Mix It Up Interviewing

Structuring the Conversation

Mix It Up group conversations are 30 minutes long and will be led by a Mod 4 (or sometimes Mod 3) student. Here is a suggested structure for your group to follow when meeting.

Introductions (2-5 mins)

You’re in a mixed group of people across modules and programs. Start by getting to know each other and make space for everyone to share:

  • Names
  • Pronouns
  • Program
  • Cohort
  • How confident you feel about interviewing on a scale of 1-5

Mod 4 Student Leader(s) Share Their Experiences (8-10 mins)

The student lead chooses 1-2 of the following questions to respond to and share their experiences with the group:

  • What has been helpful for you when working on your interviewing skills? OR if you’ve had an interview already, what went well for you? This can be about either behavioral interviewing, technical interviewing, or both
  • What is challenging for you when it comes to interviewing? How are you working to overcome those challenges?
  • What advice do you have for others at Turing when it comes to interview prep?

Group Discussion: Creating Interview Prep Documents & Practicing (15 mins)

There are several components of interviewing that could be helpful to discuss as a group today. From the following topics, choose 1 as a group and try out the activities listed below:

  1. Talk about it. Build awareness of your interview skills:
  • How are you already actively working on interview skills at Turing?
  • When you don’t know how to answer a technical question in an interview, what can you do?
  • What are some effective ways to talk about projects at Turing in interviews?
  • What do you think are the 3 most important things an employer would want to know about a Turing graduate? How should you make sure to communicate that in an interview?
  1. Prep for it. Spend 10 minutes building an interview prep document with all the stories you can share in an interview using the following prompts and then share with each other your takeaways from this prep work.
  • Why do you want to be a software developer? How would you answer this question?
  • Pick a project and write about it with the STAR method (What was the situation/scenario of the project? What was the task/target of the project? What action steps did you take? What were the results?)
  • What is a recent challenge you had to work through? What steps did you take?
  • Write about a time you failed and what you learned from that experience
  • Write about how you’ve approached working with a team using a specific example
  • How do you stay organized and meet deadlines?
  1. Practice. Using the interview questions in the bottom of this page, take turns asking each other interview questions and giving responses. Provide feedback for each other that is specific, actionable, and kind.

Close Out & Next Steps (5 mins)

Take time to wrap up any conversation threads! Decide how you’d like to continue the conversation (if you want) with each other beyond today’s discussion. Add each other on LinkedIn.