Category: Interviews

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How to deal with job rejection

Getting a job rejection sucks. It can absolutely ruin your mood and make you question yourself. And chances are you will receive more than one before you are finally able to secure a role. So how do you deal with constant job rejections and apply the loss to future success? 

Here are some tips: 

REFLECT 

After completing an interview, you might be tempted to immediately focus on what went wrong rather than what went well with intrusive thoughts like “Why didn’t I mention this?” or “I should have known a better answer to that last question.” It is easy to focus on the negatives, so next time you do an interview, try to focus on the positives first. Not only will it make you feel better, but it will give some insight into which areas you are doing well in. 

 A great approach to reflecting on interviews is to think about it from the perspective of the interviewer, both the good and bad parts. Don’t think about how you feel it went but go off the actual interview.  

What do I mean by this? 

During an interview, chances are the interviewer will be taking notes. You should do the same. While the interview is still fresh in your mind, write down the questions asked and what your responses were. Then, bring up the job specification and see where your responses hit the required criteria; highlighting them in green is a great way of visualizing the parts that went well. Following that use a red pen to annotate and add to your answers to see what you might have changed or improved if given a chance to do the interview again. Rather than churning all the thoughts over in your head, getting it written down as a way of reflecting will help you out a lot more in the future. 

FEEDBACK 

Sometimes the easiest way to improve is to ask where you went wrong.  

It is essential if you ever receive a job rejection that you ask for feedback on your application. While you are more likely to receive feedback at later stages of an application process, there is no harm in asking at any stage, from the initial submission of your CV and Cover Letter to the technical test and final interview. The reasons behind a rejection from a certain role can give critical insight into where you need to focus your efforts in the future. It could be something super small and easy to rectify that has been preventing you from moving further in application processes, but you won’t know until you ask. 

You can practice most stages of an application process with the Employability Team, and it is their job to give you feedback. This is less focused on the content you might have, such as your portfolio or experience, and more on how you might answer a question and present yourself. It also gives the added advantage of practice! 

OPTIONS AND MOMENTUM 

Getting rejected for a role that you have invested time into researching, applying and attending interviews for can really knock your confidence and make you apprehensive for any future roles you apply for. This is why it is so important to keep both your options open and the application momentum up as much as you possibly can. 

It can be tempting after you have applied for a job or reached the interview stage for a role to stall any other applications until you hear back from them.  

Don’t do this.  

While waiting for a certain company to respond back to you, you can use that time to apply for other roles so that you always have at least one on the go at any one time, regardless of if you get a rejection. This is also another great way to gain practice for all stages of an application process, which you can apply to the roles you might be more interested in. For example, you might apply for your dream role but also apply for another role that interests you as a backup. It might take a while for the dream company to get back to you but in that time, you get quite far in the application process for the other job, including a few interviews. You can draw on the experience gained during those interviews during the interview for the dream company.  

YOU AREN’T ALONE 

Another important thing to consider is something that probably seems obvious, but chances are you don’t think about it as much as you should after a job rejection. You are not alone in this. People get job rejections all the time, including other people who applied for the same job you got rejected for. It can be easy to take the rejection and any criticism you get to heart but there will be others who receive similar feedback. Securing a job is a competitive and lengthy process that you probably won’t nail the first time. And as I have mentioned in the article, there are people who are willing to help you achieve those goals. 

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The Careers Service On…Interviews

We recently talked with a member of the Careers Service on the topic of Interviews! Ranging from the advice they would give students to the support and resources the Careers Service has available, this article is a perfect place to start if you want to know more about interviews!

What is your name and what is your role within the university?

Hi, I’m Sara Williams and I’m one of the Careers Consultants on the team here at the University’s Careers Service. My role is quite varied, you might have seen me in induction weeks promoting the service and advising students what’s on offer from the Careers Service, delivering one of our central workshops or in a 1-1 appointment.

Do you like interviews?

Tough question! When you look at the evidence, highly structured interviews’ (like a competency-based interview) data shows that they can quite effectively predict performance in a role. As a former recruiter, I liked interviews to get to know about a candidate’s passions and interests and just to get to know them and see if they might be a good fit for the organisation. I think as a candidate they can be quite intimidating and tough for lots of folks but always remember it is a two-way process! You are there as much to learn about the organisation as they are about you!

How does the careers service support students when it comes to interviews?

We support students in lots of different ways for interviews. Our website has a lot of information on how to prepare and demystify some of the common questions that you might get asked at an interview.

Other online tools that we offer include Shortlist.Me and Graduates First which gives students the opportunity to practise the pre-recorded or asynchronous video interviews that are becoming increasingly more common, particularly within graduate recruitment schemes.

The online platform Forage also has a guide and practical examples to help students prepare for technical interviews like whiteboard or case study interviews

In-person support includes access to information appointments where one of my colleagues can talk students through how to properly prepare for interviews and some of the resources available and they can also refer students to appointments with Careers Consultants for practise or mock interviews too! Students can book these through MyCareer

What do you find that students struggle with the most when it comes to interviews, and why?

It varies between people. Some people might have trouble articulating what they want to say while other people might struggle with thinking about their experience and how it might fit with the skills the interviewer is looking for and some people can lack a little bit of confidence too. I think the important thing is that these are all things that you can work on with some reflection and practise.

How can students best prepare for interviews? Is there a trick that works for all of them?

Again, it depends on the individual and if there are areas of their interview preparation or performance that need a bit of tweaking. I would say in my experience confidence with interviews can come from being really well prepared e.g. making sure they really understand the company and the role they are being interviewed for, making sure they know how their skill set matches what the employer/interviewer might be looking for, anticipating questions and preparing for them and also taking time to practise answers.

What three mistakes do students not realise they are making during an interview?

Not structuring answers, so for example, in competency-based interviews, employers will expect that you use the BAR or STAR structure. I think a lot of students have heard of this but often don’t give enough detail, again practising and getting feedback can help with this!

Not doing enough research on the company. Now you don’t necessarily need to know the share price of the company on the day you are interviewing but I often find students making quite broad statements about the company. Doing research and using tools beyond their website can really demonstrate you’ve done your homework and have a genuine interest in them. The library has a lot of different business research tools you can use.

It is a two-way process! Make sure you have some questions prepared for your interviewer at the end. This might be your only opportunity to ask questions so really think about what you want to know like, what will the first 6 months in the role look like? How will your performance be measured?  What challenges is the company facing and how does this role contribute to solving them?

If a student keeps getting to the interview stage of a job application but progresses no further, what advice would you give them in order to be more successful?

Firstly, take a moment to recognise your success at getting to the interview stage! The job search can be tough so take the small wins. I would always encourage anyone to reflect after their interview. We do tend to be more critical of ourselves but take a few minutes, somewhere quiet after an interview to think about what you did well and whether was there anything you would do differently next time.  I would also encourage anyone who hasn’t been successful at the interview stage to ask for feedback (this can be difficult with pre-recorded interviews) it could be something really simple like ‘you needed to structure your answers better’ or ‘ your interest in the company didn’t come through’ these are all things you can work on going into your next interview.

If you had to give one piece of advice, and only one, to a student regarding interviews, what would it be?

Prepare effectively and enough! From my experience, this can help in so many ways and I think the main way that I observe is that it helps with confidence.

What would you say is the most important part of an interview? The beginning, middle, or end? And why?

Well, if we look at the science the beginning and the end are important (primacy and recency effect), and this is what the interviewer might remember the most. Equally, we’ve all probably heard of the importance of making a good first impression!  In reality, all of it matters, particularly as most interviewers will be taking notes which they will then re-read over after your interview and look for evidence of where you meet the pre-determined criteria.

What can you gain from doing practice interviews?

I think getting experience and feedback are the two main things people often get from practise interviews but often find that students come out feeling a bit more confident about taking interviews after a practise interview too.

Which is the harder type of interview, online or in person? Why?

I don’t think one is necessarily ‘harder’ than the other in terms of questions you might get asked but I do find that most (not all) people prefer in-person interviews as people report that they find it easier to build rapport with the interviewers and read non-verbal behaviours. In a post covid world, we’re seeing more employers keeping some or all of their recruitment processes online so I don’t think online interviews are going to go away anytime soon. If students are worried about doing online interviews we have the Graduates First and Shortlist.Me platforms as mentioned before but we also can do mock/practise interviews online too! There’s a lot of good advice, hints and tips online too about how to prepare for online interviews.

How might a technical interview differ from a normal interview?

Technical interviews are to assess your ‘technical’ competence. This might sound quite straightforward but this can also include assessing your logical thinking as well as how you approach problem-solving. Typical formats of a technical interview might also differ. Some companies might use the question-and-answer format as with a normal interview perhaps starting out with some more basic technical concepts and then asking increasingly harder questions often they might ask about projects in your portfolio too.

You might also be given a coding challenge and asked to go through it (produce an output) with the interviewer. Leetcode and HackeRank are two quite common resources to help practise these sorts of interviews. Paired coding challenges, whiteboard challenges, case studies and technical coding tests could also be used to assess your technical competence. Try and research as much as you can about what to expect either from the information you have been sent from the recruiter or using tools like Glassdoor to get a sense of what could be asked and in what format.  You can also use things like the forage tool to practise some of the whiteboard exercises, case study and coding challenges style questions (Girls who code – technical interview preparation course). With technical interviews often it might not be about getting something 100% accurate but more about how you approach a question and try to solve it, as in addition to the above this can give an insight into your resilience as well as your thought processes.  

In five words or less, can you summarise what you think to be the most important part of an interview?

Not five words per se but I would encourage students to think about interviews in three parts:

Prepare (research company, questions and yourself for why you are a good fit)

Practise (use online tools or in-person resources to help you practise questions and get feedback)

Perform (on the day what will you do to e.g. manage nerves, what strategies do you have, what do you want to know about them, reflect afterwards and think about your performance in a non-judgemental way)

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How to Ace Your Interviews

In previous articles, I have covered how the university’s careers service can support you as you create CVs and write cover letters. Now it is time to move on to later parts of the application process: interviews, tests and assessment centres.  

There is a lot to get through so this article will focus on the interview stage and other articles on tests and assessment centres respectively. 

Interviews 

A crucial step of the application process, the interview is what gives an employer a more accurate picture of who you are, what you can do, and how well you might work with the team.  

Interviews are some of the most nerve-racking things you can do, regardless of your age. But there are ways you can prepare yourself for them.  

There is a range of questions you may be asked: 

Motivational questions (e.g. ‘Why do you want to work for us?’) 

Employer-focused questions (e.g. ‘What do you know about us?’) 

CV and career aspiration questions (e.g. ‘Tell me about your internship with…’ or ‘What is your career goal?’) 

Hypothetical questions (e.g. ‘What would you do if X happened?’) 

Competency or values-based questions. These might ask for previous examples of when you used skills or demonstrated values (e.g. ‘Give me an example of when you worked in a team to solve a problem’ or ‘Tell me about a time when you took pride in your work’) 

Strength-based questions. These focus on what you like doing and what you are good at (e.g. ‘What motivates you?’ or ‘Do you prefer to work in a team or by yourself?’). 

Two of best things to do are to practice and to prepare: 

Practice 

Interviews are a daunting task but the more you do, the better you will get and the more confident you will come across. Even an unsuccessful interview is successful in other ways. 

Prepare 

Hopefully, during your initial application, you researched the company. Now that you’ve secured an interview, you need to do more research. Get an understanding of what the company does, and what their policies are and make sure you understand what you would be doing in the job you are applying for. You might even be told who will be interviewing you, so try to look them up and what their roles are! 

Practice answers to typical interview questions as well as searching online for previous interview questions that may have been asked by the company. A great methodology to stick to when answering interview questions is STAR (Situation Task Analysis Response). This structure is helpful as it allows you to use your past experiences to help portray what makes you suitable for the role. It is recommended that you try and write out answers to a range of questions using the STAR format, but use different scenarios for each, just to get practice with it as well as a range of information to pull from when asked a question during your interview. 

With the pandemic, more and more interviews are being conducted online. It is easier to set up a zoom or teams than organise travel and book a room for an in-person interview. That is why it is a great idea to get as much practise as you can with this style of interview. The MyCareer’s page has tons of resources to help with this, but there is one I recommend checking out: Shortlist.me. 

Shortlist.me is a practice video interview tool used by actual graduate recruiters to give an accurate view of what a video interview is like as well as AI-generated reports and your answers themselves to reflect on. You can participate in a range of video interviews for different fields as well as some strength-based interviews and employer-specific ones for NHS Digital, AstraZeneca and law firm, Womble Bond Dickinson. 

As you can see there is a broad range of mock interviews you can attempt: 

After completing one of these interviews, which asked six questions, I received the following feedback: 

As you can see, it gives a useful breakdown of metrics like speech rate, filler words and time used. In addition to this feedback, you can look back at each of your answers and reflect on how you performed. Just attempting the questions is a great way to practice! 

Also, be sure to remember that interviews are there to help you decide as well! Be sure to ask your own questions to figure out if you are the right person for this role. You don’t want to be stuck in a role that isn’t right for you.  

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How to prepare for coding interviews

While many steps in the employment process are universal to any role you may apply to, applying for a role as a software developer, or any coding-related job for that matter, you may be expected to do a coding interview. 

This article explains what a coding interview is, what you might be expected to do in them, why you might be expected to do them, and some resources to help you prepare for them. 

What is a coding interview? 

At some point following an initial interview, you may be asked to do a coding interview. This is notorious for being one of the hardest parts of the interview process. During a coding interview, you will be given a task to do within a limited time frame. You might be observed by an interviewer as part of this and expected to explain your programming choices as you go. 

Why do I have to do a coding interview? 

While the purpose of an interview is typically to get a feel for who a potential employee is as a person and if they will fit within a team, a coding interview does the same but to get a feel for who you are as a programmer. It helps determine what your skill level and programming style is like. This is essential as they will want to know what kind of code you might be contributing to their projects. 

Coding interview resources 

There are numerous different resources to help you prepare for coding interviews, the only issue is that for many of them you must pay to use. I’ve collated some free resources that I recommend checking out to hopefully lend a hand when this stage of the interview process comes knocking 

Codewars 

Unsurprisingly, one of the best ways to practice for a coding interview is to code. But rather than working on your larger projects, it is important to try to solve lots of “bitesize” coding problems.  

An excellent resource for this is Codewars.  

Codewars is a platform that helps you learn, train and improve your coding skills by solving a range of tasks at varying difficulty levels. These challenges are called Katas and are specific to the languages and areas you want to focus on.  

You can find these challenges on the Codewars page or if you subscribe to their Weekly Coding Challenge newsletter, you will receive weekly emails with a selection of tasks to solve. 

All the challenges can be completed within the IDE provided on the Codewars website so you could complete them while on the go without your computer. Here is an example of one of their challenges: 

This is a relatively easy problem but nicely lays out how Codewars works. You see what your task is, and some examples of what solutions would be.  

You write your solution in this window before pressing Attempt to see if your solution is correct. If it is, you can then go and look at other people’s solutions to get an idea of how other people attempted the problem! 

This is a great resource to consistently practice your coding skills, and the range of challenges you may encounter will help you prepare for coding interviews. 

If this seems like something you are interested in, find more information here. 

InterviewBit 

Another great resource for coding interviews is InterviewBit. It works in much the same as Codewars with different challenges you can complete but also has some more supplementary content you can use if you so wish. 

There are three main categories to InterviewBit: Practice Problems, Fast Track Courses and Interview Prep.  

You can solve practice problems of varying difficulties much like with CodeWars but you also get to see what kind of companies ask these questions. 

You can also spend time learning the fundamentals of different languages, perfect for when you want to train or revise a certain skill ahead of an interview. 

Another excellent resource on InterviewBit is the Technical Interview Questions. These are guides not only on how to secure roles at large companies like Google, Amazon and Microsoft but more generalised roles that would require you to code in certain languages. 

Coding Interview University

Another excellent resource is the GitHub repository Coding Interview University This was created by Josh Masham for interview preparation. It was using these resources that he was able to get a job at Amazon. This repository is jam-packed with details, resources and links that will be sure to help anyone in their journey to employment. 

These are only three different resources you can check out to get that edge when it comes to a coding interview but there are many more out there and not everything will work for you, so just experiment! 

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Interview – CyberSoc

Newcastle University Students' Union

We interviewed two committee members of Newcastle University’s Cyber Security society, CyberSoc, to get some insight into what the society does and the different ways it can help you. 

Who are you and what are each of your roles in the society? 

Eddie: I’m the president of CyberSoc, so my role is to guide the general direction of the society as well as lead the committee and manage their work. This includes things like making sure our technical officers have events prepared with enough time to spare, chairing committee meetings, representing the society at external events and finding new and exciting opportunities for our members. 
 
Last year, I ran many of the society’s technical events as I was one of our technical officers. While I’m in a different role this year, I’m continuing to do so unofficially because it’s a part of the society that I really enjoy. I’m taking a slightly less significant role in the writing of tech events nowadays as we have so many great new technical officers (and the role of president comes with its own workload!), but it’s definitely something I want to keep doing within CyberSoc. 

 
Sophie: I’m secretary of the society so my role is more on the admin side of things. I’m in charge of taking notes at committee meetings, making sure deadlines are met, making sure our members are kept informed of news and events, and that sort of thing. 

 I do sometimes help out with other aspects of the society outside of my role. My background in cyber security has meant that I’ve been able to get involved with the planning and running of some of our technical events. I also enjoy designing posts for our Instagram page. 

What is your society in 10 words or less? 

Eddie: A great way to have fun learning to hack safely! 
Sophie: The society for all things cyber security 

What do you do in your society? 

Eddie: In short, we teach people how to hack. Even if you’re a complete beginner to cyber security or even computer science and programming in general. Of course, when we say hacking, we really mean ethical hacking – all our tech events such as workshops, demos and talks take place in safe, isolated environments where you won’t be causing any damage to the outside world. It could be attacking a server we’ve set up with specific vulnerabilities, attacking each other’s code or taking part in dedicated hacking competitions (often called Capture the Flag competitions), and our Technical Officers are there to teach and help you at every stage. We also run occasional socials for those who want to take a break from the tech side of things! 
 
Sophie: We run technical events that aim to teach people about cyber security and ethical hacking in a fun and safe environment. These events include workshops, talks, demonstrations, competitions and more! We aim for all of our technical events to be suitable for all skill levels so there’s something for everyone. We also run social events from time to time to allow our members to get to know each other and make new friends. 

What do you want to do when you finish university? 

Eddie: I’m interested in the security of embedded systems, things like smart appliances, industrial control systems, network equipment, entertainment devices and many other devices that aren’t just general-purpose computers. I could see myself working in something relating to IoT device security, perhaps. 
 
Sophie: I don’t have anything specific in mind just yet, but I definitely want to work somewhere within the field of cyber security as that’s the area of computer science that I’m most interested in. 

What makes your society different from something like NUCATS? 

Eddie: At least in my opinion, CyberSoc runs mostly technical events with occasional socials, whereas at NUCATS it’s probably more the other way around. NUCATS is the general computer science and tech society. While we at CyberSoc do focus mostly on cyber security in our tech events, there’s often overlap with general computer science and programming since we teach everything from the absolute basics with no prior tech or programming experience required. 

If you’re mainly looking for socials in a society then you might be best suited to NUCATS, whereas if you’re keener to explore the tech side of things then CyberSoc is probably the society for you! That being said, there’s no reason you can’t join both – in fact, we do share a lot of members and occasionally run joint tech or social events together. Neither one is objectively better than the other, so it just depends on what you enjoy! I’d recommend anyone thinking of joining either society to check out both our Instagram pages (@newcastlecybersoc and @nucats_) to see what kind of events we’ve each run in the past. 
 
Sophie: NUCATS is more about general computer science and technology, whereas we are specifically focused on cyber security and ethical hacking. In practice, NUCATS tends to be more of a social society for computer science students, whereas we tend to attract members from a wider range of courses who are interested in cyber security and want the opportunity to learn and gain hands-on experience in the field. There is some cross-over between us and NUCATS and we do sometimes work with them and run joint events, but in general, we tend to fall more on the technical side of things whereas they are more on the social side.  

Do you have any Corporate Sponsors, and if so, what do they help you do? 

Eddie: We do! Our corporate sponsors vary from semester to semester, but they always have great opportunities for our members like industrial placement schemes, graduate schemes, careers events and mentoring opportunities to name just a few. We’re always careful to ensure our sponsors are relevant to our members’ needs and interests so that there’s always something great to engage with! 

Membership to CyberSoc is only £5 per year, but it’s our additional funding from sources like sponsors who really help us provide so much more value than that to every member. Our society wouldn’t be what it is today without having the funding for the tools and equipment at many of our workshops, so it’s something we really value. 
 
You can find specific details of our current sponsor(s) and the opportunities they’re currently offering on our Instagram page (@newcastlecybersoc). 

How do you think CyberSoc will help you get a job? 

Sophie: Being on the CyberSoc committee has allowed me to improve my employability skills such as teamwork, communication, and leadership. Furthermore, it gives me the opportunity to attend (as well as help at) events on a wide range of cybersecurity topics which helps me to gain a broad understanding of the field. 

Eddie: In terms of running the events, my public speaking skills have really improved. When I first started, I was really nervous any time I had to speak in front of everyone, basically just sticking to a pre-written script. But now it comes naturally to me! 

Committee work has also been a great experience for me in project and time management. Ideally, we usually have around 4-6 weeks between the idea for an event and the day it runs, so we’re always working to a deadline and re-evaluating different parts of the event if they become unreasonable to complete in time. Since we’re all students, this is especially important as we’ve got to plan around our studies too. There are many different elements that go into planning an event and delays (often beyond our control) are to be expected – it’s down to us to handle these without having to reschedule or cancel events wherever possible.  

What three things do you think your society brings to help improve employability? 

Sophie: Our society allows members to learn about a wide range of cybersecurity topics, which they may not have otherwise encountered. Many of our events provide the opportunity for members to try out various ethical hacking techniques in a safe environment, allowing them to gain hands-on experience with tools and methods that are used in industry. Furthermore, we have also run events that allow members to create their own artefacts that could be used in a programming portfolio. For example, our OWASP (Open Web Application Security Project) top 10 hackathon taster event gave members the opportunity to find and fix security issues within a website that we created. We then gave participants detailed feedback on their submissions, as well as presented them with a certificate to show their achievements.  

Eddie: We think in the 21st century, cyber security awareness is a critical skill to have in any role, but especially those within large organisations or national infrastructure.  

For the computing students among us, it’s great to know about security risks, attacks, and defences to help protect the software you’re developing. CyberSoc allows you to work with these fundamentals even if you aren’t on a security module or degree specialism, as we feel it’s important that all developers understand the basics of cybersecurity. 

For those not on computer science degrees we think participating in CyberSoc events still greatly improves employability, as these days detailed knowledge of cyber risks and defences can be critical in any role in any industry. They say humans are the least secure part of any system, so it’s no good for the developers to secure their applications if the end users can be phished or use insecure passwords! Therefore, participating in CyberSoc events can help anyone stand out to employers. 

Have you got any events coming up? 

Eddie: We do! On Tuesday the 22nd of November we’re running an “Introduction to Cyber Security Tools and Concepts” workshop, and the Tuesday after on the 29th we’ll be hosting a reverse engineering/buffer overflow workshop (both beginner-friendly!). At the time of writing, we’re yet to have the exact times and venues of these events confirmed, but they’ll likely be from around 6:30 PM in a computer lab in the Urban Sciences Building, as is the case with most of our tech events if they’re running in person. Additionally, some of our events are run online so there’s something for everyone. 
 
We have even more events planned that we’ve yet to announce, so be sure to take a look at our Instagram page (@newcastlecybersoc) or the events tab on our Discord server (cybersoc.org.uk/discord) to learn more!