05.670 Tell me about a specific time when you had to teach yourself a whole new technology on the job and how 05:05.670 --> 05:07.620 you applied that to a real world problem. 05:08.100 --> 05:13.260 If you don't have a fancy CS degree, your interviewer wants to make sure you can teach yourself whatever 05:13.260 --> 05:15.360 is needed quickly and apply it. 05:15.450 --> 05:17.500 What stories do you have of doing this? 05:17.520 --> 05:22.440 You want to impress upon the interviewer that you took it upon yourself to learn whatever skills were 05:22.440 --> 05:27.150 needed and to not burden the rest of the team with teaching you or picking up the slack from your missing 05:27.150 --> 05:28.560 knowledge or experience. 05:34.630 --> 05:34.900 All right. 05:34.900 --> 05:36.250 We're just about out of time here. 05:36.250 --> 05:40.090 You should be meeting with the recruiter next, and they'll talk to you about next steps and where things 05:40.090 --> 05:40.720 go from here. 05:40.720 --> 05:43.300 But before I take off, do you have any questions for me? 05:43.780 --> 05:45.130 Don't just say no. 05:45.130 --> 05:49.990 This is your opportunity to demonstrate an interest in this team, assuming you still have one, as 05:49.990 --> 05:51.220 this might be your boss. 05:51.220 --> 05:55.990 A good question might be about how they evaluate their employees and what a successful engineer looks 05:55.990 --> 06:00.760 like on their team, or ask about the main challenges the team is facing right now. 06:00.790 --> 06:03.460 What processes and practices the team follows. 06:03.460 --> 06:05.290 What are your first week on the job might look like? 06:05.290 --> 06:06.190 Things like that. 06:06.190 --> 06:09.760 And when you're done, smile and thank the interviewer for their time.