Prepare for Interviews

• If you’re going to convince a new employer you’re the best candidate for a job, you have to believe it yourself first. When you value yourself, you start to describe your work history and experience in another language.
• Start by writing out everything you do, in detail. Include all of your tasks and your accomplishments. This will help you to see your experience in a fluid way that can apply to many settings.
  • Ex. You weren’t a “customer service representative for Caris’ Cupcake Emporium;” you were someone who “assisted customers with orders, promoted new products and services, and addressed customer complaints professionally.”
• Learn to spin your past positions in this way, and you’ll find it much easier to explain how your work history lends itself to the transition you’re seeking.
• Examples paint a picture of your experience and abilities for an employer. With a career change in particular, examples help an employer understand how your experience fits into a new role.
  • So when asked about working with customers, for example, incorporate an anecdote about your interactions with people from your current or previous jobs, even if those people weren’t customers, per se. Then, explain how you would put that experience to work in your new role.
  • The skills you used to manage conflict with a co-worker or to explain a difficult concept to management are the same ones you would use with customers, after all.
  • If asked about problem-solving, talk about a time you actually worked through a conundrum or came up with an innovative solution. Even if the industry was entirely different, the ability to think critically and problem-solve speaks volumes of your competence level.

• Go out of your way to show an employer—literally—that you’re capable of taking on this new role by bringing evidence with you. This might include sample work, training certificates, or a mock grant proposal, marketing plan, or something else that makes your abilities concrete:
  • Are you shifting into a writing-heavy field like communications or journalism? Bring writing samples. It’s OK if you haven’t written a news story; a well-written annual report still demonstrates your mastery of language and ability to weave complex details into a coherent whole.
  • Are you transitioning from a non-tech field into a job that requires programming? Bring or show training certificates for those online courses you took. If you didn’t submit a link to an online portfolio before the interview, bring a tablet so you can show your potential employer samples of your work.
• If you don’t have the exact “evidence” that an employer is looking for, create it. This certainly doesn’t mean that you should fabricate experience, but you can develop samples that demonstrate your abilities:
  • Applying to teach, but have no formal teaching experience? Create a syllabus and lesson plans based on what you plan to do in the role.
  • Eyeing a graphic design job though you boast little real-life experience? Put together some sample products for the company you are applying to.
  • Going after a position that requires lots of public speaking and outreach? Upload some short videos of you delivering a brief but powerful message.

• It’s OK to admit you don’t know everything and that you don’t meet every qualification. Very few job candidates meet every single criteria of any given job. But don’t just say, “Gee, I don’t know,” or “Well, I’ve never done that,” when asked tough questions.
• It’s okay to acknowledge the gap, but remind your potential employer of some other experience that will help you minimize the gap. And be confident when you answer these hardballs questions:
  • Maybe you work as an engineer, but you want to move into a managerial role and you don’t have budget experience, for example. Guess what? Engineering requires some of the same skills as managing departmental numbers.
  • So you can say, “While I do lack budget experience, I’m excited about getting up to speed with that work immediately. Of course, my current role requires exacting attention to detail and the same mathematical proficiency that I will need to manage a budget. So although there will be an initial adjustment, I imagine it’s something I can pick up quickly based on my current skills.”

• Finally, don’t wait until you’re in front of your interviewer to consider how to explain the reason for your career change, because, make no mistake, you will be asked this weighted question.
• Plan ahead, and practice your response so you aren’t trying to articulate it aloud for the first time in an important interview:
  • People make this decision for a wide variety of reasons. Whatever your motivation, leave any associated baggage at home. Again, it’s OK to briefly acknowledge that circumstances are less than perfect.
  • Keep it simple, positive, and future-oriented: “I feel like I have done a lot of great work over the past three years in [name of industry]. But, I’ve reached a point in my life where I feel like it’s time to move on. I’m ready for a different kind of challenge.”
• Never lose sight of the fact that you are a multifaceted person capable of accomplishing many things and wearing different hats.
• Your skills and your experience are unarguably applicable to more than a single job!

• Review our “Reframing The Narrative Guide”: This workbook helps career changers and job seekers identify and showcase transferable skills from any role.
• Practice interviewing with SNHU SkillsFirst.
• Browse this page “Career Resources” and type in ‘career change’ to view helpful articles, like this one on interviewing when changing careers!

What makes a technical interview different from a normal job interview? It is a specialized and challenging process that will test your coding skills, personality, and problem-solving abilities. Typical steps that you may experience during the technical interview process include:

• Phone Screen: The purpose of this step is for the company to determine if you are qualified for the role and are a good fit. Most questions in this stage are behavioral based, but some questions may arise that will ask about your proficiency in certain programming languages, etc.
• Virtual Online Assessment or Coding Challenge: This is a homework-type challenge for you to complete typically by a certain deadline. Some companies use coding challenges to evaluate problem-solving skills and familiarity with programming languages.
• Final Assessment Interview: This stage involves more detailed technical questions with the hiring team, often including coding challenges, system design discussions, and questions about past projects: Whiteboarding: Candidates may be asked to solve problems on a whiteboard in real-time, demonstrating their thought process and problem-solving approach.
• Coding Exercises: Candidates might be asked to write code in real-time, either by hand or on a computer, to demonstrate their coding proficiency.
• Behavioral Questions: Questions about past projects, teamwork, and problem-solving strategies are also included to assess how a candidate works in a team.

• Cracking the Coding Interview: Cracking the Coding Interview, 6th Edition is here to help you through this process, teaching you what you need to know and enabling you to perform at your very best. *NOTE- Purchase of book is required.
• interviewing.io: Practice interviewing with engineers from Facebook, Google, and more anonymously!
• HackerRank Interview Preparation Kit: Includes interview tips, advice, and practice challenges.
• LeetCode: Explore and review top technical interview questions

• freeCodeCamp: Non-profit organization that consists of an interactive learning web platform, an online community forum, chat rooms and more!
• Udemy: Search “coding interview” then click Filter->Price->Free
• Interview Cake: Courses to help you prepare to “win” the programming interview “game”!
• W3Schools: Course to help you learn to code!
• LinkedIn Learning Classes:
  • Get Ready for Your Coding Interview
  • Nail Your SQL Interview
  • Nail Your C# Interview
  • Nail Your Python Interview

• SNHU Employer Panel – Mastering The Technical Interview
• Candid Career – What Is A Technical Interview?
• Watch mock video interviews with engineers from FAANG companies!
• SNHU SkillsFirst – How To Use The Practice Interview Option