Interviews may be intimidating. That’s why we spoke to engineers and hiring managers at Cisco to be taught the ten steps they advocate to place your greatest self ahead in an engineering interview. Hint: Being your self was the most well-liked piece of recommendation. If you’re concerned with being your self at work, go to our open positions.
1. Track your biggest hits.
Maintaining a doc of your profession biggest hits is what Amy Vazquez, a buyer information expertise engineering chief, recommends. For every of these tasks or initiatives, put together tales that present context concerning the mission’s function and downside meant to be solved. “You want to get very specific about what your role was. What was the value that you added? What was the impact that you had? And then for that project initiative, what was the outcome? What were the results? What was different at the end after having completed that work?”
Software Engineer Hanna Fernandez additionally recommends having a portfolio of your engineering work. “Even if they’re tiny personal projects, having code that you can show somebody and speak about is so good,” she mentioned.
2. Don’t have a technical background? Don’t depend your self out!
“If you want to join software engineering, you should do it,” mentioned David Rines, a senior engineering chief. For occasion, whereas Senior Software Engineer Mario Lopez did have some related work expertise, it hadn’t been the primary focus in his earlier place as a techniques administrator. However, Lopez believes that the business is transferring in the direction of recognizing that having a non-technical background may be a optimistic.
Lopez defined that when tackling an issue engaged on Duo, he can take into account how a techniques administrator would work together with a product. “Highlighting that in your interview and showing how that could be useful is a great asset to have,” Lopez mentioned.
Rines defined that individuals who don’t have a background in software program engineering “bring a lot to the table because they’re focused on the value software provides and are going to be very user and customer focused.”
3. Research the corporate you’re interviewing with.
Vazquez recommends “trying to find out if a company is really living up to their espoused values in terms of the work culture” by connecting with present or previous workers. In phrases of on-line sources, “Glassdoor is definitely where I go. You won’t get the full picture from there, but you might see a few red flags, and companies can’t delete a review,” she mentioned.
Doing this analysis not solely offers you insights, it additionally makes you stand out to interviewers. Guillaume Dury, a web site reliability engineering (SRE) supervisor, mentioned: “When I do interviews and ask, ‘Why do you want to join Duo Security?’ when I get somebody who’s well prepared and has an answer that is aligned with their profile and aspiration, it can definitely leave a good impression.”
4. Get suggestions in your resume.
Before focusing solely on interview prep, Fernandez says, “It really starts from the ground up: resumes are so important.” She recommends getting somebody to have a look at your resume, even a buddy.
If you don’t hear again or don’t get an interview after making use of for a job, Fernandez encourages candidates to ask for suggestions on their resume “because that’s pretty much a recruiter’s first impression of you and whether or not you would fit their role,” she mentioned.
5. To prep for technical engineering interviews: follow, follow, follow.
Practicing for a technical interview helps you are feeling extra ready and issues to hiring managers. “When candidates are well prepared for a technical exam and have things fresh in their mind, it shows me that they’ll bring that same attitude to work,” mentioned Blake Ellingham, an SRE supervisor.
To put together, Rines recommends doing issues you haven’t performed earlier than, fascinated with your logic, and checking your logic as a result of, “that’s what we’re going to care about. Why did you make those decisions?” he mentioned.
Fernandez and SRE Nick Aspinall counsel utilizing web sites to follow coding and watching movies that break down ideas. They additionally advocate training interviewing expertise with buddies, together with having them watch you code so you will get used to these conditions.
SRE Manager Jaya Sistla shared that in a technical interview, hiring managers are contemplating how candidates take into consideration an issue moderately than how thorough they’re with an algorithm. Questions she’s discerning in an interview embody, “Are they able to communicate the code that they are writing? Are they able to solve the problem? How readable is the code?” In second-round technical interviews, Sistla needs to be taught if candidates are accustomed to the totally different elements of structure and system design and their functions.
6. For behavioral engineering interviews: Your tales matter, even when issues didn’t go completely.
Ellingham explains that for behavioral model questions, candidates are requested to reply in tales. To decide which tales to share, Sistla suggests asking your self: “What are the key milestones that you have reached in your career or key projects that you have worked on?” For early profession engineers, take into account what tasks you could have performed in your programs and the way you’ve collaborated with fellow college students.
The group acknowledges that, “things don’t always go perfectly, and that’s okay. We’re looking for people to own up to their mistakes and admit where they could have done better and how they would change it the next time around,” Ellingham mentioned.
Openness and honesty enable hiring managers to think about you on their group. “Be open, because that’s how we want you to behave at Duo when you arrive — that you’ll level with us as individuals and humans. If you can do that in an interview, we think you can do that on a day-to-day basis,” Rines mentioned.
7. Pay consideration to your interview expertise.
When you’re being interviewed, you’re additionally determining whether or not the corporate is a good match for you. Taking observe of the way you’re handled could be a gauge of the way you could be handled as an worker. When interviewing with Duo, Lopez appreciated seeing how interviewers interacted with him and requested himself, “Would I enjoy working with this person? For me it was a yes,” he mentioned.
For Fernandez’s interview, “the thing that got me is that for every question that people asked I would answer and then they would have great, insightful follow-up questions. It was really cool to feel listened to,” she mentioned.
8. Ask questions and keep in mind that the interviewer needs this to go properly, too.
Aspinall’s go-to query solutions: Ask what the position is like and ask concerning the tradition. Those type of questions “show that you are curious and that you see yourself in that role,” he mentioned. To perceive firm tradition, Lopez suggests asking: “What are the opportunities to grow and learn, and is there room for cross-organization collaboration?”
“You’re not expected to know everything, and you’re going to be growing. If there’s something you don’t understand, ask the question,” Lopez mentioned. “We understand interviews can be intense, sometimes they’re a little bit intense for myself as the interviewer. I want folks to see Duo is a fantastic place to work, learn and grow.”
9. Remember that your ardour will come by.
SRE Manager Stacey Young says that “there is a lot to be said for understanding your craft, knowing your craft, and first and foremost, loving your craft.”
“If you’re in a tech field —whether it be cybersecurity, SRE, software development — if you love what you do, it shows. Most of the people here that I’ve encountered love what they do, and it comes through in an interview,” she mentioned.
10. Most well-liked tip: Be your self.
“First and foremost, be who you are. When you’re yourself, it shows just like they say when smiling on a phone call — you can hear it,” Young mentioned. I heard this recommendation greater than another.
Remember, an organization needs to rent you for who you might be. “There‘s no point in putting on a mask or pretending to be something that you aren’t. Just be yourself and let your true personality come out, because that’s the best thing about everyone,” Aspinall mentioned.
Humanity goes each methods. “We’re all people behind the screen. I want to work in a space where I feel comfortable being myself, expressing myself and showing my personality at work. I really do think it shows at Duo.”
Senior SRE Bernard Ting says as an interviewer the query he most needs to come back away with a solution to is: Do we expect that we will collaborate properly with you on difficult issues? For him to have the ability to reply that query, you being your self is crucial.
“Having a good, balanced team is an important thing. We’re not always searching for just the most technically expert people. Sometimes we want people that we can grow, that we can teach and train up to that level of expertise that we need. Be yourself, be open and show us that we can have a good collaborative environment,” he mentioned.
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