My Interview Preparation Journey
To give a little background of myself, I am doing my Bachelors of Engineering in Computer Science from Thapar Institute of Engineering and Technology, graduating in 2022. I am currently a Technology Analyst Spring Intern at Morgan Stanley and I’m soon going to join Microsoft as a Software Engineer. I also did a three weeks apprenticeship with Microsoft as an Engage Mentee 2021. I have offers from American Express, UnitedHealth Group, Morgan Stanley, Microsoft and Arcesium.
My journey into Coding
I started off with my coding journey during the lockdown when Covid hit the world globally. Before that, I was only aware with the basic concepts of C/C++ taught in my college for the exams. During lockdown, I became active on LinkedIn and started seeing daily a hundred of selection posts of people getting into good companies. Honestly, this was my greatest source of motivation to get started with the coding which later helped me discover my interest and passion for programming.
To begin, I started doing problem solving on HackerRank and within a span of two months, I earned gold badges in problem solving as well as CPP on HackerRank. I started feeling comfortable with programming and problem solving. Soon, the comfortability transitioned into interest and then to passion. I could clearly see myself aspiring to make a career in Software Engineering out of passion and love for coding.
My Interview Preparation journey
Now, having discovered my passion for coding, I needed to make a roadmap to start my journey of interview preparation. I switched to GeeksforGeeks and LeetCode for problem solving.
Remember, when you are targetting any coding interview, Data Structures and Algorithms play the major role along with the computer science fundamentals and some development skills.
I started solving quesions from Love Babbar’s 450 DSA Sheet and Striver SDE Sheet which made my DSA concepts stronger. You can also opt for Arsh Goyal’s DSA Sheet. Gradually, I became quite good in problem solving and performed well in some coding contests held on LeetCode. Meanwhile, attempting a lot of coding assessments and interviews of different companies helped me get an idea about the kind of questions being asked by the companies in their tests and interviews. I could see myself having a strong command on Data Structures and Algorithms and performing well in the company tests and interviews. Alongside, I kept on preparing for my CS fundamentals as well as projects. Projects depict your actual development skills which are going to be used once you join a company. Prepare all popular behavioral questions in advance and try to follow STAR format showing examples of mentorship and leadership. Having a good resume and an attractive LinkedIn profile is equally important as these help in your application process getting started.
At last, I would like to give some final words from my own experience:
Never get disheartened by your rejections! Rejections always take you a step forward from where you previously were. They leave you with an enriching experience, help you know your areas of improvement and perform better next time. As always said, “sometimes you win, sometimes you learn.”
I have also shared a link to my video on GeeksforGeeks Youtube Channel where I have shared my preparation journey and some tips and tricks for the aspiring students to get started. Hope it helps! Happy learning ❤️
