This Quora User Who Was Rejected 30 Times Finally Got A Job He Loves And His Advice is GOLD!

I still remember my first interview. Every minute detail of it. I wore a crisp white shirt, black pants and my hair were set in place (that rarely happens). I was raring to go, or so I thought I was! After waiting for almost 6 hours for my turn, my confidence started to dwindle, I started to sweat and what was worse, the interviewer, the editor-in-chief was in a terrible mood. So, you see, I was a nervous wreck. And as luck would have it, I broke down so and did my chances of that dream job. Everything that could go wrong that day, it did.

I was heartbroken, thought life had no meaning and it was after some 10 odd interviews I got the job I really wanted and mind you in the same company where I first broke down. So what was the difference? The difference was me.

And this Quora user, Udayan Banerji aptly sums up the plight of every interviewee who has been rejected after giving several interviews and his answer is not only insightful but helpful as hell. So read along!

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Since I started interviewing in 2010, I have been rejected by almost 30 companies. I have been selected by 6.

I have interviewed at everyone’s favourite tech company in Mountain View thrice and failed. I have interviewed at a (the?) major social network thrice and failed. I have interviewed at two major online retailers, another bygone internet company, a device manufacturer and a wireless modem company. I have failed in all of them.

It has generally been the same story. I will breeze through phone rounds, do well enough in on-site that I will have a lot of hope, and then get a friendly rejection e-mail.

The nice folks at Mountain View told me before the latest round that my performance in the past round was pretty good, and they want to reconsider me. Afterwards they told me that my performance was pretty good, but unfortunately, they are moving forward with other candidates. But they would reconsider me.

I was at a point where my dream job continued to be a tease, and that’s it.

At one point I thought I should just give up engineering, and go become a singer.

My friends had told me that I lack confidence, and that was true. But how do I gain confidence? What if I know I am not good enough.

After I got married, my wife saw my plight and decided to mock interview me. Her feedback was that she could sense strongly that I didn’t know what I was talking about. I protested, saying I knew! I knew exactly how to solve the problem. But she insisted.

That was not the “Aha!” moment, there was no aha moment. But there were incremental changes from that point:

  1. I had to actually write code. I had to stop just reading up algorithms. I had to stop saying I “know” how this works and to think of “why” it works. For every single problem, no matter how simple, or how complicated. I had to solve diverse problems, using various techniques.
  2. I had to go in assuming I will be rejected, and try to pass. In fact, I treated interviews as exams, with no pass or fail, but with a scorecard. Of course, I was doing the scoring for myself, but that prepared me for the next company, and I could track progress. I mean, if dozens of interviews are just going to be rejections, might as well make use of the opportunity to learn.
  3. I realised that when solving problems in my interviews, I was trying to prove that I knew the answer. I would say whatever could impress the interviewer. “I think I will use dynamic programming here” or “I know how to do it, but I am also thinking of a more efficient way”. The thing is, that is being dishonest, good interviewers see right through it, and they want to see results, not what you say. What worked was to explain things as I would to someone who doesn’t know anything. If I explain something to a child, I would build up from basics. Interviews needed the same thing.
  4. It is OK to take the time to think about what to say. I used to panic after 10 seconds of hitting a roadblock. But when you are at work, you never get stuck. Stuck is not an option! You think until you have an answer, and that’s it. Remember, interview questions are meant to be solved. So in one of the interviews I cracked, I thought about the problem for full 5 minutes. It felt like ages, but the next 30 minutes breezed by as I actually wrote the code.
  5. Finally, I had to be honest with myself about why I wanted the job. Is it because of perks? List of companies with cool perks is endless. Money? Salary is pretty much standard, except few companies. Status? Many, many companies give you status. And high-status companies are sometimes not the best to work for. I finally landed in a company whose product I dearly loved and used every day. Somehow, that helped.

There is no shortage of amazing companies. It is quite possible to get into them. So don’t lose hope. But no matter who rejects you, walk into the next one better prepared. If it takes 10, 20 or 40 rejections, so be it. Every interview you lose will teach you something. Take notes after each, improve on those. Rejections are not personal, not in the tech world anyway. And eventually, when you get the job you want, these 1–2 years of rejection won’t matter. You won’t even remember it.

So no matter what, however bleak it may seem, always remember that at the end of the tunnel, there is always light. Always!

Source: Quora

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The answer has been published with due permission from the author.

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