Project 02: Reflection

In my opinion, the most important parts of the guide that my group constructed are (1) taking advantage of networking and alumni relationships and (2) how you should prepare for interviews. Yes, it is important to do well in your classes and have a good GPA in order to get your foot in the door at a company and get an interview. However, having good networking skills and creating a relationship with someone who works there is the best way to have your resume pushed through the screening process in order to land an interview. Once you have that interview, proper preparation is incredibly important. It’s critical that you study up on the company you’re interviewing for and understand what the company does, how they do it, how they are structured, and any big recent news about the company. This shows interest and proves to the interviewer that you genuinely care about the company. Additionally, it is important to study correctly for the interview your having: For example, if you are studying for a coding interview, read and go through the examples in Cracking the Coding Interview. If you are studying for a consulting interview, do some practice cases and read up on strategies for case studies.

What I wish I knew earlier is that getting your foot in the door and being pushed through the whole screening and interview process is all about your personal connection with employees at the company. I can speak from personal experience: When I was applying for internships for the summer after my Junior year, I really wanted to work at this technical consulting firm in Chicago. I had a first round interview and it went well, and I took their coding aptitude test and scored highly. Unfortunately, however, I did not land the job. When I asked the recruiter for feedback on my performance, she told me that I interviewed very well and that my test scored were great, but there just weren’t enough positions for interns from Notre Dame. I could tell that this meant that, on a personal level, I had failed to connect with the recruiter and employees there. From that point on, I vowed that I wouldn’t let that be a problem again. I asked the recruiter if we could stay in contact over the summer (which we did), and I did my best to go to every event they were having on campus, resulting in a solid relationship between myself and one of the Vice Presidents working there. The next time around, I got the job, and that is where I’ll be working after graduation. Not only did these relationships benefit me in the interview process, but they also showed me the extremely high quality of the people working at the company, confirming to me that it was a place I would love to work. This leads me to my next point, which is about the best advice I have ever received about the interview process: Remember, they’re not just interviewing you, but you’re also interviewing them. It is insanely important that you can make good connections with the people at a company and that you like the company culture before you go to work there, because if you don’t, you probably will dread going to work every day.

I do believe that colleges should adjust their curriculum to focus more on interview preparation. I don’t think it should be a major focal point of the computer science department at Notre Dame, but a good start would be making the Programming Challenges class, which focuses on finding solutions for the types of problems students would be faced with in interviews, a required class and putting it early enough in the curriculum that students would actually take it in time before interviews. Additionally, if students are pursuing consulting jobs, there should be an elective in the computer science department where students can learn about the case interview format and practice solving those problems as well. Getting students ready for the job interview process is all about preparation, and because the point of going to college and studying computer science is so that you can get a job in the technology industry, I think it is important to make proper preparation mandatory for the students.