In the third post in the Work Remotely Earn Dollars with Programming series, we’ll go into more detail about preparing for the initial tech recruiter interview and bring you an exclusive tip.
Many candidates prioritize the tests or projects that companies apply. However, the interview is also an important and eliminatory stage, since the recruiter will assess the candidate’s ability to understand and communicate with the client and the team.
First of all, it is essential to understand the recruiter profile you are going to talk to. Based on my experience, in this first contact with the “Tech Recruiter”, you will usually deal with a less technical profile, that is, a person who understands more about human behavior and less about technology (of course you can face some exceptions here!). In other words, the recruiter will not ask you to solve an algorithm during the conversation, however will try to understand you as a person and as a professional who can work as a team and add value to the team.
1. A fluid and informative conversation with the recruiter helps to ensure good results.
Therefore, a key point is to communicate clearly about:
- Your past experiences: don’t forget to talk about how well you related to your team (recruiters value this).
- Technologies used in your career: comment about how many years of experience you have in these technologies.
- Projects that provided you challenges and growth: comment about how much you are interested in new challenges (for example: learning new technologies and working with people from all over the world).
- Your plans: your journey in IT so far and how you think about growing even more as an IT professional.
The first contact in English can bring a load of anxiety and nervousness, interfering a lot in the interaction with the recruiter. Therefore, in addition to practicing the conversation in English, I suggest the following practical tips:
2. Third practical tip
If you missed the second tip, click here to access it.
A few days before the interview, write a document (Word or Notepad or Google Drive…) answering the following items:
- What do you know about this company?
- Talk about your professional trajectory.
- Talk about a project you are proud of.
- Comment on a big challenge you faced and how did you solve this problem?
- Questions for the recruiter about the company itself and the project they will develop.
- Ask if the interviewer is interested in knowing more about you or about a specific project you participated in (it shows that you care about their opinion).
The golden tip: follow the 60-second rule. Practice answering these and other questions within 1 minute (it shows that you have prepared and prevents you from getting lost).
3. Other important tips
- Wait for the recruiter to finish the question or consideration to start talking.
- Keep eye contact and stay interested in all his/her questions and comments.
- Close unnecessary tabs (leave your GitHub and job-related projects open).
- If the interviewer allows you to talk freely, consult the summary with the job description to comment on the prerequisites, showing how you fit into each one of them (don’t forget to bring it to the interview).
- Don’t just comment, but show in practice a project that your team has developed (leave the project script tab open at the time of the interview) and highlight your participation in this particular project.
- Don’t spend too much time talking about your background (recruiters are more interested in your experience and your ability to solve problems quickly and efficiently). However, do not forget to mention your education if it is a prerequisite for the position.
- In addition to showing your proactivity and good communication skills in English, shows you manage that technology of interest, demonstrating some of your projects on GitHub and commenting briefly on them.
4. To go further
If you want to master the art of the interview, I recommend the following book:
60 Seconds and You’re Hired!
by Robin Ryan
This book shows key techniques for answering interview questions, the top mistakes during the interview, and much more.
In the next post, I’ll go into more detail about the testing algorithms you should face (before or after the interview).
See you soon!
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