My first job interview was an absolute failure, and I'm so grateful for it.
You didn't see this coming, did you? 😄
This post is not about how I installed Python for the first time, how I dealt with burnout, and how I prepared for the interview.
I'll tell you how it felt to get rejected after years of work.
What gave me motivation to keep doing the things that I did before?
And how this led to landing my first job.
All this happened right after I got my BSc in Informatics - I believe my degree was part of why I failed the interview but more on that later.
2011, December, festive vibes, BSs. in my pocket, time to enter the job market, right?
By 2011, I programmed for almost ten years - read How I became a Web Developer!
First Interview Experience
I applied to a prestigious company as a Java Developer in our town. The first round of the interview consisted of two parts:
The first was purely coding and some Java theory.
Yes, it was a whiteboard interview!
I had to implement a few algorithms and talk about how the JVM works, garbage collection, and all that fun stuff.
I answered all their questions correctly.
The second part of the first round was a Skype call. I had to demonstrate my English verbal skills.
It went OK, and I was confident I secured the position until the following email arrived:
"Hi, Akos! We're sorry to inform you that you didn't pass the first round of interviews."
I was like, with a decade of coding experience, with a blog - ok, I wasn't actively publishing, but it had a few relevant posts - OSS contributions:
I felt what some of you might have already felt:
If this isn't good enough, then Idk 🤷🏻♂️
When I will be ready?
I had tons of questions suddenly. In my confused state, I even wrote them a reply and asked why they decided not to continue the process with me.
The guy who I had the Skype call with answered:
"Akos, we had a great chat, but unfortunately, your coding skills weren't satisfactory"
You can imagine what I felt, having a BSc. in Informatics and having experience in shipping a SaaS and making money on the side with programming.
I couldn't understand. How it is possible that with such experience, I still don't worth any money to this company?
Sticking to the plan
Because I wasn't a student anymore and had no job, I had a ton of free time. I kept working on the projects I did enjoy working on:
- Qt Jambi, you can see me as one of the top contributors: https://github.com/qtjambi/qtjambi/graphs/contributors
- YAMI (yet another MySQL interface), a GUI app I even published: https://www.softpedia.com/get/Internet/Servers/Database-Utils/YAMI.shtml
- A color palette generator that used the Fibonacci sequence to generate colors
A few weeks later, I got a call from one of my former colleagues from the University. He just landed a job at the same company where I failed the interview. We talked about the interview process.
He pointed out that I gave them a suboptimal solution for a problem that I was given.
Then it clicked.
Being heavily involved in coding and putting together apps people can use put me into a completely different mindset.
However, my BSc and the university I finished made these guys think I should be a genius, but I turned out more like a dropout.
I still felt bad because my parents were supporting me for the time of my studies financially, and I couldn't deliver and still needed money to pay my rent.
Second Interview - with an engineer
About a month passed since my first failed interview.
My motivation was low.
The job boards didn't update too frequently, given the holidays.
My mother learned that a friend of her colleague is returning from the States to start a software development company. He didn't use the job boards, so I just asked for his number and decided to talk to him.
We met in a local bar.
This was already weird, and I wasn't confident that this is going anywhere.
We had a casual discussion. A discussion between two developers and not between a recruiter and a future employee. He asked me how I liked my studies and what I'm doing in my free time.
I also got these questions in that other company, but it felt more like they wanted to hear what sports I like. On the other hand, this guy was indeed interested in what I'm hacking on in my free time.
Engineers being engineers
Both of us being Java engineers, I thought I'm going to start with a relevant topic:
You know how bad it is to write desktop apps in Swing? I'm working on a project called Qt Jambi. It brings the power of Qt (a multi-platform, UI development framework) to Java through native C++ bindings.
Then I told him that for my BSc work, I made a distributed network app:
Each computer on the local network was represented as a pawn on a map. The map is totally custom. You can make it with XML. A designated computer would tell the other computers through low-level network requests, where to move on this map.
I knew this was working! He proposed the next meeting and told me that he will have an offer by that time. 🙀
Doing the same, I would get a job today
So How did I get my first job?
BSc.? No - even though I had it and some companies listed it as a requirement a decade ago, I'd say it almost means nothing these days.
By being smart? Definitely not 😅
I used my free time to hack on something meaningful to me, and I didn't quit doing it even when my motivation was low.
I didn't quit because I was genuinely interested in building these things.
By building and working on OSS, I didn't prove that I've become a data structure and algorithm master like some of my colleagues from the university.
But I did prove I knew my craft.
I had the skills to envision and create software on my own.
At that time, except for a few people, the vast majority wasn't doing anything like this. When people wanted to hack on something, then they turned to sites like Project Euler. Such platforms hosted a series of computational problems intended to be solved with computer programs. It was popular among students interested in mathematics.
I didn't see much practicality in these sites, just as my colleagues didn't see the need for an alternative to Java Swing. 😄
Ultimately, what saved me after my first rejection and then helped me land that first job was sticking to my plan:
To become a software developer.
So when they told me my programming skills aren’t good enough - I kept hacking. When I realized I’m not smart enough with algorithms - I kept hacking.
This is how I hire as well
I hired my first employee last year in October. When the portfolios came in, I went straight to the GitHub links and looked at the apps they made. I wasn't interested in anything else. I discarded CVs without links to at least a portfolio page, but a GitHub or a link to some code was a must.
I already hired the guy when my accountant told me that we were born 10 years and 1 day apart. 😂
(No open positions ATM)
A word of caution
But I also don't want to fool you! 2011's were very different times!
More and more people are realizing tech offers an attractive and high-paying career. Bootcamps are signing up students, promising that with little time and money investment, anyone can become a highly paid engineer. At the same time, a large portion of new grads – both from universities and bootcamps – are struggling to get their first job.
https://newsletter.pragmaticengineer.com/p/perfect-storm-causing-a-hot-tech-hiring-market
We're in an economical downturn. Landing a job now might not be as easy as five years ago.
Also, a lot has changed in education and also in the quality and quantity of the learning material.
But never forget:
Stick to the plan.
If you want to become a developer, keep hacking as I did.
When this all passes - because it will - you'll beat everyone who gave up and didn't stick to their plan.