Hi everyone!
I hope you are all having a good week. Since it is the middle of fall, we are right in the middle of recruiting season for jobs and internships! I thought I’d share some of my tips for interviews/job applications, specifically for software engineering jobs.
- Get involved with student projects – I have found that my interviewers really enjoy asking me about the various software projects I worked on. It shows that I genuinely enjoy software and gives them an opportunity to know more about how I work on a team and handle unexpected challenges. You can get involved in projects by forming a team at a hack-a-thon, joining an entrepreneurial organization, or just working on some crazy idea you have in your free time!
- Have friends review your resume – Here is where older/upperclassmen friends are especially useful. They’ve been around the block a couple of times with interviews and applications, so they may have some good ideas about what works and what doesn’t.
- Practice technical interview questions – There are a lot of great resources to practice questions that often come up on coding interviews. Technical interviews often ask questions about data structures, algorithms, and general computer science knowledge. Get practice questions from books like Cracking the Coding Interview or websites like TopCoder, and work on them with your friends. It’s really important to be able to explain your thought process out loud, as well as write out your work for another person to understand. The best way to practice is to get with your friends and interview each other!
- Take every interview you can find – Nothing prepares you better for a software technical interview than a bunch of software technical interviews! This is the easiest way to get comfortable with the format and ask for feedback. Even if you aren’t totally sure you want to work for the company, it’s great practice. Also, you learn a lot about a company through the interview process, so you may end up liking them more than you think.
I hope these little suggestions give you a better idea of what it’s like to interview for jobs and internships in software. The most important thing is to relax and show what you know!
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