Maximizing Your Potential in Tech Interviews: The Three Cs to Success

Let's talk about tech interviews and how to maximize your potential for success. Now we'll have to start by addressing the elephant in the room, which is layoffs.

And I've kind of followed the Crunchbase Tech Tracker this year and last year to kind of see how many jobs and what companies have been affected. And according to this, more than 191,000 workers at US-based tech companies were laid off in mass job cuts in 2023. This is by far kind of the scariest time that I've ever seen in my 10-plus year career, with layoffs happening almost every other day. Now interestingly, you can get into some of these numbers and kind of see just how many were cut in different years. 2023, again, 191,000. 2024, already 50, almost 53,000. And this includes some major companies like Amazon and Alphabet and Microsoft and Meta, et cetera.

And even more personally, there's a ton of layoffs that have happened at companies that I have personal connections with. So I have friends at each of these companies that have been affected by layoffs just this year. And the most frustrating thing about this or one of the most difficult things about this is that means there's that many more people now applying for the jobs that are available. So what this looks like is if you're applying for a job now, you're having to compete with people that have been laid off from some of the top tech companies in the world. And so we start to see stories like this. We see people applying for 50, 100, 200 jobs. And just in case this isn't big enough for you to see, this person applied for 200 jobs and the past five weeks got 10 responses and only had three phone interviews. And the reality is when you apply for jobs, often what you hear is nothing. You hear silence. And honestly, that is incredibly exhausting. It's defeating. It has you asking questions like, why should I even keep applying if I'm not hearing anything back? Are there in are there even any jobs left for me to potentially get an interview for? And how am I going to compete with all these people that are also competing for the same jobs? And so a key takeaway is there's not many opportunities out there or there's not as many as there used to be. So when you get that chance, you have to absolutely make the most of it. And how do you get the most out of your opportunities? What starts with a plan? And that's what I want to walk you through today, a plan to optimize and maximize your potential for success in tech interviews.

So my name is James Kuquick. I am a developer, speaker and teacher, and I've done some combination of these things professionally for about 10 years. My wife and I have been married for almost nine years.

About a year ago, we welcomed our daughter into the world. And as of a few days or a couple of weeks ago, we now have a one year old, which has really changed the way that we work or try to work at home. And so when I think about having now a one year old and continuing to raise our daughter, I think about stability in our careers. And it had me reflecting on, again, how to have the most potential success in interviews.

Like any good talk that I do, I started by asking on Twitter what people's thoughts were. And I asked simply, what's the number one thing that had an impact on helping you get your last job? And I said, I'll start. It's content. I've been a content creator for almost 10 years, the majority of my career, and I do that full time for myself, which I'm really privileged to do.

So throughout this talk, we're going to talk about the three C's to interview success. And this is going to be connections. This is confidence and this is communication. Now, one of the things I also like to bring up is a lot of people watch talks like this, so they get feedback from people and they hear feedback, but they don't act on it. So my request to you is as you hear tangible things that can make a difference for you or tangible action plans that you can take in your potential search for your next job, whenever that may be, whether it's now or in the near future, please make sure to actually act on these things.

Let's start by talking about connections. Now, I took a class in college for engineering management and a quote stuck with me that I will always remember, and the quote is Relationship management is the key to success. And that has certainly played true in my career.

Now, I do want to caveat one thing. This is not about solving the technical interviews. This is not about whiteboarding or live coding problems. This is about interviews in tech. Anything specific to live coding is going to be a whole different topic, something we're not going to cover in this talk.

I have a couple of specific takeaways that most people won't do, but I swear, if you do these things, they will have a significant impact in your potential for getting that next job.

Now, after going from Microsoft and doing software engineering at FedEx, I was ready to get back into creating content and developer evangelism or advocacy. And so I applied for a job at Auth0. Now, at this point, I had already been creating content and had some friends in the community that were other content creators and were connected to the hiring manager at Auth0. So by the time I applied, my then manager, hiring manager was able to ask a few different people about me and then vouch for my credibility, what I had given to the community, my abilities as a content creator, etc. So I like to think that my connections played a significant part in that role as well.

While I was at Auth0, I had a director who I really enjoyed, who left for a company called PlanetScale, and I ended up following that person and another person from my team to PlanetScale. And by the time I did that, I didn't really have to go through an interview process because I had that relationship with my former manager. It kind of spoke for itself. And I didn't really have a traditional interview.

Now, I'll come back to the interview details of that in a little bit, but just know I did not get that job either. I was actually rejected and interviewing with a bunch of different people and we were sent back to our hotel in a limousine, which is a really weird mix.

So I didn't get that job, but my recruiter liked me enough and knew that I would be a good fit for Microsoft. So that person advocated for me for a third interview, which is for a technical evangelist role. And that is where I found my first role, fresh out of college, working for one of the top tech companies in the world in an amazing job that I knew nothing about. But I had that one person, that one connection that could advocate for me to get me to that process.

Now, after going from Microsoft and doing software engineering at FedEx, I was ready to get back into creating content and developer evangelism or advocacy. And so I applied for a job at Auth0. Now, at this point, I had already been creating content and had some friends in the community that were other content creators and were connected to the hiring manager at Auth0. So by the time I applied, my then manager, hiring manager was able to ask a few different people about me and then vouch for my credibility, what I had given to the community, my abilities as a content creator, etc. So I like to think that my connections played a significant part in that role as well.

Now, while I was at Auth0, I had a director who I really enjoyed, who left for a company called PlanetScale, and I ended up following that person and another person from my team to PlanetScale. And by the time I did that, I didn't really have to go through an interview process because I had that relationship with my former manager. It kind of spoke for itself. And I didn't really have a traditional interview. I just had a conversation where they were more selling me on joining PlanetScale. So in all three of these examples for finding jobs in my career, they came from connections that I've had.

And I know what you're thinking. Wow, this person isn't capable of getting a job on their own without connections. And yeah, that may be true. Or maybe it's proof to the fact that connections actually make a difference. And I think there's one important takeaway from this is that applying blindly just doesn't work anymore. Just sending in a resume on LinkedIn just doesn't work. It's not enough.

And I saw this example from many people in the tweets. Roberta Wool's got a recommendation from those he had worked with before. Raphael was friends with a hiring manager. One person sent a single email to one of my previous employers, again, an existing connection. Alex's track record and Andres had a referral again, going back to the connections and the respect that they had earned with the people that they knew. And that's huge.

Now, I want to tell you another quick story about my time at PlanetScale. When I was there, I got a random invite to meet with the CEO for a 15 minute conversation. And I messaged him the night before the day of, hey, anything I need to prepare? And I showed up to this meeting and H.R. was there and they said, you no longer work at PlanetScale. I was let go in a 15 minute. Actually, it was more like five Zoom meeting where the CEO popped in for all of two minutes, said, you no longer work here and left. That's pretty devastating. And it's honestly pretty representative of what a lot of us are going through right now or have gone through in the last six months or year, unfortunately.

But fortunately for me, I had a lot to lean on. And what I did was post on Twitter to say, hey, I've just been let go. I don't know what's next for me, but if you're hiring and these types of roles, please reach out to me. And I was very fortunate to be in a position where my inbox was flooded with opportunities. Hey, we have this role. Hey, we'd love for you to come work with us. Hey, blah, blah, blah. And these types of messages didn't seem like I would have to go through a traditional interview process. It seemed like I was already somewhat vetted. And the reason that's the case and the major benefit that I had and the thing that I had to fall back on at that point was my brand. And what I've learned about my brand or brands in general, but specific to me, my brand is the most valuable asset I will ever own. It has led to opportunities, more opportunities than I ever could have imagined, and hopefully will continue to do so.

And thinking about brand, I think a lot about a very stereotypical quote, it's not about what you know, it's about who you know. And that is true. But I also came across a slightly different variation of this quote, which reads, it's not what you know or who you know, but who knows you? And I think about that from a brand perspective. My brand is how people know me. It's who knows me. It's the trust that people have and the things that I've built and the community and the value that I've provided back to the community. So what happens is when I go to a conference, when I go to event, I know people or to put it the other way, people know me. And that's a huge benefit for me and my career. It makes me think back to college and especially freshman year of college. I had one of my friends, Reggie, who made it his mission to meet everyone on campus that he absolutely could.

He would go and introduce himself to everyone he came across to the point where we showed up to an intramural basketball game. We showed up to a frat party. He always knew someone at those events. And more importantly, there was always someone at those events that knew him. And I think about that as his brand. And I think about that from the people who know you and how much impact that can have.

Now, I'm talking about a brand that I personally have been building over the course of 10 years. So the obvious question, if you're not at that point is how do you get started? And here's a couple of tangible things that you can get started doing right now that can have a significant impact on raising awareness for who you are and what you do.

The first thing is to have coffee chats. Now, coffee chats are super easy to do. You reach out to someone, you say, hey, I'd love to know more about the job that you do, the company you work at or whatever the topic is. Would you be interested in joining me for 15 minutes? Now, conveniently, most people are excited to talk about themselves and they're flattered. And what you can do with this is just meet random people. That's a benefit. But you can also do this at companies that you may be applying to so that by the time you apply, you can send them a message to say, hey, the conversation we had where you told me about working at X company and this job made me so excited I applied for this role. Now, it's a small connection, but it is a connection of someone that knows who you are and your excitement for the job.

The other thing is attending events, whether it's virtual or being in person, the networking opportunities, the learning opportunities and the ability for you to just be a part of the conversation that's happening in person or virtual is astronomically important. And it's a huge reason that I continue to do events like this and events in person.

Last but not least, spend time on social media. As up and down, as good and bad as social media can be, it is absolutely a benefit in your career. But the big takeaway is to never apply without a connection, build some sort of connection with every opportunity that you apply for. And one of the things that played a huge part of my career is content creation. Content creation is first round interviewing at scale. If you want to know that I know some JavaScript, go look at a video. If you want to know that I know how to communicate a technical topic, go look at a video. My content speaks for itself. Content helped me secure two jobs.

It's like if you were posting videos about swinging a bat in baseball or shooting threes in basketball, someone may see you and they can have validity in knowing that you can do that task. Now, several other people contributed with content answers. Content helped me secure two jobs. YouTube got me a job at Microsoft, well optimized website and blog posts, content and community engagement. And then Vincent from AppRight also said, even if you're not in DevRel, make content. It's more interesting than a resume and I think more validating. Now, Richard said connections and building in public. Mel said a well optimized website and blog posts. I realize I have that one twice. Engagement online, networking a person. And then Taylor and Shanday reiterated content and relationships. Whatever it is that you do or whatever content that you may create, make sure that it's your own. My friend Ellie has turned her coffee chats and other things into live streams. Our friend Joshua Barrios has turned his unemployment journey into a journey in public. Similarly, my friend Joe Privet decided to share his job hunting when he was doing this a few months ago. Whatever it is, find out what your take is and start sharing today. Specifically, pick a topic, pick a platform and post once a day for 30 days. You'll see dramatic increase in your ability to communicate and the awareness that people have of what you do.

Now, next up is confidence, and it may shock you to know that every time I step on stage or do a talk, I get nervous every single time. I've been doing this professionally for over 10 years and every single time I still get nervous. But I have enough experience. No, I'm going to make it through it and I'm going to really settle in in the first few seconds.

So the big thing I want you to think about, though, is if you show up like this with a lot of self-doubt is if you don't believe in yourself, why should I? Why would I believe in you if you don't? And things to keep an eye out for is how you talk about yourself, because how you talk about yourself changes how you perceive yourself. So you should avoid using phrases like, I just, I barely, or, oh, it was easy. It wasn't a big deal. You're already underselling yourself. So if you show up and talk about yourself in this way, I'm not going to believe in you. And I think most people will react and say, I'm not naturally confident, I'm more naturally this person. I'm not naturally confident. But the thing you need to know is that confidence is a practice skill and practice or confidence comes with preparation.

So here's a couple of specific things you can do to build your confidence. One is to take notes, write it down. Anytime you get a positive piece of feedback, you get a positive message on Twitter, you get a positive piece of feedback from a manager, or you create a tweet and it goes, well, jot that down, put it in a folder that you can refer back to, to remember the good things that you've done because over time, it's really hard to keep up with those. Another piece of advice is to learn to say no. And specifically in interviews, I think it's natural for us to worry or be scared to say, no, I don't know a certain thing. But if you have the confidence to say, no, I don't know that thing that you're asking about, but I do have this knowledge in a similar field that I can draw parallels to. That tells a very strong story because the biggest mistake you can make in interviewing with me is telling me, you know, something and explain it incorrectly versus just saying, you don't know it to begin with. The other thing that leads to confidence is the fact that you get to control the conversation. Remember, you get to control what the answers are that you give, which means you get to navigate the conversation to things that you feel most comfortable with. And those things should be things that you are excited about, things that you can talk about regardless of the situation.

A lot of people comment that they don't think they could do public speaking, but then you talk to them and they love to talk about their favorite TV show or their favorite framework or something. In an interview scenario, you should be putting yourself in a situation to talk about those things that get you excited. And that's where passion, I think, plays into this. Now, there's some debate about whether passion is required for a job. But from my perspective, I'm absolutely going to hire someone that's passionate versus someone that doesn't seem to care. I think that's important and it will help show up and improve your confidence if you can talk about things that you're passionate about.

Now, the last section is about communication. And I told you I'd mention the interview at Microsoft where I was asked to say, where do I see myself in five years? And I talked about showing up to a barbershop and the conversations and having connections. And I realized looking back at that, that was a terrible answer for a technical job that I was applying for.

So although I gave a wrong answer for one job, I gave kind of the right answer for another. And I think the important thing is in this case is to know who you are, know what you're about and then have a plan of how to communicate that. And I'm going to make this really easy to you.

Here is a cheat sheet of things that you should be well versed in before going into an interview. One is a tagline. What is it specific about you that's different than everybody else? For me, it's that I'm a teacher. I'm a teacher at heart. So if you bring me on your team, I'm going to make your team better because I'm a teacher at heart. That's very personal to me. It inspires all the content that I do. What is your tagline? What is your why? What is your separator from everyone else? Another thing you should have is three projects that you've worked on that you can talk about in depth, in detail, to answer almost any question that you get asked. Then lastly, we have three soft skills and three hard skills that you can bring to the table that you want to focus on. And remember, these are subject to change based on the role. If you're applying for a REACT job, REACT as a hard skill is very important. If you're applying for a VUE job, VUE as a hard skill is very important.

Now, this may seem controversial, but it's actually something I believe in more and more. It's the belief that soft skills are even more important than hard skills. Now, the reality is hard skills are a requirement for the job, but those are the things that are going to be more or less standard that other candidates are going to have as well. So I firmly believe that soft skills are the differentiator between people for technical interviews because everyone is going to have a base level of hard technical knowledge.

Interestingly, only one answer related to hard skills. When I talked about how or asked on Twitter how people got their last job, and it was this one about being a god at programming. It's not something I would advocate for because I think that's setting yourself up for failure. But only one person really referenced their technical skills and more people focused on content, communication, etc. So as we recap, the three C's to interview success. Leverage your connections because applying blindly just doesn't work anymore. Show up with confidence because if you don't believe in yourself, I won't and they won't either. And focus on communicating the right things based on the job and use that cheat sheet to prepare those details leading into it. So you make sure that you focus on the right thing. And by using connections, confidence and communication, you can drastically change your level of success and tech interviews.

Thank you.