Interviews

Interviews can sometimes be a nervous or anxious time during the internship process. If you have got to this point it means that the hiring team picked your resume out of 100s or 1000s of different resumes to interview. You are doing something right.

What to Do Before?

You want to be in the best mental state you can possibly be going into an interview.

• Try to get an appropriate amount of sleep (this will depend on your chronotype)
• Don't be hungry/hangry going into the interview.
• Layout what you're going to wear to the interview. Recommended to wear business casual but ymmv.
• Have a list of questions that you are going to ask.
• Practice leetcode and review technical knowledge.
• [Online Only] Make sure your computer, camera, and mic works and you have MSFT Teams, Zoom, and Google Meets installed or works on your browser.

Questions to Ask

It is super important to ask questions during an interview when prompted. It shows that you are interested in the position. Here are my questions that I ask when I'm interviewing.

• Why did this position open up?
• What is the culture like?
• What's the work life balance like?
• What is a day in the life?
• How can I excel or grow in this position?
• How many people will I be working with?
• What do you like most about working at this company?
• What does the timeline look like to hear back about a decision?

What to Do During?

Most important thing to do during an interview is you want to have a good vibe with the hiring team. Interviews are generally conducted to gauge if you can work well with others. Here's how to do that.

• It's generally a good idea to listen as much as possible during the interview.
• If your interview has a technical coding assessment, it is very important to ask clarifying questions about the requirements. You don't want to deliver an incorrect piece of code or spend too much time on something that didn't matter to the interviewer.
• Ask questions when prompted at the end. Very important to this to show you are interested in the position.
• Show gratitude and appreciation to the hiring team for their time. Please and thank you go a very long way.

What to Do After?

Congrats! You just finished your interview. Here's what to do afterwards.

• If you have the contact information of the recruiter or hiring team, send them a thank you email. You don't need to get too fancy with this email. Just thank them for their time and say you are looking forward to hearing from them soon.
• Reward yourself. It's always a good idea to reward yourself when you accomplished something.
• Don't keep sending the company emails after you send them the thank you email. Be cautious with coming off too desperate or annoying. (I personally would not want to work with someone like that.) Hiring teams sometime take a while to evaluate candidates and people go on vacation or get lazy.
• Set realistic expectations. Know that you are not the only one who got interviewed for the position. You may hear a no or get ghosted. Go back to the applications if you aren't extended an offer.