How to make a good first impression in a software engineer interview
The first 5 minutes of your software engineer interview can be a black box.
These first 5 minutes are crucial to setting up the rest of the interview because the interviewer starts forming an impression from a gut feeling about you, your skills and most importantly your potential to fit in the team.
Remember, your interviewer is human. Just like you.
They have been influenced by their environment, and their subconscious feeds into their decision.
The way you speak, how you carry yourself and maintaining eye contact - all of these micro-interactions feed into their subconscious forming a judgment that lingers before the questions even begin.
đ§ Breaking the ice
So, we know first impressions definitely matter.
Start every interview by breaking the ice, but donât let it come off as forced.
I broke the ice in an interview with a CTO just by saying that I was following the cricket World Cup yesterday. We had a 2-minute chat on the most recent results, and that made us both feel comfortable with having the technical chat that followed.
If you canât think of anything to say right off the bat, donât let it bring you down. Remember, the interviewers always have to do intros and lead before they hand the mic to you.
When the mic gets handed to you, just talk about yourself. In fact, I would go as far as to say that you should practice this part of the interview. Itâs the only part that you can guarantee is coming.
Just give a really brief overview of yourself and your career. I like to follow this framework:
Talk about who I am and where Iâm from
Talk about what my most recent role is and include a quick highlight of a most recent achievement
Talk about what Iâm learning and why
(Optional) Talk about my interests outside of work
From this framework alone, you can easily knock out quite a few things that your interviewers might have a mutual interest in, and you might instantly build rapport from that alone.
This honestly is a really underrated way to set up the rest of the interview and make it much more comfortable.
đ The pre-read
Take some time to have a read about the company that youâre interviewing for.Â
The interview is just as much for you to understand whether the company is a good fit for your career as it is for them to assess whether youâre a good fit for their team.
Research the company by going to their website and taking a few notes of their about page.
Genuinely try to understand what they do and see if you can think of some problems they might be facing in their industry.
For example, a software company that focuses on managing television ad campaigns might be wanting to break into the digital advertisement space because viewership for television has been going down in favour of streaming.
Next, read the companyâs blog. This will give you a really good insight into how the company works and what they are focusing on.Â
For example, I recognised that metrics and A/B experiments were really important for a company by reading their blog. I then took some time out to review my knowledge in these areas and was able to steer the conversation towards this with my own experience.
In the interview, your interviewer might ask what you know about the company. Reading their blog and about page also helps in building a solid first impression because it shows that you care enough about the company to take some time out to get an understanding of it.
You can use this knowledge to ask insightful questions on the company that demonstrate genuine interest in the company and the role.
đ Key takeaways
First impressions can set the rest of your interview up. It only takes about 5 minutes for the interviewerâs subconscious to get a gut feeling about you.
Break the ice with something casual. Maybe talk about football or some interesting event that happened recently.
Practice talking about yourself. Follow the framework I outlined above to give you a solid foundation for coming up with an elevator pitch about you.
Take some time out to learn about the company. This will help you understand about the companyâs industry and show the interviewer that you are interested in the company and the role.
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