There is no amount of preparation that will prepare you 100% and guarantee you a job at any of these companies. I think we've gotten to a ridiculous point with the interview process now and at some point you just have to decide you've done enough to prepare on the technical end and it sounds like you're basically there. I would probably start looking at other aspects of preparation. Think about the human aspect of things and what you want to impress upon your interviewer. These are more subtle things that might make the difference when deciding a thumbs up or thumbs down. But in the end don't sweat it. Decide you're going to have fun with it and see what happens. Truly try to enjoy yourself and view each problem as an interesting puzzle instead of some do or die test. And hey, free lunch!
I am stressed out about interviews
11–15 of 15 posts
Re: I am stressed out about interviews
#12To quote Joel Spolsky, "...if you reject a good candidate, I mean, I guess in some existential sense an injustice has been done, but, hey, if they’re so smart, don’t worry, they’ll get lots of good job offers."
It's part of the process. People accept that they'll have false negatives. But you'll get good job offers anyway.
Google and Facebook probably don't have the best process either. They're giant brand names. They get a lot of garbage in their funnel and probably have to filter for minimum garbage, as opposed to having the best engineers.
Not that they don't have great engineers, but the system is flawed and it's a bit of a gamble to get in.
[0] https://www.joelonsoftware.com/2006/10/25/the-guerrilla-guid...
Re: I am stressed out about interviews
#13Go into an interview with an open mind and with curiosity. Your having a conversation and part of how you interact will reveal if your a good cultural fit and if your someone they can get along with.
Re: I am stressed out about interviews
#14You don't sound like you really want to be a part of these companies your preparing to interview at by saying "Heck I didn't even apply for these jobs.". And you seem to be having trouble finding a good reason to really go to the interview. The more I read your post; the more I feel that you don't want to feel stupid or inadequate based on the interview. Everyone doesn't want to feel stupid or inadequate, this is normal. Also you've put the interviews on a pedestal that'll declare you as good enough by discounting your experience and achievements thus far.
If you feel this wound up before the interview how do you think you'll feel working for these two companies? It'll be a daily anxiety/fear of being inadequate for the job.
My advice is to lower your expectation/valuation of the interviewing company and go to the interview if you really deep down inside want to. These kinds of interviews have a history of making interviewees feel worse about themselves so bear that in mind.
Re: I am stressed out about interviews
#15Here's one way to see things – there's around 3.6M software engineers in the US. Google has 100k employees, so let's assume they have 50k engineers. Do you think the top 1% of engineers in the US all work at Google? Obviously they don't. The truth is, there's no perfect interview process, and chances are you may fail (or succeed) for reasons completely out of your control. You've been studying for a month, and have a…
I second this. Do your best and know that you will be a better programmer because of the one month study and the experience of the interview.