“I’m a software engineer- will InterviewX’s general study guide work for me?”

The short answer is yes, if you’re an engineer, InterviewX’s general would work well for you! We will be introducing ROLE SPECIFIC study guides in our next update (include one specifically for software engineering) but for now, this article has to do with using our general study guide.

At a high level, the goal of InterviewX is to identify the commonalities and universal consistencies between all interviews, and in our first iteration, build a product that specializes in those items.

As we spoke to hiring managers, recruiters, and interviewers across all industries (Silicon Valley tech companies, Wall St. banks and hedge funds, CPG, and others) we identified six main themes for our general study guide:

1. Personal Pitch (how you pitch yourself as a fit for a role, how to match your accomplishments to requirements of the role)
2. Resume & Achievements (ability to speak to what you’ve accomplished)
3. Interview Flow (understanding how interviews are structured)
4. Company Research (understanding exactly what the company does, their industry at large, company background, and company leadership)
5. Behavioral Questions (questions that seek to understand how you have handled specific situations in your past)
6. Role Specific Questions (the technical, role specific questions that would be different for each job, and fully depend on the exact role)
7. Risk Management (the most commonly made mistakes in an interview, and how to avoid making them.)

Using “software engineering” as an example

So, if you’re a software engineer, which of the above items would be relevant to you? As you re-read these items, you’ll likely notice that all of them will be applicable and important.

For software engineers specifically, section six is likely the far and away most important determining factor for interview success. From top tier tech companies, we’ve gotten reports that a bulk of the interview is actually focused on your technical and engineering skills.

InterviewX does not offer specific, direct content to prepare for a coding test. However, in section six, you’d be able to identify the technical topics that would likely be important (and your skill in understanding and producing top notch code would definitely be something you’d highlight in that section.)

From there, if you want to actually practice a highly specific skillset, it could be a good idea to find an additional technical resource to practice that exact aspect. For software engineering specifically, we wrote a role specific study guide to help you further understand the technical component for that interview, and how to prepare for it.

The same idea would apply to investment banking or consulting- we will not provide resources that would prepare you to walk an interviewer through financial statements, or how to prepare for a consulting case study.

Our approach would be to get you to identify those technical topics in our exercise, and in cases where the material is highly specialized, we’d nudge you to seek additional resources that specialize in that exact material.

So as a software engineer, or a candidate for a HIGHLY technical role, it’s very possible that you may not get all the technical preparation from InterviewX. We believe InterviewX would serve as an incredibly strong base, but it’s indeed possible that we won’t be able to cover, in detail, every technical topic you’d need.

Again, role specific study guides are coming soon, but in the meantime the general study guides can help address any role!

To use our interactive study guide product for interview prep, visit InterviewX.co