The One Where I Bombed an Interview
And It wasn’t the end of the world
The Build Up
I was interviewing for a UX Developer (what) role that a friend of mine from coding bootcamp recommended me for. I didn’t hear anything regarding the job for three weeks and figured that was that. Over the weekend a recruiter called me but didn’t specify why she was calling or how she got my name. When we finally connected I learned it was for the UX Developer role from before. So I spoke to recruiter #1 (Monday) who passed me on to recruiter #2 (Tuesday) who after a 4 minute phone screen, approved me to interview with the hiring manager (Wednesday).
The Role
The role was a UX developer position, meaning you gather requirements, design the web application and then get to code the front-end. Basically complete the design process and development process on your own. The proficiencies that this role required included: HTML, CSS, JavaScript, React, Redux, Node.js, Express, MongoDB, GraphQL, AdobeXD, Sketch, etc. I am sure I am forgetting some of the required skills and technologies. But it was overwhelming to say the least.
The Interview
Initially I was told it would be a 1.5 hour interview and had it rescheduled to a 3 hour time period. Talk about sweaty palms. I didn’t think I had 3 hours worth of knowledge to talk about as far as design and development went. I certainly couldn’t talk about React for that long, what was I getting myself in to??
I showed up for the interview, and made it through the first 1.25 hours without bombing, but as soon as we got to the development process I was done for. I spent so much time (mind you, I had 26 hours to prepare for this interview) cramming design principles and processes into my brain that I neglected to seriously study anything related to React and programming. Boy oh boy was that a mistake! Literally, I blanked on writing a JSON structure. I couldn’t even describe what a higher order component was. I struggled with state. When asked about props I sputtered “those are properties.” Jeez, you’d think I’d never hit npm start or create-react-app in my life. That’s what it felt like. In the moment, I never would have believed that I had React code live in production and had been been paid thousands of dollars over the past few months to produce code.
Thankfully, I cannot say enough wonderful things about my interviewer who was the kindest, most patient interviewer I have ever had. That man should give a class on how to interview people. After I blundered through React, he basically said, we both know your React skills aren’t up to par, so how can you convince me they will be when it comes time to produce code in React? He was literally dangling the keys to the castle in front of me, hoping I could give just a little bit.
And you know, I didn’t have a good answer, and I didn’t even want to try and give him any fluffy BS. I realized then that I just did not want to be a developer and couldn’t convince myself otherwise. The rest of the role interested me, doing research, creating personas and user stories, wire framing, but coding was not where I saw myself. I left the interview and couldn’t get back to my car fast enough.
The End Result
I was mortified. I wanted to hide under a rock, I dreaded hearing from the recruiters and having to tell them it went poorly. To my surprise, the interviewer actually liked me and didn’t know why I was so nervous. He said I aced the first half of the interview and then I was so nervous he couldn’t get a grasp on my actual development skills and knowledge. He looked at my Github and knew I wasn’t completely inept. The company asked me to come back for a do-over. As someone currently unemployed, it took a lot for me to say no and decline the request. Ultimately, I knew the role wasn’t for me and that I wouldn’t enjoy it long term.
But, I’m still alive, and while it sucked 1000% in the moment and for about an hour afterwords, I now have a good story of a time I failed at something and how I learned from it, and I know more than ever the things that I want to do with my career.
TL;DR a terrible interview won’t spell your long-term doom.
