This is an anonymous post from an Elpha member.

Technical interview prep buddy required : Rejected from 5 onsites, ghosted after 2, rejected from innumerable tech screens

Cristen15·Mar 18, 2022

Posted in:Job Hunting Productivity Career Growth

I have been giving a lot of interviews lately.

It has been a high stress job and poor performance ratings this time. So, my time investment into career has helped neither my health, personal life or my career. I believe the ratings are due to the job not being a good culture fit for me. I have received glowing peer feedback and maintain positive resourceful relations with my peers and stakeholders.

Unfortunately, I have been having the worst time with interviews. I hate being negative this way. But, it is taking a toll on me. Took some time off to prep. But It is not showing. I forget a couple of key points in the interview. I find it challenging to be thorough, think of test cases and complete the coding problem in time. Different interviewers are looking for different things - some for any working solution, some for production level code, some for optimization, some for thorough testing of test cases. I freeze during system design because I am afraid of not saying what the interviewer wants me to.

My behavioral is usually great. Tech deep dive is good too. Sometimes, I get the feeling that in an attempt to simplify and have people understand my work, I might be making it seem small and insignificant. I am also looking for senior roles, so this is not good.

I fear I might be fired anytime. Would love to have an interview prep buddy who can mock interview with me and brainstorm solutions.

Madie104·Mar 19, 2022

I'm in a similar situation. Interviewing while working is like taking a second, fulltime, unpaid job where you're asking for others to judge your technical acumen.You're supposed to focus on the process of preparation and take each rejection as an opportunity to improve. But it's exhausting.It's a numbers game, so the usual advice is to keep at it, keep studying & practicing. Perhaps you could target companies, especially startups, that have take home exercises? Working with a solid, highly-experienced recruiter might help in this respect.I'd definitely be down for mock interview session. Maybe we could get a group going.

Cristen15·Mar 19, 2022

Let do it. Do you want to do mock interviews? Or prep together?I think we could prep a system design discuss session and mock interview system design sessions. I suppose we would have to prepare leetcode ourselves. What roles are you targeting? We could start a slack channel / discord group for prepping.

Madie104·Mar 20, 2022

I'm also applying for senior SWE roles, but I either get down-leveled or rejected. I'm fine when it comes to behavioral - it's the technical portions where I get brain freeze. Definitely need practice for both leetcode and systems design, So I'd be happy to pair on both prep and mock interviews.Discord might be easier for people to join.