secret formula for success in programming interviews

Are you keep getting rejected in interviews over and over again?

Are you trapped in thinking that you are not good enough?

But

Your rejections have nothing to do with your education, skills, or experience.

You are keep getting rejected because you are not aware of how to approach an interview.

But there’s a ridiculously simple way to succeed in any interview you want

And once you know what it is, and how it works, you’ll want to kick yourself for not knowing it before.

 

Angry after rejection in interviews

And today I’m going to show you how you should approach your next interview. And you will not get rejected again.

But before we continue, You need to know.

What is Average No. Of Rejections Before Getting Job Offers? 


 

27

Fresh Grad.  

22

Junior dev.

14

Senior dev.

16

Architect

Do You Want To Know? Why So Many People Fail In Programming Interviews?


Imagine you just got off from a long flight. And now you are waiting for your luggage bags to come out on a conveyor belt. When you got on the plane, you loaded six red bags.

As you wait with other passengers, You see one red bag, then two, then three until you seem to have just five red bags on the conveyor belt. But you are missing only one bag.

Will you leave the airport without this bag?

Of course No.

When will you leave the airport then? Without a doubt, you will leave when you have every one of your six red bags. No matter how late you are. How much tired you are. You would not go without all of your six red bags.

Hiring managers behave in the same way

Hiring managers have a conveyor belt going around in their brain. Each bag is his expectations and requirements. It is your job to take out these bags.

If you fail to take out even one of the bags, It will keep revolving in their brain, and eventually, they wait for you to get it off or will reject you for the job.

Before we have a look at these red bags, we need to understand what candidates think after getting rejected, and what do interviewers believe when rejecting candidates.

What Does A Candidate Think After Getting rejected in interview?

Imagine you went for an interview and had not heard anything from the company in last four weeks, or they just emailed you a nice rejection email.

What will be the first thing getting in your mind after this rejection?

We collected data from 547 candidates who were either rejected or never heard back from the companies.

Here are the top five things went into the minds of those candidates

what to do after rejection in technical interviews
What Does Interviewers Think When Rejecting A Candidate

 

Here are the top five reasons interviewers reject a candidate for

Top reasons for rejection in programming interviews

It is evident from the above two graphs that there is no relation between what a candidate assumes and what do interviewers think when rejecting a candidate.

So to increase your chances of success in interviews, you need to understand what is going in the interviewers head while interviewing you.

Six red flags are revolving in interviewer's head. Take care of them, and you will be a winner.

Red bags

Bag No.1

The Problem

Bag No.2

The Solution

Bag No.3

The Package

Bag No.4

The Extra luggage

Bag No.5

The Testimonials

Bag No.6

The Uniqueness

Bag No.1

The Problem

 

Imagine you are invited to an event. You are required to wear a black suit, white shirt, and green tie.

Now you go out to buy this.

You enter a shop and tells the salesman. I need a black suit, white shirt, and green tie. And he responds sure we have jeans, t-shirts, and sneakers. You get confused and try to explain him again.

No thanks, I need a black suit with white shirt and green tie. The salesman goes again. Yes, sure we have runners, tracksuit, and zippers.

What will you do now?

You will get extremely disappointed and go to the next shop.

You tell the new salesman. I need a black suit with white shirt and green tie. And he says, sure we have a collection of black suits and white shirts in this section.

What would be your reaction now?

A big sigh of relief as someone has understood what your problem is and what you want.

Why would you be relieved now?

Just because now someone has understood your problem.

Now imagine if you go for a job interview. The interviewer explains you their requirements. And if you behave in the same manner as the first salesman did, what kind of impression the interviewers will get?

Will he get confused same as you were? Yes, he will.

So now the question is how you can we make him relieved that you have understood his problems?

It's simple. Your answer lies in the job advertisement, Here is this piece of information, Where a company has described all their problems.

In the interview, you need to make the interviewers realize that you understand their requirements very well.

By doing this, you have taken out the first bag off the conveyor belt. But is it enough to merely narrate the problem? No next thing you need to tell them is the solution to their problem.

KEYS TO INTERVIEW SUCCESS

In your quest for the job hunt. The most important thing is to understand what the job requires. Then reflect on yourself.

Prepare to present yourself as someone who understands the underlying job requirements. Who has skills, experience, and knowledge in dealing with these requirements.

Just like an expert salesman, who understand his clients and serve them what they require.

Bag No.2

The Solution

The solution is simply an answer to the problem. The company has a problem you bring up the resolution.

Or the project has some issue that needs some fixing. You are the fix it person.

The role of the solution is to bring relief

Imagine you were walking in a park. Suddenly you noticed a dog running towards you

 

What will you do?

 

You will identify this dog as a problem. Your heart would start to beat faster; you will run and will look around for shelter [a solution].

Imagine you noticed a cage on a corner, you ran towards it, entered the cage and closed the door.

Will you be relieved now? As this cage has provided you a solution, for your problem the dog.

The role of the solution is to bring relief. The interviewer has already understood that you are now aware of his problems.

To get relieved. All he need is assurance that you are the right person to come and fix the problem.

How to bring the relief from the problem?

All you have to do is to narrate yourself related to their problem. Talk about your skills, experiences and projects you have done.

If we consider a simple scenario where a company is looking to hire a word press developer

The Problem you will narrate:

“You need a word press developer who can develop this new plugin for you using PHP and AJAX” then your solution can be something like this.

 

The Solution:

“Well from last three years I have been working as a WordPress developer. Explicitly developing plugins in PHP and AJAX for our clients.I have participated in various small to significant level projects.

My latest project was implementing this new fancy slider plugin in PHP and AJAX for Magento.

It is installed on 2000 sites now. I have developed many other plugins as well.

I am continuously developing my skills in this area. Last year I took few advanced courses in PHP and AJAX development.

I also frequently participate in word press conferences around the world ”

Congratulations now you have taken out second bag “The SOLUTION.”

KEYS TO INTERVIEW SUCCESS

Problem and solution go hand in hand. Remember we are following the flow of bags

First, we need to make them relieved that we have understood their Problem

And then provide them with the solution.

Bag No.3

The Package

In a room full of people, Where everyone has the same experience as you. Same skills and knowledge as you. And all of them are competing for the same job as you.

How would you differentiate yourself from others?

Or put it another way. Which candidate will the prospective employer choose?

Its simple they will look for the candidate who is the full package.

So what’s a full package?

"85% of your success is due to your personality and ability to communicate, negotiate and lead. Shockingly, only 15% is due to technical knowledge." the Carnegie Institute of Technology.

You have guessed it right. The full package is the candidate, Who can communicate effectively. Who can lead? Who can help others?

Who can contribute to the welfare of the company? Who can work in groups and who can thrive alone as well.

Are you a full package?

It is your job to show yourself as a full package to the interviewer. It does not matter how much technical knowledge and experience you have.

If you are not a full package, you will get rejected over and over and over again.

KEYS TO INTERVIEW SUCCESS

As a job seeker, you need to understand one thing. Your mere technical skills are not enough. The sum of your social, personal and leadership skills will create a larger than life persona.

This is the only way to pitch yourself different and better than everyone else around.

Bag No.4

The Extra Luggage

Do you remember from the first story about you getting off from a plane, where you loaded six red bags before you boarded the plane.

If one of those bags was full with extra stuff, not important stuff only extra stuff but it was important enough for you to carry around

will you still leave the airport if this bag is missing? I guess your answer will be no, and its right.

Same as we have an extra burden of all the extra stuff in our life, in the same way companies or a job have these extra things that needs to be taken care, and they expects from you to be able to perform these.

And if somehow you are unable to take this bag off the brain of interviewer it will keep revolving.  

How to take care of the extra luggage?

Your answer lies in the job advertisement. Look carefully for any skills, tools or projects they mentioned as nice to have.

Make sure during the interview you take enough time to explain your relevancy, experience and knowledge for these.

KEYS TO INTERVIEW SUCCESS

Like your life is always cluttered and bloated with extra burdens, A regular job is also cluttered with extra stuff.

If you can present yourself as someone, Who have the skills and can take care of those things. It can create a very long and lasting impact on the interviewers.

Bag No.5

The References

Imagine you were out for shopping. Two different brands were offering the same product. You were about to buy one.

But then suddenly on the screen in shop one of your favorite celebrity appeared, And endorsed one of the brands which you were not interested.

Will this endorsement from one of your favorite childhood hero have any impact on your decision?

Sure it will, and this is how modern marketing and advertising works. It’s because before we make an important decision.

Our brains bring in the fear. Fear of the unknown, fear of something going wrong. Fear of wasting our time and money.

That’s why we need some assurance that we are making the right decision. This is where the power of references kicks in.

How can references impact the decision?

Just when hiring manager was about to make any decision, whether to hire a candidate or not. The same fears kick in his brain.

He needs some satisfaction that he is going to make a right decision.

All you have to do is to provide three to four references up front. It could be your previous colleagues, managers, teachers or friends. Anyone who you feel will say kind words about you.

If you provide the references upfront, it will make them feel secure and confident about their decision that if needed they can call these persons and ask about you before signing the final contract.

Bag No.6

The Uniqueness

A fingerprint in its narrow sense is an impression left by the friction ridges of a human finger.

Human fingerprints are detailed, nearly unique, difficult to alter, and durable over the life of an individual, making them suitable as long-term markers of human identity.

As fingerprints are unique and have so many characteristics, So do the human personality. Everyone has its unique perspective, preferences, tastes, fears, doubts, skills, experiences.

It is almost universal that people we encounter on a daily basis. We form a placing of them in our mind. We might label someone as a genius, stupid, crazy, or socially awkward.

It all depends on what kind of impact they have left on us in the brief encounter.

That image of them lives with us embedded deep down in our subconscious mind. Whenever we meet, see or interact with them our mind brings in that image.

We treat them according to what we have perceived about them.

KEYS TO INTERVIEW SUCCESS

As job seekers, you need to be careful about how you want to be perceived. The brief moment you have interacted with the interviewers.

Will leave a unique mark of your personality. Do, say and appear the same as everyone else then you will be labeled like everyone else.

What is your uniqueness? How do you differ from fifty other candidates? Who has also applied for the same job? What is so unique about your skill set? About your experiences.

What kind of exclusive benefits you will bring to the company. You need to be able to leave your mark on the interviewers so they can remember you after the interview.

Cool Bonus

 About The Author:

 

interview help

If you have any questions or need some help with your upcoming interview, feel free to contact me. I will make sure to help you in the best possible way.

All the materials and services on this site are 100% free. Just to help someone who might be stuck as I once was.

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