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Matthew Henry
Matthew Henry

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When it rains, it pours.

When it rains it POURS

TLDR: ALWAYS, ALWAYS, PICK THE DATE FURTHEST AWAY FROM TODAY

The drought

Having started my second year in Computer science in college I realized that I have to get some form of work experience in the city to keep ahead of the game (and going home for another summer seemed a little un-attractive...). Having worked every summer since I was 17 (20 now) as a QA intern, dev has been something I've been itching to drown in.

In a desperate attempt to pull this off I polished my linkedIn up to a shine an applied to everything that so much as mentioned the words summer and intern. Following this....I waited....and waited....and got denied...and told, most fabulously, to come back in two years when I have an actual college degree on the horizon. This as you might imagine, is just a tad disheartening! But absolutely nothing that every other student doesn't have to compete with over their degree so.

The rain

However, months after beginning this crusade. A response. Two in fact! Lets call them company A and company B, the preparations began in ernest. I studied cracking the code interview, I did hackerRank challenges until everything looked like a linkedList and HashMaps became my world. I did however...also happen to schedule the technical interview with company A for the next week, utterly a mistake mind you, but I was excited and prayed that if I looked eager it would work in my advantage. I was....so horribly wrong, as company B had yet to let me know when they wanted to give me a call....

The flood

So as the days ticked by and I forgot about the second interview. I worked away until, to my horror, a wonderfully friendly email landed in my inbox. The second interview...was scheduled for exactly one hour following the first.

You can imagine the panic setting in

Thankfully it was not technical, but behavioral! A light in the darkness! Less prep more...selling oneself? I supposed? Still, panic was at an all time high and that panic I fear absolutely showed to company A, while with company B, I managed to be so burnt out of stress that the whole wonderful thing flowed neatly from one topic to the next. As a first ever technical interview it certainly could have gone better.

Conclusion

As I write this I'm coming down from the high related to these interviews. Both thankfully were offsite, and were conducted over either skype or mobile which at least took the time fear out of it. I don't think I'll every be as scared about a wednesday afternoon as I was today, but you have to make do with what you have. For those of you staring down the barrel of a loaded interview, I sincerely hope you escape my bad luck.

P.S I have to thank @emmawedekind for her tutorials and tips, because I wouldnt have survived today otherwise

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