Match Day — Success in facing off setbacks
It’s a true test of New England. One day before the much anticipated March 15th Match Day event, when Hack.Diversity interns and representatives from Wayfair, Vertex, DataXu, Carbonite, and Hubspot engage in rounds of interview “speed-dating” to bring both one step closer to that internship match, Storm Stella presents an unofficial interview question of her own: there’s up to 16-inches of snow, an iced-over driveway, and options for untrustworthy commuter connections, even on a good day. How will you get from point A to point B? Who will prove their ability to adapt, power through, demonstrate grit?
Turns out that every single one of the 60 participants who had committed to being there will, despite a last minute circulation that we’d be condensing the schedule from 7 hours down to 4 hours (because safe travel is important!). We kicked off the day with an open networking lunch, providing opportunity for interns to catch up with each other and to network with 26 engineers and hiring managers across the 5 companies, to receive words of encouragement from Tech Connection and to chat with Angela, Hack.Diversity’s new Program Manager. Laughter and chatter flowed through the rooms, but as time ticked closer and closer to transitioning into interviews, interns set aside their plates in favor of composing themselves and reviewing their scheduled interview lineups.
To calm nerves, Melissa James recounted her blooper moment when interviewing with Google (let’s just say finding a quiet spot to have a conversation is hard!), but all her preparation centered her focus and ultimately she landed the job. Students were nervous at first but by the end of the first of 4 rounds of interviews, it became clear how thoroughly the cohort dedicated their February to applying all the strategies learned and feedback received from Mock Interview Day toward presenting themselves now, with internship offers on the line. Interviewers who had also participated in Mock Interview Day, commented on the tremendous growth between then and now, describing candidates as “smart, engaging, self-aware, focused, and passionate.”
Interns were similarly energized as the initial nerves faded. Throughout the day, Angela checked-in with interns during breaks in their interview lineups, and when she asked Seun how he was feeling midway through the schedule he responded with an emphatic “feeling PUMPED.” After finishing his final round of interviews, Anthony R. reflected, “It was a little intense, but I felt that I conducted myself well with the help of the Tech Connection and the Hack.Diversity team and I’m excited to hopefully match with a great fit!” Similarly, Rizel enthused that she was excited about interacting with her interviewers: “I felt prepared going in because [the Hack.Diversity team] sent me good examples of questions, and working on my technical project really helped out. I was nervous at first, but after the second round, I was good to go with anything that came next!”
At the conclusion of the final interview rounds, both interns and companies realized that choosing their preferences between companies and candidates respectively might be harder than the interviews themselves. It was a delightful surprise that their expectations coming into Match Day were scrambled as both interns and companies learned about each other what can’t be fully captured on paper, in a resume or a job description. With their post-interview notes and comments safely in the hands of the Hack.Diversity team, all reentered the aftermath of Storm Stella, all the more inspired and eager for the next step of the Hack.Diversity journey. And when asked what he’s doing after this? Seun isn’t pumping the brakes: “I’m going home to practice coding.”
Want to visualize the story and feel the energy? Look through our event album!
