How to prepare for your first interview in Russia in the IT field (a short guide to action)
If you are studying at an institute, have just graduated, or simply want to start working in the IT field, then this article is for you; it may also be useful for those who already have work experience, but are experiencing some difficulties finding a new one.
Of course, you need to remember that in 99% of cases, in order to get to the first interview, you need to go through a stage such as a conversation with hr, but often this is just your test for adequacy and more of a “friendly” conversation. I only once encountered the fact that they started asking me technical questions during a conversation with HR, this was in Sberbank.
It is important to understand that the first interviews have a high probability of being unsuccessful; here, just like anywhere else, you need to gain some experience and adapt to the corresponding pressure. At my first interview, I was so nervous that I could not answer correctly even those questions to which I knew the answers absolutely precisely.
In general, all interviews follow approximately the same pattern. I would highlight 3 main components that you should prepare for before any interview:
Also, before the interview, be sure to prepare a list of your questions that you will ask the potential employer.
Let's talk more about each of these points.
Self-presentation
Self-presentation in an interview is when a candidate for a position introduces himself, talking about his professional experience and achievements. The main task here is to make a positive impression on the employer.
It’s worth preparing a story about yourself in advance, here are a few things to do:
write down your main skills and make mini-stories about each of your projects or pet projects
write down your soft skills (personal qualities)
write down the reasons why you are interested in this vacancy
rehearse your story in front of a mirror or friends
Much of this may be in your resume, but the presentation should not turn into a summary of the resume.
A good plus for your story will be some knowledge about the company you are trying to get into (it makes sense to at least familiarize yourself with the site), and a willingness to list the reasons why you want to work in this particular company.
When preparing a story about myself, I was guided by the following links:
How to prepare for an IT interview | GeekBrains – educational portal (gb.ru)
What to tell about yourself at an interview: features of self-presentation (moscow.mba)
Self-presentation: how to behave in an interview? (hh.ru)
These resources personally helped me a lot in preparing for self-presentation.
Theory
This point is the most difficult for me. There is no formula for success here. There are things that you need to directly “memorize”, some you already know from university or courses you took, some you came across in the coding process.
It all depends on your specialization and background, but here are a few links that I used when preparing for interviews:
60+ Data Engineer Interview Questions and Answers in 2024 (guru99.com)
Top 200 Data Engineer Interview Questions & Answers 2023 (entri.app)
17 must-have technical interview questions (itanddigital.ru)
Top 40 interview questions for IT specialists (merionet.ru)
Live coding
Live coding is a way to test a programmer’s skills when a recruiter watches a candidate live while writing code.
During live coding, you should strive to show your knowledge in full. If you don’t know how to solve a problem that the recruiter has given you, or you don’t know how to implement some line of code, you need to say everything you know on this topic, share your thoughts and ideas with the recruiter. It is important to remember that the recruiter himself is interested in you being able to show the maximum of your knowledge in live coding.
From my own experience, I can say that the worst thing during live coding is your silence. In this case, the recruiter may lose interest in you and end the interview ahead of time.
In my practice, there was one case when I could not completely solve a single problem (there were 3 in total), but I did not remain silent, expressed my thoughts, endlessly tried to generate ideas, and based on the results of the interview I was invited to the next stage.
There are 2 largest sites/forums where you need to solve problems day and night in order to prepare well for the interview. After solving 200+ problems on these two sites (I will provide links below), there should be no problems with live coding. All employers take tasks from there and then give them at an interview, here you just need to develop the skill of solving such problems.
Links:
LeetCode – The World's Leading Online Programming Learning Platform
Codewars – Achieve mastery through coding practice and developer mentorship
Also on these sites you can find a bunch of different “courses”, such as, for example, the top 150 interview tasks:
Top Interview 150 – Study Plan – LeetCode
Such courses are very helpful in gaining the necessary experience in solving such problems. These sites have a fairly open and active audience that is constantly ready to share their knowledge and experience with you.
Also on such forums you can publish your solutions and discuss them with other community members.
You can participate in various programming competitions:
Contest – LeetCode
All this will be very useful to you when preparing for an interview and will help you improve your skills in general.
I hope that this article will help you in preparing for interviews and motivate you to try and learn as much as possible.
Good luck!
