Vox

Leitura de 33 min

Your Interview is Tomorrow? Here’s Some Last Minute Advice

Summary

This episode of Developer Tea is specifically aimed at developers who have a job interview the following day. Host Jonathan Cottrell acknowledges the listener’s diligent technical preparation but argues that the final hours before an interview should be spent on mental and emotional readiness, not last-minute cramming. He frames the interview not as a test, but as a human event where interpersonal interaction is as crucial as technical knowledge.

Cottrell outlines a two-step preparation process for the night before. The first step is to stop all technical studying. He explains that cramming induces anxiety, reduces sleep, and makes the candidate less present and socially aware during the interview—qualities that are more visible and damaging than any marginal technical gain. The goal is to walk in calm and collected, not like a cup filled to the brim.

The second step involves cultivating the right mindset through specific exercises. He begins by having the listener practice gratitude, focusing on positive aspects of their current life to build a foundation of confidence and self-awareness. Following this, he guides the listener through visualization techniques: first, visualizing the interview process going smoothly, focusing on posture, engagement, and poise; then, visualizing worst-case scenarios (like a canceled interview or rude interviewers) to emotionally prepare for and neutralize potential stressors; and finally, visualizing the best possible outcome to solidify a positive target state.

He concludes by emphasizing that the worst-case scenario is simply returning to the present state, with all preparation still valuable for future opportunities. The episode’s core message is that by preparing for the emotional and interpersonal unknowns, the candidate gains control over their performance, allowing their hard-earned technical skills to shine through in the interview setting.

Recommendations

Tools

  • Linode — Cloud hosting service promoted as a sponsor. Highlighted for its affordable $5/month entry server with 1GB RAM on a 200 Gb/s network, scalable options, and node balancer service for load balancing.

Topic Timeline

  • 00:00:00 — Setting the scene: The night before the big interview — Jonathan addresses listeners who have done their logistical and technical homework for an upcoming job interview. He states the episode’s purpose: to discuss what can be done the night before to prepare, specifically for developers transitioning into professional roles. He emphasizes this is not a shortcut, but for those who have put in the work and deserve to succeed.
  • 00:03:27 — Reframing the interview: It’s an event, not a test — The host makes a crucial distinction: an interview is a human event, not merely a knowledge test. He argues that competent developers often fail because they focus only on checking technical boxes and neglect the human interaction aspect. Success requires being able to sit in front of another person and pass that interpersonal test, which is the focus of the remaining advice.
  • 00:05:04 — First exercise: Practicing gratitude and positive thinking — Jonathan instructs listeners to pause and think of something they are appreciative or thankful for in their current life, unrelated to the job. This exercise, backed by science on gratitude, is designed to cultivate a positive state of mind. This foundational positivity is critical for walking into the interview with confidence, self-awareness, and control over communication.
  • 00:06:44 — Core advice #1: Stop studying and put the books down — The host delivers the first major piece of advice: cease all technical preparation. He argues that no significant technical gain can be made in the final hours, but cramming will induce anxiety, reduce sleep, and harm social presence. A developer’s career is a continuous learning journey; the interview assesses foundational competence and interpersonal fit, not last-minute knowledge acquisition.
  • 00:12:44 — Sponsor segment: Linode cloud hosting — Jonathan promotes the episode’s sponsor, Linode. He highlights their affordable 20 in credit.
  • 00:17:45 — Core advice #2: Visualization technique for the interview — The second major exercise is visualization. Listeners are guided to mentally walk through the interview day: arriving, posture, meeting people, and sitting down. The goal is to decide in advance how to feel and present oneself, even visualizing from the interviewer’s perspective. This practice builds awareness and poise for the actual event.
  • 00:21:46 — Visualizing curveball questions and maintaining poise — The visualization extends to handling unexpected, curveball questions. The advice is to prepare a reaction, not a specific answer: react slowly, hold your tongue, and embrace a moment of silent contemplation. It’s acceptable to be caught off guard; what’s not acceptable is pretending you expected it or know an answer you don’t. This practices meta-posture and composure.
  • 00:23:35 — Visualizing the worst-case scenario to neutralize fear — Jonathan instructs listeners to vividly imagine the interview going terribly—being insulted, dismissed, or even canceled. By defining the absolute worst outcome (simply returning to the pre-interview state), it neutralizes the emotional power of these fears. This preparation ensures external stressors don’t derail the candidate’s composure.
  • 00:26:47 — Visualizing the best-case scenario and post-interview reflection — Finally, listeners are told to imagine the interview going perfectly: answering confidently, connecting personally and professionally, and leaving a positive impression. The host concludes by asking listeners to write down how they would feel after both the best and worst outcomes, covering all emotional bases and preparing for the unknown through forethought.

Episode Info

  • Podcast: Developer Tea
  • Author: Jonathan Cutrell
  • Category: Technology Business Careers Society & Culture
  • Published: 2017-10-25T12:00:00Z
  • Duration: 00:31:01

References

Podcast Info

Transcript

[00:00:00] so tomorrow’s the big day you have the interview tomorrow you have picked out your clothes your

[00:00:10] your best outfit you’ve got your resume printed out and you have a backup copy ready you know

[00:00:16] exactly where the office is you know exactly where you’re going to park you know exactly what time

[00:00:21] you’re going to leave and you’ve been studying you’ve been putting as much of the technical

[00:00:27] knowledge that you think you may need to pass this interview you’ve been trying to put that

[00:00:34] into your head to really you know gain the knowledge that you need so that you are the

[00:00:39] most qualified candidate for the job so what can you do the night before the interview to prepare

[00:00:46] yourself that’s what we’re talking about in today’s episode my name is Jonathan Cottrell

[00:00:51] you’re listening to Developer Tea and my goal on this show and my goal

[00:00:57] in general is to help you become a better developer and this is such a unique and specific

[00:01:05] crowd who is listening to this particular episode I have a strong desire to help new developers

[00:01:13] especially transition from that training or that learning that they were in maybe they’re in school

[00:01:20] or they’re in a boot camp or in a different career into that professional coding atmosphere

[00:01:26] I have a strong desire to help new developers especially transition from that training or that

[00:01:27] I think there’s so much potential and there’s also so much uncertainty in this group of people

[00:01:33] the people who are listening to this episode right now and if you’re listening to this you’re probably

[00:01:38] one of those people so I want to help you I’m very motivated to help you become better

[00:01:45] and and really to launch your career and move beyond the the training mindset and move into

[00:01:54] the practicing mindset so in today’s episode I’m going to talk to you about how you can

[00:01:57] become a better developer and I’m going to talk to you about how you can become a better developer

[00:01:57] I want to get straight into this this advice that I have for you the night before your interview and

[00:02:05] we’ve already set up the scene you know you’re not a lazy developer you’re not a lazy person you you

[00:02:11] do your homework you’ve been studying you’ve been practicing you have your ducks in a row you’ve

[00:02:16] read books perhaps or you’ve done coding challenges you’ve refined your your resume you’ve had it

[00:02:23] spell-checked you you know all of these things are kind of the pre-recorded things that you need to

[00:02:27] and you know these are the people who are most likely going to get the jobs because they have

[00:02:34] enough attention to detail to be able to prepare for these job interviews now you’ll notice that

[00:02:41] everything I just said is accomplishable by pretty much anyone if you’re listening to this

[00:02:46] and you haven’t adequately prepared you’ve slacked off or you know you’re you’re not really taking

[00:02:52] this interview seriously then there’s not really a reason to listen to this episode either right

[00:02:57] this is not a shortcut episode not going to give you a trick or you know some kind of hack for you

[00:03:04] to pass an interview that you don’t reasonably deserve to pass if you deserve to pass the

[00:03:11] interview because of the hard work that you put in and because of the hard work that you’re going

[00:03:16] to put in because of the competencies that you have developed then this episode is for you this

[00:03:22] episode is intended to help you prepare for the event

[00:03:27] of the interview okay this is this is not a test the interview is not a test this is an event

[00:03:35] this is a moment where you are interfacing with another human being now are there elements of

[00:03:42] this that are going to test your knowledge absolutely and is this kind of a form of a test

[00:03:48] where the interviewer is trying to understand or examine you absolutely but this isn’t a test that

[00:03:56] that is somehow a test it’s not a test it’s not a test it’s not a test it’s not a test it’s not a test

[00:03:57] administered to you without someone watching without someone actually actively engaging you

[00:04:04] so i want to prepare you for the event there are plenty of competent developers that walk into

[00:04:11] interviews and think that because they can check all of the boxes that someone told them they need

[00:04:18] to be able to check in order to get a job that they’re going to instantly you know pass that

[00:04:23] interview round and that they’re going to end up being hired because they checked all the boxes

[00:04:27] and this is quite simply not true interviews are a human process in interfacing with another human

[00:04:34] that is equally or perhaps even more important than your knowledge and your skills and your

[00:04:40] experience all of those things only matter if you can sit in front of another human being

[00:04:47] and pass that interview so that’s what we’re going to talk about in this episode and i want

[00:04:53] to give you some really basic advice that hopefully you’ll be able to use in the future

[00:04:57] hopefully is going to help calm your nerves you know it’s a very good idea to take a moment

[00:05:04] and just sit still for a few minutes and before you take the advice that i have to give you

[00:05:12] i’d like for you to challenge yourself to think about something that is good now

[00:05:22] something that you are appreciative of today

[00:05:27] something that you are excited or you feel thankful for

[00:05:32] before you get this job something that reinforces to you what is good about your life already

[00:05:42] and you can pause this episode and do that you know two or three minutes write it down in a

[00:05:47] journal whatever you need to do but just take a minute and kind of focus on that positive aspect

[00:05:53] that you already have that you already possess it’s already a part of your life

[00:05:57] or maybe it’s a relationship you have maybe it’s a something as simple as the weather being

[00:06:03] incredible wherever you are right now or maybe the weather isn’t very good but you happen to

[00:06:09] enjoy rainy days right these things are not the specific things that you have to write down

[00:06:14] but imagine just for a moment something that you appreciate and again feel free to pause this

[00:06:21] episode take a minute and and make this this is a very important part of this of this exercise today

[00:06:27] so once you’ve done this and we’ll come back to the episode now once you’ve done this i want to

[00:06:33] challenge you to do two things we’ll talk about the first one that we’re going to talk about

[00:06:37] today’s sponsor linode after that but the first one is to stop studying put the book down stop

[00:06:44] doing tutorials uh you know close your computer and stop doing hacker rank competitions and

[00:06:50] tweaking your code all of the time for that is now in the past and your preparation

[00:06:57] is complete when it comes to technical preparation there’s nothing that you’re going to do in the

[00:07:04] next hour or the next 12 hours or even the next 24 hours that’s going to significantly

[00:07:10] note that word significantly affect your ability to you know to perform in an interview and i’m not

[00:07:20] saying that you can’t learn anything in 24 hours you certainly can learn something in 24 hours

[00:07:25] but the goal of the interview is to learn something in 24 hours and i’m not saying that you can’t learn

[00:07:27] something in 24 hours but the goal of the interview is not just to see you know what that level of

[00:07:32] learning has been it’s not just to put on display your technical skills and that’s not the only

[00:07:40] thing that matters and no amount of technical skill that you can acquire in the next 12 hours

[00:07:47] is going to significantly affect the outcome of the interview however what will significantly

[00:07:54] affect the outcome of the interview that you can prime yourself

[00:07:57] and start paying attention to now is how you interact with other people and that’s why i want

[00:08:05] you to stop studying because here’s the reality your entire computer science career your entire

[00:08:13] development career your entire designer development career whatever you’re going into really any

[00:08:19] career that demands anything beyond you know a physical labor of someone you’re going to be

[00:08:26] learning

[00:08:27] from now until the end of that career there’s never going to be a point at which you feel like

[00:08:35] you’ve arrived and as you learn more as you continue to add new information into your brain

[00:08:42] you’re going to realize how much more information there is available to learn so you’re not going to

[00:08:51] finish preparing for an interview you’re not going to complete some process

[00:08:56] that is going to you know suddenly check again some kind of box that the interviewer can see that

[00:09:03] you can’t see obviously there are some caveats to this if the interviewer told you to prepare

[00:09:10] something specific then of course that is a box that you can check if you didn’t prepare that

[00:09:16] thing and you’re walking in tomorrow and you could have finished it with you know 20 minutes

[00:09:21] more of work then absolutely you know finish that work but the principle here is that you can’t

[00:09:26] avoid

[00:09:37] a final in school where you can study right up to the point of the final you can cram as much

[00:09:43] information in your brain as you can possibly fit and then take the final and then you’re done

[00:09:50] that information doesn’t even need to really stick around and that’s not the way an interview is run

[00:09:56] If you spend the day before your interview cramming, you are very likely to induce anxiety.

[00:10:04] You’re very likely to walk into the interview room, kind of the visual that I get when I think

[00:10:12] about this is a cup that’s filled all the way to the brim. And this is kind of the way that you’re

[00:10:18] working memory and the way that your brain is, for lack of a better term, feeling when you walk

[00:10:25] into a room after cramming. And you feel the sense that you have to keep all this information,

[00:10:32] you have to keep it balanced or else it’s going to leave you, right? I felt this way many times

[00:10:37] when I would cram before tests. And I don’t recommend cramming before tests or before

[00:10:42] interviews because it really isn’t going to help you that much. And perhaps more importantly than

[00:10:49] it not helping you that much is it can actually hurt you. If you walk into that interview having

[00:10:55] felt like you’ve crammed, and especially if you’re losing sleep, for example, to study

[00:11:01] some book of questions about that interview, if you are spending the time right before the

[00:11:08] interview trying to get knowledge into your head and you end up inducing anxiety or you end up

[00:11:15] being so focused on trying to remember everything that, for example, you’re late to the interview,

[00:11:22] or maybe you have awkward,

[00:11:25] interactions because you’re not fully present. You’re not putting on your best face. You’re not

[00:11:32] interacting with other people with intentionality. All of these things add up. They’re more visible

[00:11:40] than your extra little bit of information that you gained with that last little bit of cramming.

[00:11:47] Right? So you need to be prepared mentally, emotionally, and even physically. You need to be

[00:11:54] prepared.

[00:11:55] For the entire interview, not just for this mental knowledge, technical knowledge portion.

[00:12:01] So my advice to you, unless you are significantly far away from that interview, I would say stop

[00:12:08] studying and start thinking about the interview and the people that you’re going to be interacting

[00:12:16] with. Now, you may not know their names. You may not know what their motivations are, but you can

[00:12:23] prepare for an interview. You may not know what their motivations are, but you can prepare for an

[00:12:25] interview.

[00:12:25] Like an event, right? You can prepare for it like an event and avoid preparing for it like an exam.

[00:12:33] And we’re going to talk a little bit more about how you can prepare for how that interview will go

[00:12:38] in just a moment. But first I want to talk about today’s awesome sponsor Linode. So I want you to

[00:12:44] answer this question really quickly. What can you do with 5 a month?

[00:12:51] The answer is not very much, right? You can pay for parking,

[00:12:55] for a few hours, probably. You can buy a, maybe a fast food meal, but that’s not really healthy

[00:13:02] for you. So you probably shouldn’t do that anyway. And there’s not really a lot of services out there

[00:13:07] that cost 5, but what you can do

[00:13:15] and what I would recommend as an excellent investment in your career is to purchase

[00:13:22] access to a Linode server. $5.

[00:13:25] This is the entry-level server. It’s a gigabyte of RAM and that server is running on an Intel E5

[00:13:32] processor. And the internal network at Linode is 200 gigabits per second. That’s very fast.

[00:13:40] This is up from their previous number. They recently increased their speed. It used to be

[00:13:46] 40 gigabits per second. Now it’s 200 gigabits per second, very fast internal network. And what that

[00:13:52] means is if you, if you choose to create a product,

[00:13:55] which by the way, they don’t just offer those $5 servers. If you have scalable needs, in other

[00:14:02] words, if you’re going to build something that has higher traffic, then you’re going to need a

[00:14:06] bigger server. You’re going to need more memory. You’re going to need more resources.

[00:14:10] And Linode provides excellent resources at that level too. You can get 16 gigabytes of RAM

[00:14:17] for only $60 a month. This pricing is the best dollar per gigabyte pricing that I’ve seen

[00:14:25] on the market. And as we said before, these, these servers run on Intel E5 processors on a 200

[00:14:31] gigabit internal network. And what this means is if you have multiple servers and you want to do

[00:14:37] something like load balancing, well, Linode provides a service for that. It’s called node

[00:14:41] balancer. And the, uh, the talking between those servers is going to be incredibly efficient.

[00:14:47] The message sending is going to be incredibly efficient. And I would venture to say that most

[00:14:53] of the time your bottleneck is going to be the one that’s going to be the most efficient.

[00:14:55] Is going to be in your code before it’s going to be on your server. So go and check out what

[00:15:00] Linode has to offer. You can find it at spec.fm slash Linode. Use the code developer T 2017 at

[00:15:07] checkout and Linode is going to provide you with $20 worth of credit. That’s 20 bucks just for free

[00:15:14] for going to spec.fm slash Linode. Thank you again to Linode for sponsoring today’s episode

[00:15:20] of developer T. So before we dive back in, I want you to take a moment and think back to

[00:15:25] that thing that you are thankful for. Uh, I want that to be top of mind as you’re going through

[00:15:31] these exercises. And as you’re preparing for the interview, you know, your state of mind,

[00:15:36] when you walk into that room, your state of mind is going to determine so much about what you

[00:15:42] communicate, uh, your confidence level, your comfortability, your, uh, the reasoning and

[00:15:49] your answers, whether or not you stumble over your words, a lot of this stuff is going to depend

[00:15:54] on you. So I want you to take a moment and think back to that thing that you are thankful for.

[00:15:55] Pretty heavily on your state of mind. This is one of the reasons you don’t stay up all night

[00:15:59] studying. If you stayed up all night studying, then you’re going to be putting undue stress on

[00:16:05] your body. This is just science too, right? You can’t escape the undue stress that you’re going

[00:16:11] to put in your body by depriving it of sleep. So what we’re doing here is we’re kind of cultivating

[00:16:17] a positive state of mind. And I’m not a therapist. I’m not a, you know, I’m only using basic

[00:16:24] techniques to get you through this. I’m not a therapist. I’m not a, you know, I’m only using

[00:16:25] thinking positively. That’s kind of the first step here that we want to take because, you know,

[00:16:31] what we’re going to do is create this positive state of mind so that when you walk into the

[00:16:35] interview, you have a positive state of mind. This is going to allow you to speak from a position of

[00:16:41] confidence of, uh, you know, control and ultimately self-awareness and self-awareness in an interview

[00:16:48] is incredibly important. How you’re speaking to someone, how you’re interacting with other people,

[00:16:53] your social awareness, all of this stuff is going to play into how well you’re going to do in that

[00:16:58] interview. So I want you to, again, reflect on the things that you wrote down or that you thought of

[00:17:04] previously, uh, that you’re thankful for. It’s a very simple, simple exercise. Uh, there’s a lot

[00:17:10] of science on positive thinking. There’s a lot of science that’s been, uh, a lot of research rather

[00:17:16] that’s been done on, uh, gratitude. So, uh, you can Google that stuff. There’s tons of stuff out

[00:17:22] there that backs that.

[00:17:23] This up, but you want to start with that mindset of gratitude and that positive mindset. So once

[00:17:29] you’ve recalled some of this stuff, then the next thing that I want you to do, we’ve talked about the

[00:17:34] first thing, which is stop studying, um, um, put the books down, you know, close the computer.

[00:17:39] The next thing that I want you to do is visualization, right? This is very simple.

[00:17:45] Um, you can close your eyes or you can, you know, write out your thoughts, however you want to

[00:17:50] handle it. But I want you to visualize the interview.

[00:17:53] Uh, this is, you know, understanding where you’re going, maybe even getting a picture of it,

[00:17:58] Googling to see, you know, what, what does their office look like? So you visualize walking in the

[00:18:04] door, you visualize, you know, walking with your, your shoulders back, you know, a good posture,

[00:18:11] your heads up, you’re smiling, you’re engaging people. Uh, people are engaging you back there,

[00:18:17] you know, providing you with the directions to the room that you’re going to do the interview

[00:18:23] in. You walk in and, you know, maybe there’s one or two or three people that are waiting for you

[00:18:29] and you sit down and you have all of your stuff laid out, you know, even visualize,

[00:18:33] maybe even go through those physical motions of, you know, putting your, your resume on the table

[00:18:39] and take a minute to just kind of understand, um, mentally create a picture of what you’re going to

[00:18:47] be feeling in that moment. All right. And, and what we’re going to do with this visualization

[00:18:52] technique,

[00:18:53] is we’re going to decide now tonight, the night before the interview, we’re going to decide

[00:18:59] how we, how we want or should feel before the interview starts when we’re sitting in that room

[00:19:06] or when we’ve walked in that front door. Now, this may feel wonky. It may feel a little bit

[00:19:12] odd to do a visualization technique. Uh, but here’s, here’s what we know. We know that if you

[00:19:19] prepare for the situation, right? And we know that if you, if you’re, if you’re, if you’re

[00:19:23] if you can simulate this to yourself, that you’re going to be able to better, uh, uh, approach,

[00:19:32] you’re going to have more awareness in that moment. If you visualize, if you see what could

[00:19:39] happen, then you’re going to be more prepared to deal with it when it does happen. So we’ve,

[00:19:45] we’ve walked in the door, we’ve met some people, you know, maybe we’ve gone to a room, we’re

[00:19:50] sitting down, we’re putting a resume on the table and we’re preparing for the interview. And we’re

[00:19:52] going to be more prepared to deal with it when it does happen. So we’ve, we’ve walked in the door,

[00:19:53] preparing to dive into this interview. Okay. And I don’t want you to get too specific on the

[00:20:00] interview itself. What I want you to do is, uh, think through how you want to feel, how you want

[00:20:10] to present yourself. Think through, uh, you know, seeing from someone else’s eyes on the opposite

[00:20:16] table. So, and because your imagination is pretty powerful, you can kind of zoom out of your own

[00:20:22] head and jump into the interviewer’s head. How would you like to see yourself, right? What is

[00:20:28] your posture? Uh, what is your, your facial expression? How engaged are you? How are you

[00:20:33] responding verbally? Uh, you know, all of these things kind of put together to get a feeling for

[00:20:40] how you’re going to behave in that interview. And it might be useful to sit in front of a mirror to

[00:20:46] do this. That may be a little bit overkill from, I would say it probably is for most people, but

[00:20:52] can’t, you know, visualize your posture, then certainly standing or sitting in front of a mirror

[00:20:57] is not out of the question. Okay. So we’ve, we’ve gone through this process. We’re sitting down,

[00:21:02] we’re having a good conversation. You know, they’re asking you questions, uh, that maybe you

[00:21:08] prepared for. Uh, they’re asking you questions about your experience. They’re asking you

[00:21:12] questions about, you know, what do you care about in life? Uh, what drives you? What motivates you?

[00:21:18] What kind of problems have you faced in the past? Uh,

[00:21:22] what was the most difficult part of your last job? Or what was the most difficult part

[00:21:26] of this project that you did when you were in school or when you were in this bootcamp?

[00:21:31] Uh, these are the kinds of questions that you kind of know are going to be coming in this

[00:21:35] interview. So, you know, preparing for them specifically, that’s probably something you’ve

[00:21:40] already done. What you may not have done is prepared for unexpected questions, curveball

[00:21:46] questions, right? These are things that happen in some interviews. Uh, sometimes they’re actually

[00:21:52] designed to see how you respond in an unexpected scenario. And so you can prepare yourself. You

[00:21:59] can’t prepare yourself for the specific question, but you can prepare yourself for how you’re going

[00:22:04] to react, right? Uh, reaction is immediate. And so I would recommend that you prepare yourself

[00:22:12] to react slowly. Don’t immediately jump into an answer and don’t show a visceral response.

[00:22:21] Hold your tongue.

[00:22:22] And stay silent for a second, especially if it’s particularly jarring, right? Because it’s easy to

[00:22:29] have a visceral or a negative response to a jarring thing before you really even realize it. So I want

[00:22:35] you to prepare for that moment of silence where you’re contemplating what has been asked and

[00:22:41] you’re evaluating in that moment how you’re going to respond. And it’s okay for you to be caught off

[00:22:47] guard. That’s the intention of those curveball questions. It’s okay. All of you are going to be

[00:22:52] caught off guard. But it’s also for you not to know exactly how to answer a question. What’s not

[00:22:56] okay is for you to act like the curveball question was totally expected. What’s not okay is for you

[00:23:03] to, uh, to act like you know the answer to something when you don’t. So what we’re practicing

[00:23:09] with this visualization is your poise, both your literal posture, but also kind of this meta

[00:23:15] concept of posture. How people see you. Uh, how are, how are you presenting yourself? How are you

[00:23:22] presenting yourself in response to this questioning process? So once you’ve gone through this kind of

[00:23:27] general visualization process, uh, what I want you to do is I want you to visualize this interview

[00:23:35] going very poorly. I know this sounds weird, but visualize it going very poorly. Visualize not

[00:23:42] having good answers to any of the questions or perhaps visualize somebody, uh, who is interviewing

[00:23:48] you kind of trailing off or becoming disinterested.

[00:23:52] Uh, maybe the, you know, one person says an off color comment or, uh, is even insulting to you.

[00:23:59] This is a possibility, right? There are a variety of things that could happen during an interview.

[00:24:06] And if you’re not prepared for those things to occur, if you’re not emotionally or mentally

[00:24:11] prepared for them to occur, then it’s a very possible that those, uh, those events that are

[00:24:18] external to you will end up applying stress.

[00:24:22] To you. So I want you to visualize the very worst outcome, the very worst outcome, perhaps the worst

[00:24:29] outcome to you personally is that you arrive and the interview was actually canceled. They decided

[00:24:35] that, you know, they previously invited you for the interview, but maybe they found another

[00:24:40] candidate, they hired them and they forgot to email you. They forgot about you altogether.

[00:24:45] And this is, that’s a pretty bad outcome. Uh, perhaps a worse outcome for you might be that

[00:24:50] you get into the interview.

[00:24:52] The interviewers are condescending or they, they’re insulting, uh, and they dismiss your

[00:24:58] responses or, uh, maybe they are, you know, trying to one up you all the time. And ultimately they,

[00:25:05] you know, see you out and they say, you know, don’t expect a call from us.

[00:25:09] That would be a pretty bad outcome. Uh, perhaps you go through the interview process and the

[00:25:14] worst outcome for you is an extreme level of uncertainty. You leave the interview and it’s

[00:25:20] weeks.

[00:25:22] Even a month or two months before you hear anything back. And they didn’t tell you whether

[00:25:26] you did well, they didn’t tell you, uh, anything. So there’s a variety of ways that you can evaluate

[00:25:33] this going into the worst for you. Um, so what we’re doing here is we’re trying to understand

[00:25:39] what is the absolute worst thing that can happen. And we’ve already established that

[00:25:44] we have things today to be thankful for. We have things to be positive about today. And so,

[00:25:52] with this interview failure, if you go into the interview and you fail it miserably, you,

[00:25:57] you end up, you know, ultimately not getting the job. The ultimate outcome, the ultimate worst

[00:26:04] case outcome is that you’re back where you started. You’re back here. You’re back to this

[00:26:10] state today. And maybe you’ve lost at most a few hours of time because all of the preparation that

[00:26:17] you’re doing for this interview, all of that is still relevant for other interviews to come.

[00:26:22] Of course, you’re doing a little bit of company research probably, or you’ve done that already.

[00:26:27] Uh, but ultimately, you know, all of that research, all that experience, all of that effort

[00:26:32] is not lost. So we are defining exactly the worst case scenario. We’re defining the worst possible

[00:26:40] outcome. Now I want you to imagine the opposite. And this is what I want to leave you with.

[00:26:47] I want you to imagine that you walk in calm and collected,

[00:26:51] that every question that you are asked, you are able to answer confidently. You’re able to answer

[00:26:58] it comprehensively. You’re able to communicate your value. Uh, you’re able to communicate

[00:27:04] your effectiveness in previous efforts. You’re able to connect on a personal level.

[00:27:10] Uh, you’re able to connect on a professional level. You’re able to walk into the interview

[00:27:15] and then leave a positive impression on every person that you encounter during this

[00:27:21] interview. And that’s what I want you to imagine. So I want you to imagine that you’re able to

[00:27:21] walk away, having confidently solved every problem that you were presented with,

[00:27:28] having confidently answered every question and addressed every concern.

[00:27:33] This is the best that the interview can go. And the funny thing is, even if the interview goes

[00:27:39] this well, even if it goes the best that it can go, you can still not be chosen for this job,

[00:27:46] right? That’s still a possible outcome. But the absolute best case scenario

[00:27:51] is that the interview goes very well. You leave a positive impression and ultimately

[00:27:56] you get the job. I want you to take a moment, uh, after this episode is over and write down

[00:28:04] some of the emotions or the thought processes that you would have if you do get the job.

[00:28:10] And then also some of the emotions that you will have if you don’t get the job, if the interview

[00:28:15] goes, uh, extremely poorly. And I want you to think,

[00:28:21] and, you know, kind of put yourself into that spot. When you’re walking out of the building,

[00:28:27] when you’re walking to your car, you’re opening your car door, you’re getting into the car,

[00:28:32] uh, or, you know, you go, you’re going to the, the Metro, the bus station or the train station,

[00:28:37] or you’re getting on your bike, whatever your mode of transportation is. I want you to vividly

[00:28:41] imagine after each of these scenarios, how you’re going to feel. And this, what we’re doing is

[00:28:47] we’re preparing you for the unknown. We’re preparing you for the emotional,

[00:28:51] and the mental unknown of this situation, because now you have the, all of your bases covered.

[00:28:59] You have all of those situations covered. So you’ve prepared, you can kind of forecast

[00:29:04] different ways of reacting to this situation. Even though you can’t forecast every single

[00:29:09] particular variable, you don’t know exactly what that person across the table looks like. You don’t

[00:29:14] know what their voice sounds like, and there’s going to be some unknowns, but ultimately your

[00:29:18] control over who you are and what you do is going to be the most important thing for you.

[00:29:21] And how you respond to these situations. That’s what we’re practicing the day before the interview.

[00:29:27] Thank you so much for listening to today’s very important episode of Developer Tea. I hope that

[00:29:33] if you have an interview tomorrow, that you go in and you absolutely crush that interview. I’m,

[00:29:40] I’m very hopeful and optimistic for you and for the people who listen to this show, because

[00:29:45] you, like me, you want to become better every day. You’re constantly learning.

[00:29:50] You’re constantly learning. You’re constantly learning. You’re constantly learning. You’re

[00:29:51] constantly learning. You’re constantly learning. You’re constantly learning. You’re constantly

[00:29:51] adding to your own experiences intentionally. You’re listening to this podcast because you want

[00:29:59] to become better, and that’s the kind of person that’s ultimately going to be successful in the

[00:30:04] market. Thank you so much for listening to the show, for being a part of this community.

[00:30:08] If this, if this episode specifically has helped you out, if you end up, you know, going in into

[00:30:15] an interview and feeling more prepared as a result of this episode, I would really love to hear that

[00:30:20] story. You can, you can find me on Twitter at TheDepthOfTreatment. I’ll see you next time.

[00:30:21] You can email me at developertea at gmail.com. Thank you so much for listening to today’s

[00:30:26] episode. Again, thank you to Linode for sponsoring today’s episode. Our sponsors help keep Developer

[00:30:32] T running. If we didn’t have the excellent support of Linode, then we wouldn’t be able to do this

[00:30:37] show. Remember, Linode’s going to give you $20 worth of credit if you go to spec.fm slash Linode

[00:30:43] and use the code developertea2017 at checkout. Thank you so much for listening. Make sure you

[00:30:49] subscribe if you don’t want to miss out on future episodes. I’ll see you next time. Bye.

[00:30:51] And until next time, enjoy your tea.

Visão de gráfico