How to prepare for an interview.

Some hacks and tips when prepping for job interviews.

10 min readMar 28, 2024

Hoi Friend!

How have you been? I hope well. I have been winging it.

Often, people reach out about how they have sent in 100 applications and never hear back from the recruiter. While that can happen to even the best of us, you can improve your chances during your job search.

In a previous piece where I briefly talked about how I got a job and moved from Malta to Amsterdam, I received feedback on some of the points that helped some people too. And I thought, maybe I should share a bit of my process.

In this piece, I want to share some tips for interview prep. Often, I apply this to anything. I am an overthinker; much research goes into everything, even as simple as buying a pair of sneakers or flight tickets to Madrid. I must always research, check options, and consider everything while imagining the best and worst-case scenarios. Yeah, I am weird like that.

But yeah! A couple of folks mentioned that they learned a thing or two, so let’s do a walkthrough on how I’ll interview for a role. This might not always work, but it makes me feel slightly confident.

Disclaimer: It’s not as if you’ll automatically get the job or anything once you follow these steps, and to be honest, you might not even follow all the steps. But, I hope to paint a picture of some things you miss or ignore when you prepare for interviews.

Before and during the application process — Get your resume/CV right.

Understand that your interview starts the second you apply for a job. So, don’t wait till the technical interview to show how good you are. Show them from the start.

Your resume, CV, and cover letter should scream YOU. When I hop on calls with people to review CVs or resumes, my first question to them is to look at a sample resume I have and compare it to theirs and without even reading through, I ask them to choose which resume they’ll pick if they had 5 seconds to choose just by looking at both?

They always choose mine or whichever resume I show them. I know beauty sounds like work but we all love to look at beautiful and neat things. Align properly, use pretty and readable fonts (I love Nunito or sans) structure properly, and use white space and colours (2/3 colours — in my case, black, white, and blue or brown).

Be it a CV or Resume, make sure that it looks good. There are abundant tips online on what you should and should not do on a resume or CV. But I’ll share a few. Like, what is the difference between a resume and a CV?

For me, a CV contains everything and anything that makes your career, whereas a resume is tailored to a specific role. My CV for example contains all of the most significant jobs I’ve had, internships, mentorships, freelance, contracts, education, courses and certifications. It covers my work history as a technical writer, mobile app developer, teacher, and volunteer.

My resume(s); The (s) because I tailor my resume to fit each role. I had a resume for technical writing and developer advocacy separately. I had a template of what it should look like and for every role I was applying for, I’d edit it to highlight the needs of the company. So depending on the needs of the company, I’d highlight the skills, certifications, background, and knowledge required for that role.

For example, if it is an API documentation specialist role, I’ll add my certificate from the Postman API for beginners course. If the role requires someone with experience working in a flat organization, I’ll lead with my experience at Atsign in my application.

It is one of the reasons why I couldn’t bring myself to apply to 100 jobs like most people do because that meant that, I’d have to work on 100 resumes — me?

Another major difference between a resume and a CV is the length. A CV can be very long — not too long, but say 3–5 pages. However, the standard for a resume is one or two pages because no one has the time to read through long documents. So, keep it short and show your best cards.

My final hack is, that there is no general rule on how you should edit your resume or CV. However, keep the following in mind:

Canva and Google Docs have a lot of templates. Go on these platforms, pick a template, and edit it to fit your needs. Using a template shouldn’t restrict your creativity. Add your touch. combine templates, if needed. Make something beautiful, easy to read, and of high quality.

Add a fun element. What is your strength? Let your resume reflect an inch of something unique about you. It can be honesty, creativity, wittiness, or confidence. This is a first impression. You don’t want to be caught unfresh. So, clean up! (I added a sample resume towards the end of this section for context).
Research the company. Learn about the company's tech stack, fun events, topics, and all. Let that reflect in your cover letter as well. What will you do for the company? What value do you bring?
Reach out to the recruiter and ask questions about the role. I have done this in the past. It was a US-based role. I reached out to the recruiter via Linkedin and indicated an interest in the role. He mentioned that he loved my resume and I seemed right for the role. He stated that they weren’t sponsoring Visas at the moment. But guess what? he shared some feedback on what I could improve on my resume. That’s a win — getting feedback from a recruiter and forming a genuine connection.
Find a first or second connection that works at the company. If you can’t find one you’re connected to, search via LinkedIn and connect with one that you might be working with. For my current role, I found the senior technical writer and sent a request. We chatted a lot and already knew each other before my first interview. The connection might not get you the job but it gives you an idea of what the culture is and what they are expecting the new hire to do.
Look at the job that you’re applying for and pay attention to what they need or require. Yes, standard rules suggest that you don’t need to include a picture, nationality, location, or age in your resume. But if you’re applying for a remote job within Europe, you’d be at a loss if your name was “Cynthia Okafor”; clearly Nigerian but then you reside in Utrecht. The only way the recruiter/machine would pay attention to you is if your document stated boldly that you live in the Netherlands.

Otherwise, they assume you're in Nigeria and you just want to waste their time. So, read the job description clearly and look out for instructions, good-to-haves, and required skills. They even sometimes ask you to include a code or phrase. If you don’t include that phrase, the machine scans out your document and they assume you're just a bot. So, read the job description, my friend and build your application based on that.

Finally, before you apply, ask yourself: If you were the recruiter and you had 100 applications to review for this role, how many minutes would you spend on your resume?

I've had interviews where I might not qualify for the job but the interviewer will share how impressed they are about how much I know about them, their work, or the company. I promise it’s not stalking, but if you insist, I’ll say it’s for a worthy cause.

If a human should scan my resume, alongside 50 others, I aim to make the top 5/10 of that list based on looks alone. In this case “dress the way you want to be addressed” comes into play here. Dress up your application.

After receiving an invitation

You have put in the work, submitted your application, and received the first email inviting you for a call. What do you do next?

Learn about the company: What tools, programming language, or resources does this company have or use? Do they host conferences? Did they recently win an award? if they haven’t won an award in 5 years, what changed? If sustainability matters to you, what are they doing concerning sustainability? What gap are they trying to fill in their process by hiring you? Learn about these and be armed with them for your interview.
Look up the email of the interviewer. Is this someone you know? LinkedIn? Twitter? Do you know their their full name? Check their email footer, for their full names. Check their email address or go on LinkedIn and search for the name and narrow the search down based on what company you’re applying to. So, If I were applying for a role at Facebook, and the email had a Martha van Stuart at the footer, I’d search for the name on LinkedIn and find the Martha who works at Facebook.
If you were able to connect to someone who works with the company earlier, then reach out to them and notify them as well. Ask them what kind of person your interviewer is and any tips they can share.
When you look up your interviewer, find interesting things about them. How long have they worked for the company? What posts have they made in the past? what conferences do they attend or advocate for? do they have kids that play football or swim (this information can be found on Twitter and mostly shared by folks that are social-media savvy)? Do they travel? What kind of places do they travel to, do they run or gym? what food do they enjoy or talk about?

It’s s not stalking. It’s finding all the information you can get so you can have a conversation with this person. It is not fair that we send in resumes but don’t receive a resume from the company and that’s why you need to put in the work to learn as much as possible from the internet.

For my last job interview process, the 3rd interview needed me to talk to my manager. I looked him up on Linkedin and learned that he has been with the company for 27 years. I brought that up and we talked about it. I asked him why he had stayed at the company for 27 years and we spent 40 minutes talking about how it started and why he stayed. We laughed a lot about his kids because he brought up how having kids restricts the luxury of travelling. I picked that up again and we laughed about how demanding kids can be.

If I didn’t look him up, I wouldn't know.

Some classic advice would be to always send a “Thank you” email after every process. I don’t do that often. except the interview was really fun for me or something stood out but people say it works for them so there is no harm in trying.

Prepare some questions ahead of the call: During all the digging, you might see questions that can be asked during the interview. Write them down in a notebook ahead of the call.

During the interview(s)

On the day of the interview, eat well, do your skincare, and do whatever makes you relaxed. I watch movies 30 minutes before my interview.

Stay calm — I know this seems obvious but I am guilty of being worked up before an interview but yeah. Try to stay calm.
Show up on time. Be there 5-10 minutes earlier. You can mute yourself and turn off the video.
Dress up. Most invitation emails tell you that it is a video call but others don’t. Either way, prepare for a video call. If your internet is not great, find a place — a friend's place or co-working space and be ready. You don’t want to struggle with power or the internet during an interview (To my Nigerian brothers and sisters).
When your interviewer joins the call, greet them with a smile. Ask them how their day has been and let the conversation flow. Don’t just be at the receiving end. Ask them how their day has been. Talk about their background — the book, the pet, family.
Over-communicate: Say as much as needs to be said. For example, when they ask me about my background, I start from when I used to blog back in school, how I taught kids in a remote village computer studies during my para-military service(NYSC - they are always fascinated about that experience) up until post-NYSC and why I choose to do tech writing after doing developer experience for 18 months.

I already had a flow of my story. So, I could tell it every time and it’ll sound new to the person. So, what’s your story? Sit down and prepare your story. No one can tell a better story about yourself than you.

Listen: It sounds obvious but yeah, listen to everything they say during the call. That's where some of your questions could come from. Don’t stop them while they’re speaking, except if it’s important or unclear. Write it down and ask later.
Be vulnerable: If I didn’t know something, I’d say I didn’t but was open to learning if need be. If I didn’t understand a concept or a question, I’d ask them to explain it to me “like I’m 5”. So, lay your cards on the table.

In conclusion…

You can’t apply for every job you see. Focus on the jobs you want and go all in. I say this because you can’t possibly invest this much time in sending 10 applications per day. You’ll get burnt out. So, take time to understand what your dealbreakers, red flags, or green flags are to decide what kind of roles you want to apply to.

For example, I didn’t want dev rel jobs and even when people reached out to me to fill the role, I didn’t bother to interview. I told them that I was looking for a tech writing role. Find jobs where you have better chances or a good shot so that you can give it all during the application process.

Research the company and understand as much as you can before you dive right in. The company is hiring for a reason not just because they want an extra colleague. Find what that reason is and you’ll beat the other 50% applicants.

I hope this helps you with your applications. I wish you the best of luck as well and I look forward to your goodness.

Till I write to you again, Doei!

Obiagu.