Do & Don't of Interviewing!
Legend
- ✅ = Do
- ❌ = Don't
- ⚠️ = Situational
Before interview
Things | |
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✅ | Prepare pen, paper and earphones/headphones. |
✅ | Find a quiet environment with good Internet connection. |
✅ | Ensure webcam and audio are working. There were times I had to restart Chrome to get Hangouts to work again. |
✅ | Request for the option to interview over Hangouts/Skype instead of a phone call; it is easier to send links or text across. |
✅ | Decide on and be familiar with a programming language. |
✅ | Familiarize yourself with the coding environment (CoderPad/CodePen). Set up the coding shortcuts, turn on autocompletion, tab spacing, etc. |
✅ | Prepare answers to the frequently-asked behavioral questions in an interview. |
✅ | Prepare some questions to ask at the end of the interview. |
✅ | Dress comfortably. Usually you do not need to wear smart clothes, casual should be fine. T-shirts and jeans are acceptable at most places. |
✅ | Stay calm and composed. |
⚠️ | Turn off the webcam if possible. Most remote interviews will not require video chat and leaving it on only serves as a distraction. |
Introduction
Things | |
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✅ | Introduce yourself in a few sentences under a minute or two. |
✅ | Mention interesting points that are relevant to the role you are applying for. |
✅ | Sound enthusiastic! Speak with a smile and you will naturally sound more engaging. |
❌ | Spend too long introducing yourself. The more time you spend talking the less time you have to code. |
Upon receiving the question
Things | |
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✅ | Repeat the question back at the interviewer. |
✅ | Clarify any assumptions you made subconsciously. Many questions are under-specified on purpose. E.g. a tree-like diagram could very well be a graph that allows for cycles and a naive recursive solution would not work. |
✅ | Clarify input format and range. Ask whether input can be assumed to be well-formed and non-null. |
✅ | Work through a small example to ensure you understood the question. |
✅ | Explain a high level approach even if it is a brute force one. |
✅ | Improve upon the approach and optimize. Reduce duplicated work and cache repeated computations. |
✅ | Think carefully, then state and explain the time and space complexity of your approaches. |
✅ | If stuck, think about related problems you have seen before and how they were solved. Check out the tips in this section. |
❌ | Ignore information given to you. Every piece is important. |
❌ | Jump into coding straightaway. |
❌ | Start coding without interviewer's green light. |
❌ | Appear too unsure about your approach or analysis. |
Code out your solution
Things | |
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✅ | Explain what you are coding/typing to the interviewer, what you are trying to achieve. |
✅ | Practice good coding style. Clear variable names, consistent operator spacing, proper indentation, etc. |
✅ | Type/write at a reasonable speed. Too slow is no good. |
✅ | As much as possible, write actual compilable code, not pseudocode. |
✅ | Write in a modular fashion. Extract out chunks of repeated code into functions. |
✅ | Ask for permission to use trivial functions without having to implement them; saves you some time. |
✅ | Use the hints given by the interviewer. |
✅ | Demonstrate mastery of your chosen programming language. |
✅ | Demonstrate technical knowledge in data structures and algorithms. |
✅ | If you are cutting corners in your code, state that out loud to your interviewer and say what you would do in a non-interview setting (no time constraints). E.g., "Under non-interview settings, I would write a regex to parse this string rather than using split() which may not cover all cases." |
✅ | Practice whiteboard space-management skills. |
⚠️ | Reasonable defensive coding. Check for nulls, empty collections, etc. Can omit if input validity has been clarified with the interviewer. |
❌ | Remain quiet the whole time while coding. |
❌ | Spend too much time writing comments. |
❌ | Use extremely verbose or single-character (unless they're common like i , n ) variable names. |
❌ | Copy and paste code without checking (e.g. variables need to be renamed). |
❌ | Interrupt your interviewer when they are talking. Usually if they speak, they are trying to give you hints or steer you in the right direction. |
❌ | Write too big (takes up too much space) or too small (illegible) if on a whiteboard. |
After coding
Things | |
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✅ | Scan through your code for mistakes as if it was your first time seeing code written by someone else. |
✅ | Check for off-by-one errors. |
✅ | Come up with test cases. Try extreme test cases - empty sets, single item sets, negative numbers |
✅ | Step through your code with those test cases. |
✅ | Look out for places where you can refactor. |
✅ | Reiterate the time and space complexity of your code. |
✅ | Explain trade-offs and how the code/approach can be improved if given more time. |
❌ | Immediately announce that you are done coding. Do the above first! |
❌ | Argue with the interviewer. They may be wrong but that is very unlikely given that they are familiar with the question. |
Wrap up
Things | |
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✅ | Ask questions. More importantly, ask good and engaging questions that are tailored to the company! Pick some questions from this list. |
✅ | Thank the interviewer. |
⚠️ | Ask about your interview performance. It can get awkward. |
❌ | End the interview without asking any questions. |
Post interview
Things | |
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✅ | Record the interview questions and answers down as these can be useful for future reference. |
⚠️ | Send a follow up email to your interviewer(s) thanking them for their time and the opportunity to interview with them. |