Meet the Hiring Team
Breaking into the tech industry can be notoriously challenging. In addition to learning new programming languages, you have to figure out how to navigate unfamiliar professional environments and speak the business language too.
That’s why Girl Develop It San Francisco held a Meet the Hiring Team event hosted at Ticketfly — giving participants a glimpse into the other side of that interview table. As part of our career development workshops, we were very proud to host a panel with different interviewer roles.
Technical Recruiters Sarah Hallahan of AdRoll and Michele Mickelson of Weebly discussed how they identify promising recruits, Senior Engineers Priti Gangrade of Ticketfly and Erica Baker of Slack gave tips on how they interview and what they look for in candidates. Engineering Managers Maria Chavez Cantu of Ticketfly and Jenny Lin of Optimizely highlighted their values when building out their teams.
Here are some of the biggest takeaways from the event:
Getting Your Foot in the Door
“Sometimes employers don’t advertise junior positions because they have a pipeline, so it’s important to network at events like this.”
Your resume isn’t a laundry list of responsibilities. Don’t make the mistake of regurgitating the job description from when you originally applied. Speak to your unique contributions and write about your impact. What projects did you lead? How did they affect the company or organizations’s bottom line? How did you measure success?
“Metrics, statistics — I want to hear something like increase of 20%, built a dashboard that got 500 views a day.”
Before the Interview
A standout candidate does their research on the company, not only exploring what the company does but takes the next step to proactively identify and suggest ways to improve the products or services they’re offering.
“Look for companies with open APIs and show them how excited you are about their product.”
Think of Interviews as a Collaborative Discussion
Interviewers don’t expect you to get it right on the first time and come up with a perfect solution on the spot.
“Algorithms during the technical interview allow you to stumble along the way so that we can observe the way you solve it.”
Avoid memorizing solutions from the prep work you’ve done to practice. It’s important that to understand how to solve the problem rather than just memorizing the steps. Vocalizing your thought process is critical because companies aren’t looking for robots who produce perfect results in a black box, they want to know how you think and work with others.
Before you start writing down any code, reiterate the problem to confirm you’re on the same page with the interviewer. Brainstorm and explain a few ideas you have for solutions. Talk though everything. Have a working solution first, then optimize.
“Be open about taking advice during your interview”
Tell a Story About Yourself
Don’t just spew out the answer — have an action plan for how you’re going to represent yourself. Use the STAR (Situation, Task, Action, Result) technique to provide a cohesive narrative. This takes practice and is a balance between anticipating common behavioral questions to not get caught off guard, but also not rehearsing an answer too much that it sounds unnatural. Make sure to cover tough and weird questions in mock interviews, e.g. “tell me about a time you had a disagreement with a coworker”.
“Don’t speak negatively about your past career experiences… put a positive spin on it.”
Interviewers appreciate self-awareness and the maturity to be comfortable reflecting on your past experiences. Be honest and constructive in your self-examination, describe how a difficult situation revealed a weakness or insight you didn’t know, how you’d approach the situation differently now, and what you’re currently doing to work on developing yourself.
Be Confident Harnessing Your Authentic Self
The last and hardest to act on is confidence. Women tend to be more self-conscious and underrate themselves. A male candidate who meets 50% of a job description’s requirements would be more likely to apply without hesitation, whereas woman would second guess herself for not matching 100% of what’s described.
“Stop apologizing for what you don’t know.”
Obviously, don’t lie about taking credit for accomplishments you weren’t responsible for or skills you don’t have. Stop undermining yourself with statements like “sorry, I might not be the most Quality X”, or filler qualifiers like “I think”, “I just”. Instead, speak directly and stop apologizing for what you don’t know.
Next Steps
Keep the momentum going. Now that the event is over, here are next steps you can take to improve your interviewing skills. Remember how technical skills like learning how to code seemed difficult to master at first? Soft skills like interviewing can be learned too, but like developing your technical skills, it takes dedicated practice and persistence. It can be uncomfortable, but you’ll come out stronger for it.
You don’t have to go it alone, in fact getting more pairs of eyes and feedback goes a long way. Ask a more senior friend or seasoned industry mentor to critique your resume. Sign up for our Whiteboarding Interview Prep workshop or practice with Women Who Code’s biweekly workshop.
Our upcoming workshops include Algorithms 101 and Whiteboarding Interview Prep. Join our Meetup group to stay in touch and sign up for our workshops.
Girl Develop It is a nonprofit organization that provides affordable programs for adult women interested in learning web and software development in a judgment-free environment.
