What I learned from my interviews

There are some lessons I learned from my interview with various companies:

1) Interview is like a full-time job.  It deserves all the preparation one gives it.
It took many interviews to realize that the nature of an interview is like a final exam.  One does not know what will be tested.  Everything from puzzle solving to classical coding challenge to writing compiled code on a computer is legitimate.  Because an interview has such a breadth, it requires one's full attention to it.  The more I interviewed, the more the types of questions I know I should prepare, the more I build my interview question bank, and the more prepared I become.  Most people (unless super smart) will not get their first offer upon their first interview because the first interview brings a person back to the mode of looking for job and it takes time to get used to that mode.

2) Practice will make it perfect. 
Take no prisoners about every question you meet.  You should not just mentally think you'll be able to solve it or you have a rough idea on how to solve it.  Challenge yourself further by coding up the solution.  It helps me tremendously when I wrote out my code on a computer.  Believe it or not, even though your interviewer may tell you not to worry about syntax, not knowing the syntax of a language you are comfortable with can hamper your ability to express your ideas in pseudocode.



3) Never think you are at the finish line until you get an offer. 
Don't ever under-perform because you think you might have an offer.  Jobs are earned.  They are not handed to you for free.  For each interview opportunity, you have to perform to the best of your ability, not conditioned on how well you performed on the last interview or on optimistic thinking of potential offers from other interviews you have had thus far. 

4) Rejections are common.  Just move on.  But do ask yourself how you could have done better and never let it happen again.
In the tech industry, interview has a lot to do with the way a problem is approached.  Solving a problem may not guarantee a job, but not being able to solve a problem means you don't have the job.  There is so much one can prepare for behavioral interview questions, but not so much for technical interview questions.  However, a lot of what an interviewer throws at you can be learned from past interviews and practice on these types of questions.  I have been rejected numerous times in the past.  I always ask myself critically if there is anything I could learn.  There's got to be something or you would not have been rejected!  Most of the questions I got stuck on became good practice for me so that I wouldn't fumble again next time.

5) Luck so pray.
I have been through interviews with many companies.  Some went well but I didn't get an offer.  Some I did not do so much better than ones I felt I did well but I received offer from.  There is so much one can prepare.  If one does not do well on an interview, most likely your gut feeling is right.  You will not likely get an offer.  For two interviews which you believe you give the best effort yet you think one interview is better than the other one, it is all luck.  The one you did better one may not give you a job.  This comes down to cultural fit and that is beyond a candidate's control.