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4 Things Your Interviewer Wants To Hear (From Hiring Managers Themselves)

Matthew Collison on March 31, 2019

You rock up to your interview, suited 'n' booted, you've researched every HTML property under the sun for your "mini code-test" - but there's one t...
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Kyle Stephens • Edited

Making a concerted effort to show how passionate you are about coding, talking about those tireless nights learning,, talking about how you were so excited to learn a new CSS property will make you shine to your interviewer - and show that you're someone who is fun to work with because they actually enjoy their work.

I'm not sure I agree. Sure, have passion but it's important to have a balanced life with interests outside of tech. This shows you're a well-rounded individual who will work well in a team. There's much more to a software engineering role than technical chops.

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Matthew Collison

We completely agree - you need to maintain a balanced life or you're prone to burnout - but a balanced life is different for everyone. This point isn't in any way trying to glamorise "tireless nights" - some actually enjoy that, but not others. If you don't personally, don't state that to your interviewer.

The point is, convey your passion for code in your own way - if you really were that passionate that you spent hours in the evenings learning and enjoyed it, state that.

The simplest form is this: if you have a genuine passion for coding, make it very clear by stating your truths. It can only be positive - and if the person on the other end wants to judge that, it's probably not the right place to work for anyway.

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Matthew Collison

To add on to that, we think you make a super interesting point - showing you have interests outside of coding may be equally important - just putting across your personality.

Because at the end of the day, you might be working with these people for the next couple of years. It's best to show more of you now so you can see what kind of rapport you have.

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Daniel Lizik

you might be working with these people for the next couple of years

Yeah, I also want to work with normal people that do things outside of work besides more work.

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Eugene Vedensky

This should be titled "4 things your (reasonable) interviewer...", because sometimes you get folks that want junior devs with senior level experience for intern pay, but other wise totally true!

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Matthew Collison

They're certainly out there! One thing our career advisors focus on is teaching candidate to spot these types of interviewers. We also support them in their job to ensure the interviewer didn't completely mislead them and help them switch if necessary.

There are a few red flags to look for and we want to make a post about this too - we've seen people get stuck in low-paying jobs riddled with insane expectations for years with a range of narcissistic and angry bosses.

It's easily done but we want to help as many people avoid this as possible.

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Jason C. McDonald

Absolutely right on! As a hiring manager, I can definitely second this.

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Matthew Collison

Glad you echo this sentiment! We hope this helps people streamline their focus when learning and self developing, so when it comes to that all important interview stage, they're bringing real value to the table.

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K-Sato • Edited

If you seem like you'd rather be doing something else, people probably won't enjoy working with you. It's just facts.

True