6 Finding a job - Getting past the job interview
This chapter covers
- How the interview process works
- What to expect from the technical interview
- Things you shouldn’t say and what to say instead during the interview.
- What to expect from a job offer and how to sort good from bad company perks.
Learning a programming language and best practices around it is only step one on the journey of getting your first tech job. Sadly, your CV will only take you so far especially if you’re just starting out. When you’re unable to show actual experience for the position you’re applying for, a good CV can take you to the first interview. After that, you’re on your own, which is not a bad place to be, honestly, but it's important to understand how the interviewing process works and what to expect from it.
Different companies have different hiring processes, some of them will only perform one interview and make the decision while others can take up to a month of interviewing and testing. There is no standard, however, there are certain patterns of what you’ll find and how you must behave (i.e what you should say or avoid saying), which is what we’ll tackle in this chapter.
By the end, you should have all the tools you need to understand how the interviewing process works in our industry and some key indicators that will let you know whether a company is right for you or not.