Podcast appearances and mentions of gayle laakmann mcdowell

Anyone who is involved in the technical hiring process, whether as a hiring manager or candidate, has probably heard of Gayle Laakmann McDowell. She's the author of Cracking the *interview books (Cracking the Coding Interview, Cracking the PM Interview, and Cracking the Tech Career). In this episode, she talks about the rise of interview prep companies, advice for candidates who are out of practice and why there is no perfect interview process.

How can we leverage product design exercises in our hiring process? Our guest is Artiom Dashinsky, author of Solving Product Design Exercises and founder of Swag Fair. You'll learn how to prepare for interviews as a designer, how to evaluate designers as a manager, tips for building your design portfolio, and more.Download the MP3 audio file: right-click here and choose Save As.Podcast feed: subscribe to https://feeds.simplecast.com/4MvgQ73R in your favorite podcast app, and follow us on iTunes, Stitcher, or Google Podcasts.Show NotesSolving Product Design Exercises — Artiom's bookSwag Fair — Artiom's current companyWeWork — Artiom's previous place of workCracking the Coding Interview — book by Gayle Laakmann McDowellCracking the PM Interview — book by Gayle Laakmann McDowell and Jackie BavaroArtiom's websiteFollow Artiom on TwitterToday's SponsorThis show is brought to you by Userlist — the best way for SaaS founders to send onboarding emails, segment your users based on events, and see where your customers get stuck in the product. Start your free trial today at userlist.com.Interested in sponsoring an episode? Learn more here.Leave a ReviewReviews are hugely important because they help new people discover this podcast. If you enjoyed listening to this episode, please leave a review on iTunes. Here's how.

In this episode, I had the fortune to learn from Gayle Laakmann McDowell, the author of multiple top selling books including the "Cracking the PM interview". Listen now to hear the author herself talk about best practices, career tips, and interview breakdowns.

Show Notes:Introductions: 00:00-5:51Job Hunting Pet Peevs and Fears about Job Hunting Today: 5:51- 14:21Self Evaluation: 14:21- 18:24Assessing if a Job is Right for You and Working with Recruiters: 18:27- 37:47Negotiating Salary: 37:41-42:00Networking: 42:30-52:00Prepping for the Interview and Day-Of Rituals: 52:11- 1:05-26The Actual Interview: 1:05:26-1:14:46Post-Interview and Rejection: 1:14:51- 1:20:03Conclusion: 1:20:41-EndResources:Cracking the Coding Interview : 189 Programming Questions and Solutions by Gayle Laakmann McDowell

Navindra Kewal is an explorer of all things digital and physical. We both are from the same graduating class at CUNY - City College and he's a former entrepreneur, co-founding a hardware startup called Ekick Technologies which aimed to keep skateboarders safer at night. Currently, he's a Product Management Fellow at the Mayor's Office of Economic Opportunity. His current project under the Mayor's Office of Economic Opportunity is https://working.nyc.gov/. When he's not doing that, he's either hiking or working as a Product Manager at Lens: Snap & Share a photo-taking app for which he is a co-founder. In this episode we talked about… 1. Why did you get into product management and product marketing? 2. What's one of the main challenges of working in your field? Why would developing products for the public sector be a difficult endeavor? 3. What is product-market fit and how does a business know if they have achieved it? What metrics and tools do you use to measure this? 4. What are the core skills you currently have that you consider to be your main strengths? How would you relearn them in a faster way—knowing what you know now? 5. What's one prediction you have about 2021 that you think no one else cares about but—they should? And more! Connect with Navindra via LinkedIn or his website. The three product management books he mentioned: Inspired: How To Create Products Customers Love by Marty Cagan How the World's Hottest Innovation Factory Builds Bold Ideas That Make It to Market How to Kill a Unicorn by Mark Payne Cracking the PM Interview: How to Land a Product Manager Job in Technology (Cracking the Interview & Career) by Gayle Laakmann McDowell and Jackie Bavaro --- This episode is sponsored by · Anchor: The easiest way to make a podcast. https://anchor.fm/app --- Send in a voice message: https://anchor.fm/kennysoto/message Support this podcast: https://anchor.fm/kennysoto/support

#Engineering is the career up for discussion on today's podcast! Tune in to discuss the journey of an #Amazon & #Audible Director. Learn about working at Amazon, working at Audible, a career in Quality Assurance Engineering, and much more only on #TheCareerShow. Discover the Journey of a QA Engineer and find your QA Engineering passion by listening to the best Engineering Podcast on YouTube! Tanya started off her journey at leading investment banks, i.e, UBS & Morgan Stanley as an automation engineer. She currently is a Senior Director of Quality Assurance at Audible, an Amazon company and is helping to build a new Quality Assurance team to support innovative product development at scale. She is also the founder of the DevOps – Quality Assurance New Jersey Meetup group, a co-lead of Women in Tech employee resource group at Audible and an international speaker on the topics of Quality and DevOps. TANYA's BOOK RECOMMENDATIONS : 1. “The Phoenix Project” by Gene Kim - AUDIBLE - https://amzn.to/3gkY16j OR Hard Cover - https://amzn.to/2L60sxR 2. "How to Land that Engineering Job at Audible" - https://bit.ly/2InkEdB 3. “Cracking the Coding Interview” by Gayle Laakmann McDowell - https://amzn.to/3gqxGUu 4. “Lessons Learned in Software Testing” by Cem Kaner, James Bach & Bret Pettichord - https://amzn.to/3oxGI4C TANYA's LINKEDIN: https://www.linkedin.com/in/tanyakravtsov/ Super excited to introduce our newest podcast section: GOT CAREER QUESTIONS in partnership with SIZIGI, which will give students an opportunity to get their questions answered by experts! Sizigi is a professional branding platform that allows users to build custom job presentations with their immersive ePortfolio content. Sizigi: The Resume of the New Generation, create your FREE ACCOUNT at joinsizigi.com. Follow us and learn more: https://linktr.ee/Sizigi ------------------------------------- Introduction: (0:00) Role of Technology in Investment Banking: (2:21) QA Engineering in the Tech Industry V/S Finance Industry: (4:10) Customer Obsession at Audible & Amazon: (6:16) What is it like to work at Amazon & Audible?: (9:03) Career Trajectory at Amazon & Audible: (13:08) Biggest Challenge of being a QA Engineer at Amazon & Audible?: (18:26) 'Got Career Questions' in partnership with Sizigi: (22:13) Automation Testing & Manual Test at Amazon & Audible: (22:38) What teams does a QA Engineer work with?: (23:59) Tips to ace an Amazon & Audible interview: (26:15) Book Recommendations for Amazon & Audible interviews: (29:23) How to deal with a fast-paced work environment?: (30:42) Important advice to note!: (32:43) Conclusion: (35:20) ------------------------------------- INSTAGRAM: @the_careershow https://www.instagram.com/the_careershow/ LINKEDIN: @The Career Show https://www.linkedin.com/company/thecareershow --- Send in a voice message: https://anchor.fm/thecareershow/message

Adolfo Neto e Maria Claudia Emer conversaram com Aline Borges, Engenheira de Software (iOS) na UBER. Ela nos contou sobre a experiência de trabalhar num software que é utilizado por milhões de pessoas no mundo O vídeo da gravação do podcast está no canal do Emílias https://youtu.be/167dciWlZ70. Aline indicou uma mulher inspiradora: Liciane Andreatta - Diretora de Engenharia do Nubank https://www.linkedin.com/in/licianeandreatta/ Aline indicou dois livros: Cracking the code interview, de Gayle Laakmann McDowell https://www.amazon.com.br/Cracking-Coding-Interview-Programming-Questions/dp/0984782850/ Faça Acontecer, Sheryl Sandberg https://www.amazon.com.br/Fa%C3%A7a-acontecer-Sheryl-Sandberg/dp/8535922555/ Você pode encontrar a Aline no LinkedIn https://www.linkedin.com/in/alinekborges/ ou pelo email alinekborges@gmail.com. Gostou da Aline? Dois links: Feature flag all things, palestra de Aline no BA: Swiftable https://youtu.be/vVUodmYoFu0 https://swiftable.io/speakers/aline-borges/ iPad Playground with Swift Code Interaction (app da Aline) https://github.com/alinekborges/DancingFractals A abertura foi feita por Gabriela Morikawa e o final por Nayara Souza. Siga-nos em nossas redes! Acompanhe o Emílias Podcast e o grupo Emílias em https://linktr.ee/emilias

Kerry is our UX friend from Atlanta, Georgia. In this episode he will be sharing his UX interview tips, how to get a job as a product/UX designer, and some mental health recommendations while interviewing! Links to resources Kerry has mentioned: 1. AJ&Smart Youtube channel: https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCeB_OpLspKJGiKv1CYkWFFw 2. Fabricio Teixeira Medium page: https://fabriciot.medium.com/ and his UX starting guide: https://start.uxdesign.cc/ 3. Kerry's LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/km1992/ 4. Cracking the PM interview (a book by Gayle Laakmann McDowell) 5. Lean UX: Designing Great Products with Agile Teams (a book by Jeff Gothelf and Josh Seiden)

Shalini Pasupuleti shares her stories of transition from Biotechnology to becoming a Technical Product Manager at Ola and Walmart Labs. She talks about how her experiments—some natural and some forced—made her find the right answers to the deepest questions she had as a product manager. You can reach out to Shalini Pasupuleti on LinkedIn. *** Topics: 1. Transitioning from Biotechnology to Technical Product Management 2. Product management experiences in Ola & Walmart Labs (based on her personal experiences) 3. Critical skills to navigate as a successful product manager 4. Customer insights and data-driven product management in Ola 5. Women in product management 6. Interview tips and resources to help people who are looking to transition to product management 7. Traits that a product manager appreciates in people managers and project/program managers *** Books/Resources: 1. Case in Point - Complete Case Interview Preparation Book by Marc Cosentino 2. Cracking PM Interview - Book by Gayle Laakmann McDowell and Jackie Bavaro 3. Decode and Conquer - Book by Lewis C. Lin 4. UX Hack Challenges *** You can reach out to me on LinkedIn or write an email to womenatlunchtable@gmail.com. I'll be happy to hear from you! *** Please subscribe to this podcast. This podcast is now available on Spotify, Apple Podcasts, Google Podcasts, RadioPublic, Pocket Casts and Breaker. *** Jeevitha Balakrishnan *** --- Support this podcast: https://podcasters.spotify.com/pod/show/jeevitha-balakrishnan/support

mayuko さんをゲストに迎えて、WWDC, 英語、ドキュメンテーション、エンジニアリングキャリア、Imposter Syndrome, Playdate などについて話しました。 Show Notes Washington's Birthday Rebuild: 211: Too Real To Be Funny (mayuko) AltConf LAYERS 2019 次へつなごう— Extending a hand to the next generation of Apple developers try! Swift Tokyo 2016 - Boundaries in Practice Women Who Code Tokyo Explain Like I'm Five How to Kickstart Your Software Engineering Career 世界で闘うプログラミング力を鍛える本 エンジニアのためのマネジメントキャリアパス Knock Down the House Parks and Recreation 外務省: 在外選挙の投票方法 Behind The Curve Playdate. A New Handheld Gaming System mayuko

Panel Joe Eames Brooke Avery Mike Dane Joined by Special guest Sam Julien Sam Julien is a GDE for Angular and Web Technologies, the creator of UpgradingAngularJS.com, and a Content Engineer for Auth0. He’s also one of the organizers of Angular Portland. When he’s not coding or writing, you’ll find Sam camping or hiking like a good Oregonian. Summary Joe Eames leads the panel through an in-depth discussion on boot camps. The panel starts by sharing their experience with boot camps. After discussing the finances that go into attending a boot camp, the panel answers the question, “Are boot camps worth it?”. They then discuss what one might look for in a boot camp and how to vet boot camps to get the best education for the right cost. The episode ends with many motivating tips from the panel about how to ensure success during boot camp. Links https://lambdaschool.com Cracking the Coding Interview: 189 Programming Questions and Solutions 6th Edition by Gayle Laakmann McDowell https://www.careercup.com Picks Joe Eames Lucky Duck Games Chronicles of Crime Brooke Avery https://www.canva.com/ Nintendo Switch Zelda: Breath of the Wild Sam Julien LCR® Left Center Right™ Dice Game Mike Dane https://codesignal.com/

Panel Joe Eames Brooke Avery Mike Dane Joined by Special guest Sam Julien Sam Julien is a GDE for Angular and Web Technologies, the creator of UpgradingAngularJS.com, and a Content Engineer for Auth0. He’s also one of the organizers of Angular Portland. When he’s not coding or writing, you’ll find Sam camping or hiking like a good Oregonian. Summary Joe Eames leads the panel through an in-depth discussion on boot camps. The panel starts by sharing their experience with boot camps. After discussing the finances that go into attending a boot camp, the panel answers the question, “Are boot camps worth it?”. They then discuss what one might look for in a boot camp and how to vet boot camps to get the best education for the right cost. The episode ends with many motivating tips from the panel about how to ensure success during boot camp. Links https://lambdaschool.com Cracking the Coding Interview: 189 Programming Questions and Solutions 6th Edition by Gayle Laakmann McDowell https://www.careercup.com Picks Joe Eames Lucky Duck Games Chronicles of Crime Brooke Avery https://www.canva.com/ Nintendo Switch Zelda: Breath of the Wild Sam Julien LCR® Left Center Right™ Dice Game Mike Dane https://codesignal.com/

Are you trying to get a jump-start on your tech career while you're still in school? Have you found that perfect internship - or job - but you're not sure how to approach it? If so, this is the resource for you. Michael discusses how to craft your résumé, how to prepare for interviews, and much more. Written by Michael Deng: https://twitter.com/themichaeldeng Read by Abbey Rennemeyer: https://twitter.com/abbeyrenn Original article: https://fcc.im/2BCESfo Learn to code for free at: https://www.freecodecamp.org Intro music by Vangough: https://fcc.im/2APOG02 Transcript: Seven semesters ago, I started college with no programming background. The only thing I had was lofty aspirations of working in tech. When recruiting season first rolled around, I applied to a bunch of companies. I got a few callbacks, but that’s it. No follow-ups. No onsite interviews. Nothing. I kept trying. I applied to over 150 companies. I faced dozens of interviews. I failed way more than I succeeded. But that’s all right. Because those failures made my moments of triumph all the more memorable. Along the way, I met helpful mentors and guided ambitious mentees. These people are now working at places like Airbnb, Facebook, Google, SpaceX, and Snap. As for me, I landed an internship at Uber last summer. And I’m on track to accept a full-time job at one of my favorite companies when I graduate. Now that I’m in my final year of school, I want to share everything I’ve learned over the years. This isn’t meant to be the ultimate handbook. It’s only a modest guide born out of my love of helping others reach their goals (and my love of Legos). By the end of this article, you’ll know everything I wish I had known when I first started sending in applications. A few words before we begin… Don’t let your struggle for the perfect job take over your life. School is a time of self-discovery and all-around personal growth. So go out there and meet people who are doing different things. Join diverse student organizations and take part in activities outside your comfort zone. It’s all too easy to associate your self-worth with how prestigious of a job you can get. But remember: there are so many more important things in life than work. My best memories of college aren’t spending weeks on end prepping for interviews or even getting offer phone calls. They’re exploring San Francisco for the first time with my closest friends. They’re playing volleyball with my hilarious teammates. I value these unique experiences I shared with people I love much more than any job. To paraphrase my favorite quote by Twitter and Medium founder Ev Williams: “Failure of your [work] is not failure in life. Failure in your relationships is.” Don’t lose sight of what’s important. It’s also no coincidence that everyone I know with a strong support system eventually found success. When you fall into a slump — and all of us do — you need your friends to be there for you. I would never have made it through my first year without amazing friends who kept me afloat. Now, let’s get started. You pumped? I’m pumped! Building fundamentals Before we get to the good stuff, you need to build solid fundamentals. Seems obvious? Absolutely. But this is the hardest step of this guide, so listen up. Now, this guide is designed for college students, so if you’re in high school, scram! Just kidding. In fact, I admire your initiative. When I was in high school, I didn’t have the faintest idea what I wanted to do. Leading up to college, your top priority should be solidifying your math skills. Computer science relies heavily on mathematic concepts like probability, logic, and number theory. Without math, you’re not going to get far in hard weeder classes and technical interviews. If you’re already proficient in math, keep reading. Most of this guide is just as applicable to you as it is to college students. Skip to the online classes section below and progress through the rest of this guide. Landing an internship as a high schooler is challenging, but certainly not impossible. OK. Back to college students. Building fundamentals starts with your intro programming classes. Pay attention and master the basics. A popular but misguided notion is “GPA doesn’t matter.” Although it’s true that most companies won’t scrutinize your GPA, any gaps in your fundamental knowledge will come back to bite you later. By getting a decent GPA, you’re also most likely getting a grasp of the basics. Your classes will cover a lot of basic knowledge, but they’ll barely scratch the surface of modern technology. Go explore interesting topics around the core concepts taught in class. This is how you gain a breadth of knowledge and come up with future project ideas. If you’re not studying computer science, don’t worry. I have friends who changed their minds and started CS their Junior year. They still graduated on time with great job offers, so you’re not too late at all. This said, you will need to make sacrifices and take extra classes every semester. If you’re not able to take CS classes in college, there are plenty of awesome online resources to help you out. Two of the best online intro courses are Harvard CS50x on edX and CS101 on Udacity. After this intro, you need to master data structures and algorithms. I recommend Princeton Algorithms Part 1 and Part 2 on Coursera, or CS61B by UC Berkeley. To make sure you’re on track, reference Google’s Technical Development Guide. Don’t worry if you struggle at first. A few weeks into my first semester, I was completely overwhelmed. I spent days studying concepts that took other students hours to grasp. I thought about giving up every week. “How am I ever going to catch up to those prodigies?” But if you ask me or any of my friends who made it through, we’ll all tell you the same thing: Learning to program isn’t about how talented you are or how early you started coding. It’s about perseverance. Building up your programming intuition takes a long time — much like learning a human language. You won’t see the light at the end of the tunnel for a long time. But trust me. If you take one step at a time, you will eventually get there. Staying motivated is difficult, but there’s a secret. Focus on mastery instead of results. Make it your goal to get better at a skill rather than achieve a certain result. Dr. Heidi Grant Halvorson did a study where she asked two groups of people to solve various problems. The first group was told to score as high as they could. The second group was told to treat the problems as a learning opportunity. The results were surprising. The first group got frustrated, whereas the second group persisted and solved more problems.​ By focusing on mastery, you view obstacles and time pressure as things that will help you grow. In contrast, a result-oriented mindset frames problems as irritating roadblocks impeding your way. What’s more, you’ll see continual progress if you concentrate on mastery. Every time you read a new paragraph or solve a new question, you’re improving your skills. This kind of continuous gratification is incredibly satisfying. So next time you’re studying for class or practicing for interviews, focus on getting better instead of acing the exam or landing the offer. You can read more about this tactic in Edmond Lau’s Quora post. Beyond basic coding skills, you need to know what’s happening in the tech industry. This goes beyond sounding smart during recruiting. By paying attention to the industry, you’ll be the first to discover new opportunities to propel your career forward.​ For online reading, check out TechCrunch, Techmeme, Product Hunt, and Hacker News. If you’re a frequent Twitter user, follow tech news sources. On Medium and Quora, personalize your feeds to get insightful takes on the industry. If you’re into email newsletters, look into Axios Pro Rata, CB Insights, and Mattermark Daily. To do a deep dive on a particular company, use Crunchbase and the company’s blog. You can also learn about the company’s culture from Glassdoor. Finally, don’t forget to actually talk to people. I learned so much about the tech world from casual conversations with friends and classmates. Over time, you’ll read about a lot of interesting companies. Begin compiling a spreadsheet of companies you’re interested in from day 1. When you apply to these companies in the future, use this spreadsheet to track your progress. Once you have the fundamentals down, it’s time to apply your skills. One of the best ways to do that is by… Building projects If you’re like me, you don’t have much experience to begin with, and that’s OK! The first step is populating that empty resume with projects. When I first decided to work on a project, I had decision paralysis for days. “What should I make? What if it’s not original? What if people don’t like it?” Later, I realized it doesn’t really matter what the project is. Learning something and finishing what you start is much more important. But this doesn’t mean you can make whatever you want. If your project is too trivial, you won’t impress any recruiters. If yourq project is too complex, you’ll lose momentum before completing it. Aim to do a project you think you can complete in one to two months. The project should involve data structures, algorithms, and design decisions. And do something you’re interested in so you’ll actually take it all the way to completion. Here’s a compilation of project ideas on Reddit for inspiration. After coming up with an idea, take some time to plan, but don’t take too long. You want to start as soon as possible. Now, you might be wondering “Isn’t it irresponsible to jump in prematurely?” Generally, yes. But personal projects are different from company projects. Personal projects should teach you something new and strengthen your background during recruiting. Unlike company projects, you don’t need to obsess over design and code quality. If you’re feeling stuck at the beginning, write down some code — any code. Building a personal project is like writing, you just start. Don’t worry if it doesn’t make sense. Seeing code in an editor will get your juices flowing. Track your project with version control. If you don’t know what that is, make a Github account and learn how to use Git. You need Github as it’s the primary way you save and display your projects. If you can, make your project live so recruiters can play with it. Most recruiters won’t inspect your code, so a live demo is the best way to show off your project. Aim to complete three to five projects by the time you start applying. A terrific first project is a personal website. You learn the basics of web development and get your own space on the internet to display your work. Codecademy has two excellent tutorials on building websites: Make a Website teaches you the basics of HTML, CSS, and Bootstrap. Deploy a Website teaches you how to put your website on the internet. Step 3 of this tutorial isn’t necessary, just use the free .github.io domain. Too easy? Convert your personal website into a dynamic blog. To do this, you need to learn a web development framework like Rails or Django. Check out the Ruby on Rails Tutorial or The Django Girls Guide. The Muse and Awwwards have examples of personal websites if you need design inspiration. Also, you have to check out this wicked personal website. Hackathons are great for motivating yourself to do projects. Schools and organizations around the world host hackathons, which are project-building competitions lasting several days. In this short span of time, you’ll learn a lot, come up with unique ideas, and meet interesting people. Many hackathons reimburse travel, so there’s no excuse not to go. Use Hackalist or Hackevents to discover upcoming ones. Some of the top North American hackathons I know of are PennApps, HackMIT, HackNY, MHacks, HackTech, HackIllinois, CalHacks, TreeHacks, Hack the North, YC Hacks, and Greylock Techfair. You can also contribute to open source projects. Working on open source is an awesome way to add value to meaningful projects. Plus, you learn a lot from seeing code written by more experienced engineers. Jumping into open source for the first time can be intimidating. Two good entry points are Google Summer of Code and Sayan Chowdhury’s article on open source for beginners. Github also just released their very own open source guide. Find a cool project and dive in. You’ll get the hang of it soon enough. Research is an alternative to projects. If your school has a student research program, great! Apply asap. If it doesn’t have one, look up what research your professors are doing. If their work seems interesting, email them and ask if you can contribute. You’d be surprised at how receptive they are to eager undergrads. In the future, you can even ask your team to refer you to cutting-edge companies. Keep in mind research belongs under Experience rather than Projects on your resume. It can be tough balancing projects and school. One complaint I hear frequently is “I don’t have time to do side projects while taking classes.” I’m personally guilty of saying that from time to time. It’s tough to set aside time for projects because, unlike school, you’re not held accountable by deadlines and exams. After a day of studying, it’s tempting to choose social media or video games over your project. But if you keep putting it off, the semester will be over before you know it. To combat procrastination, force yourself to work on your project a little bit every day. Even if it’s just 15 minutes, you’ll form a habit of making continual progress. This is also why hackathons and research projects are so great. They impose external deadlines and expectations so you can’t drag your heels. Now that you have some experience, you need to put it somewhere. Creating a resume Writing a resume might seem pretty straightforward, but there are lots of nuances. After all, it’s the first thing recruiters will read about you. It’s crucial to make a good first impression. …And you need to make that impression fast. Recruiters spend an average of six seconds reviewing a resume. You heard that right. Six seconds. Almost all that time is spent on your name, companies, job titles, start/end dates, school, major, and project titles. Everything on your resume should be tailored towards helping recruiters find these key pieces of info as fast as possible. Here are some important guidelines. Easy to scan. Stick to one page. Keep it black and white if you’re not skilled at design. Colors are noisy. Stick to a standard format (chronological, no weird fonts, 10.5 to 12 pt font size, 0.5 to 1 inch margins). Standard formats are more readable by resume-parsing programs and easier to skim by recruiters. Keep it concise. Text walls discourage readers. Highlight the key points Make your name big. Highlight company names, job titles, start/end dates, school name, major, and project titles. Important content should be higher up. For a student, the order of importance is usually Education > Experience > Projects > Skills. Cut the fat. Objective and Summary are unnecessary. Descriptions should say something tangible. “Exceptional team player” doesn’t work. “Increased user conversion rates by 20%” does. People without technical background will be reading your resume, so get rid of convoluted details. Don’t neglect the details: Include the higher of your cumulative GPA and your major GPA. If they’re both less than 3.0, leave it off. Include links to a live demo or Github repo for each project. Don’t include anything you wouldn’t be comfortable answering questions about. Most people make this mistake when listing their skills. After finishing your resume, have your peers review it. Ask them to be honest and harsh. My first draft was awful compared to my tenth draft. Use online resume builders if you’re short on time. Standard Resume and CakeResume are two outstanding tools that make it a breeze to generate a handsome resume. If you don’t have a LinkedIn profile, create one. LinkedIn enables recruiters to find you and helps you maintain your professional network. Plus, you need it for the cold-emailing recruiters later. With a few projects under your belt and resume in hand, you’re ready to begin preparing for interviews. Getting battle-ready for interviews Interview problems can be separated into two buckets, behavioral questions and technical questions. You need to start practicing both at least two months before applying. Since recruiting season kicks off in August/September, summer break is a good time to begin. Behavioral questions The purpose of behavioral questions are to find out more about your background and if you actually did what you said on your resume. Don’t take the behavioral interview lightly. A poor performance can sink your chances of getting the offer. To ace behavioral questions, you need a strong answer to “Tell me about yourself” and three stories to handle all other questions. “Tell me about yourself” is the most common behavioral question you’ll get and you need to crush it. Don’t make the cardinal mistake of regurgitating your resume. Instead, tell a story. Capture the attention of the interviewer with a strong introduction. Then, transition into a commentary about your key projects and experiences. Don’t prattle on about the details — keep it simple and emphasize the outcomes. Finally, explain why you’re interested in the position. It’s tempting to talk about every single thing you did, but you’ll lose your interviewer. Keep it concise. Your answer should be one to two minutes long. Prepare three stories you can tell in response to all other behavioral questions. Typically, you’ll be asked to give examples of leadership, overcoming a challenge, or failure. Each of your three stories should show at least one of these themes. A story needs an initial summary, a problem, three to five action steps, and a final outcome. Here’s an example. Summary: Lead an unmotivated team to complete CS project Problem: Two team members didn’t do their work and wanted to drop CS Action 1: Talked to them one-on-one to understand why they’re studying CS Action 2: Told them although it’s tough now, they can succeed if they work hard Action 3: Emphasized that they’re invaluable to the rest of the team Action 4: Used google calendar to plan meetings and Trello to track progress Action 5: Held social events to bring the team closer Outcome: Finished the project and all got at least A- This story can be used to answer any question about leadership or overcoming a challenge. Now go think of your own! Not all your stories have to be about tech. For example, I always talk about how I helped my volleyball team overcome defeat. With this, you should be able to pass any behavioral interview. To learn more, read the Behavioral Questions section in Cracking the Coding Interview. Technical questions Technical questions are the essence of the tech interviewing process. Here’s a list of topics you need to know to pass technical interviews. To master these topics, use the following four resources: Cracking the Coding Interview (~2 months before applying) LeetCode (~1 month before applying) Mock interviews (~2 weeks before applying) Glassdoor (~2 days before interviewing) Cracking the Coding Interview is one of the best resources out there. Gayle Laakmann McDowell’s Cracking the Coding Interview is the quintessential tech recruiting manual. First, read the Technical Questions section. Take notes to help you remember the main ideas. As for practice questions, concentrate on the Arrays and Strings, Linked Lists, Stacks and Queues, Trees and Graphs, Objected-Oriented Design, Recursion, and Sorting sections. Also, familiarize yourself with the Bit Manipulation, Scalability, Databases, and Threads and Locks sections. If you’re having trouble with any of the topics, study the first couple pages of that section. They contain a short and sweet explanation of the topic. Attempt each question for at least 30 minutes before looking at the solution. After reading the solution, you should still implement it and test it on your own. Otherwise, you won’t fully understand the logic. Finishing CtCI should take three to four weeks of dedicated effort. LeetCode is the second resource you should tackle. It has a huge list of problems ranked by difficulty. Each problem has its own tests, time complexity requirements, and solutions. Aim to complete 30 to 50 questions and be comfortable with medium level questions before you start applying. If you do just three a day, you can finish 42 in two weeks. It’s easy to get frustrated by Leetcode at first. In the beginning, I couldn’t solve a single easy problem. I improved over time, but I still get stuck frequently on medium and hard level problems. The good thing is interviews are different from Leetcode. In an interview, you get hints if you’re stuck. Plus, deducing the correct logic is more important than writing runnable code. Although Leetcode isn’t the best simulation of real interviews, it’s phenomenal for building problem solving intuition. Mock interviews are highly effective if you do them right. The trick is emulating a real interview as closely as possible. If you’re the interviewee, be professional, ask questions, and talk out loud. If you’re the interviewer, time the interview, engage in the conversation, and write down feedback. I suggest booking a private room on campus and grinding through back-to-back interviews. Make sure the room has a big whiteboard to draw on. Take turns interviewing and being interviewed by a friend who’s also recruiting. Being able to understand the interviewer’s perspective will improve your own interviewing skills. Glassdoor is an invaluable resource for company-specific info. In most cases, you don’t need Glassdoor until a few days before your interview. Unless the company is very large, Glassdoor won’t have many specific interview questions. Glassdoor is better for learning about the company’s general interview process. Navigate to the Interviews section and filter by the position you’re applying for. Sometimes there are different labels for the same job, so look through all of them. Read candidates’ experiences and think through the interview questions they posted. You likely won’t get the same questions, but working through them will give you an idea of what to expect. Making your application stand out It’s finally time to send out applications and start seeing your hard work pay off! Recruiting season begins in August/September, but you can reach out a month or two earlier. For off-season jobs, apply at least 6 months before. First, you need a list of companies to apply to. If you’ve been following the tech industry, you should already have some companies in mind. To add to your list, check out The Breakout List, Wealthfront’s Career-Launching Companies List, and the CrunchBase Unicorn Leaderboard. For more ideas, here’s a list of 163 companies I looked at when I was recruiting. Don’t be picky about which companies to apply to. If you think the product is interesting or you’ve heard good things about the company, then apply. Worry about choosing after you get a few offers. The application process I recommend first applying and interviewing for companies you’re less interested in. This is a good way to train for future interviews of companies you want more. But don’t do too many — you don’t want to burn out. When I recruit, I try to keep the process under 3 months and not do more than 10 onsite interviews. Anything more than that, I run out of steam and my performance suffers. When you’re scheduling your interviews, spread them out. Interviews are mentally draining, so you need time to rest in between. Companies won’t mind if you ask for a week or two before starting their process. Once you’re ready to apply, use a 5-pronged approach: Referrals Emailing recruiters Career fairs Online applications This list is ordered by success rate and time commitment. For example, referrals have the highest success rate but require the most time. Referrals are the single best way to land interviews. When an employee refers someone, that’s the golden endorsement. Referrals make up for less than 10% of applications, but 20-50% of eventual hires. Ask your friends or older students to refer you. You can also ask employees for a phone chat or coffee to learn more about the company and request a referral at the end. Don’t be shy about this. If you get hired, the employee who referred you gets a bonus — it’s win-win for both of you. Cold-emailing recruiters is the next best thing to referrals. For smaller companies without a formal recruiting pipeline, reach out to an Engineering Manager instead. For even smaller companies, just email the CEO or CTO. The easiest way to get email addresses is asking your network for recruiter contacts. You need a LinkedIn account to find email addresses. Look up the companies you want to apply to on LinkedIn and filter their employees by recruiters. Next, install Hunter or Slik, which lets you get the email address from a LinkedIn profile. Hunter doesn’t like it if you try to sign up using a personal email, so use your school email. Your emails should be concise. State your interest in a position and include a summary of your background. Remember to attach your resume. To save time, make a template. You just have to change the name of the recruiter, the name of the company, and your statement of interest. If you don’t get a reply in a week, follow up. If you don’t get a reply in another week, follow up again. Career fairs get you face time with recruiters and engineers. For career fairs, check which companies are attending beforehand. Jot down the ones you’re most interested in because you might not have time to talk to all of them. Print out 10 to 20 copies of your resume to pass to recruiters. Be ready to answer questions about your experiences and projects. I recommend going early — miss class if you have to. You’ll avoid the lines and catch recruiters before they’re exhausted from chatting nonstop. Don’t feel pressured to ask recruiters questions if you don’t have any. You won’t offend anyone if you get straight to the point and ask if they have openings. After your conversation, make sure to get their emails so you can follow up later. Oh yeah, and actually follow up! Don’t let those business cards gather dust with the free t-shirts and drawstring bags. For hackathons, you’ll be targeting one company you really like instead of 10 to 20. Company sponsors will set up shop at the venue. This is your in. Before the hackathon, find the sponsoring company you want to target. When you arrive, introduce yourself to its engineers and recruiters. Use their API in your project and interact with them throughout the hackathon. On the last day, go show them your project. Then, ask about job/internship opportunities. At this point, they’ve already seen your work ethic, creativity, and interest in their company. You’re pretty much guaranteed an interview. Hackathons can function as indirect career fairs also. I know people who’ve landed interviews through talking to engineers and recruiters from sponsoring companies at hackathons. For more advice on this strategy, read Ryan Norton’s article. Online applications are the easiest way to apply. Use a shotgun approach. Most applications only ask for your resume, so it’s easy to apply to a lot of companies in one go. Intern Supply, the Easy Application List, and your school’s career website are essential for finding open positions. Most of the time, you don’t need a cover letter. But if the company makes the cover letter mandatory or asks for a short answer response, be careful. In this case, the company really cares about fit, so craft a meticulous response. I’ve been burned many times by disregarding mandatory cover letters and short answers. Take your time when writing — a hurried response will show. For applying online, I also recommend TripleByte. You first complete a coding quiz. Then, TripleByte matches you with top companies and fast-tracks you through their hiring processes. Bear in mind this resource only works for finding full-time jobs. Conquering the interview For many people, this is the most nerve-wracking part of the process, but there’s no need to be anxious. The interviewer is on your side (even if it doesn’t seem like it). Before we go any further, there’s one thing you have to keep in mind. Show enthusiasm! Enthusiasm plays a huge role in whether you get an offer. Companies these days love to talk about how much they value culture fit. What they basically mean is they want someone who’s enthusiastic about their mission and product. The truth is most candidates aren’t good at being enthusiastic. The best way to ensure you do it is preparing a list of things you like about the company in advance. When answering behavioral questions or asking questions, bring up the items on your list. Use the company’s blog and its Crunchbase profile to find things you can talk about. Now, let’s go over some best practices for technical interviews. When you first hear the problem, write it down. Then, clarify with your interviewer what you think the question is asking. Don’t assume you understood the question the first time you heard it. Next, write down a few example inputs and outputs and verify they’re correct. This gives you time to think of a solution and provides tests you can run later. If you need more time to think, don’t be afraid ask for a minute to brainstorm. It shouldn’t be too hard to devise a brute-force solution. Talk through it with your interviewer while thinking of ways you can improve it. Continue bouncing ideas off your interviewer until you come up with a better solution. Explain it to your interviewer and only start coding after they’re satisfied. While you’re working through the problem, continuously communicate your thought process. How you think is more important than the actual answer. Be outspoken, but don’t blab on endlessly. Take pauses to think and let the interviewer make suggestions. Don’t space out or look distant. You should direct your full attention towards the interviewer to engage them. If they’re engaged, they’ll give you positive signals if you’re on track and hints if you’re not. What’s more, they’ll be emotionally invested in you and want you to succeed. At the end of the interview, you’ll get time to ask questions. Remember an interview is two-way. Don’t just ask questions you think the interviewer will like to hear. Ask questions you actually want to know the answers to. I suggest asking about personal experiences to get more authentic answers. Remember these tips and you’ll be ready to ace technical interviews. The average interview process looks like this: Coding challenge > Recruiter chat > Phone interview > Onsite interview The process varies by company. Sometimes the recruiter chat will be first. Sometimes you won’t have a coding challenge. But the general structure is similar. The coding challenge is a straightforward test. It’s usually hosted on Hackerrank. I suggest doing a couple of questions on it ahead of time to get familiar with the format. There’s no trick to the coding challenge. Pass as many tests as you can. With enough practice on Leetcode, this should be a walk in the park. The recruiter chat is an informal conversation. It’s usually for setting up the phone interview and answering any questions you have. You might get one or two behavioral questions. Once in a while, you might get trivia-esque technical questions like “Explain how a hashmap works.” Candidates rarely get rejected at this stage (although I’ve managed to do just that a few times). Treat this as a chance to learn more about the company. Ask high-level questions — recruiters generally don’t know technical details. Make sure to ask about the format of the rest of the interview process so you aren’t caught off guard by anything. The phone interview stage is one to two rounds of technical interviews. Sometimes you’ll do a video chat instead of a phone call. You’ll typically code out the answer in a shared editor like Collabedit. If the connection is bad or you’re having trouble understanding the interviewer, speak up. You’re not going to get docked points, so don’t try to tough it through. The onsite interview is three to six rounds of interviews with a lunch in between. A day of back-to-back interviews is exhausting — get enough sleep beforehand! Onsite interviews are mostly technical, but some companies mix in behavioral and design rounds. The lunch is for you to learn more about the company, so relax a little. During the interview, use the whiteboard to your advantage. Leave plenty of space on the right side and between the lines so you have room to make edits. After the interview, don’t dwell on it. Thinking about it isn’t going to change the final result. Treat it as if you were rejected and continue applying and practicing. Evaluating the offer Congratulations! You got an offer! Give yourself a big pat on the back — you earned it. But your work isn’t done yet. First, thank your recruiter and re-express your enthusiasm for the company. Then, ask for your offer in writing. It’s time to negotiate. A job offer isn’t an act of generosity — it’s a proposal to strike a deal. Naturally, a deal involves negotiation. I’m not going to elaborate too much on negotiation tactics. Just read Haseeb Qureshi’s killer guide on negotiation. Bear in mind some offers are non-negotiable, but it never hurts to try. Avoid unpaid jobs. In 90% of cases, it’s not worth it. I’m all for prioritizing learning over pay, but at least work for a company that values you enough to pay you. If you have more than one offer, congrats! You’re awesome. But now you have to make a decision. Choosing which offer to accept is a nice problem to have. The best offer depends on the specific candidate, but here’s one universal suggestion I hope serves you well. Make a list of 10 professional and personal goals you want to achieve in the next 10 years. It could be anything, like paying off student loans, founding a startup, or mastering a new hobby. Choose the job that brings you closest to these goals. Here are a couple more tips to remember: Your future manager is vital to your career growth. Find a great mentor who will double as your champion. Do internships at different companies to gain broader experiences. You’ll learn more and expand professional network. Optimize for learning and growth over pay, unless the pay is really bad. Work at one brand name company. It’ll make recruiting in the future easier, but know that it’s not the end of the world if you don’t have one. Choice of programming language doesn’t matter. What matters is learning good engineering practices and how to work in a team. Choose an engineering-first company with a software/hardware product. Don’t forget about passion. It’s an amazing feeling building a product you believe in. Conclusion This brings us to the end of this guide. I hope that with this, you’ll be much better prepared than I was when starting a career in tech. In the beginning, getting an offer might seem impossible, but the key is treating it as a series of milestones rather than one enormous task. If you make a little bit of progress every day, you’ll be there before you know it! When you do get that dream job, don’t forget to give back. Share your experiences and extend referrals. Pass on the love, and we’ll all fly higher.

Austin was stuck in a job he hated. But given his non-traditional background and lack of Silicon Valley network, he knew he'd have to work extra hard to launch a career in tech. In this podcast, he details the steps he took to land interviews at Google, Twitter, and other prestigious companies that led to his dream job. Written by Austin Belcak: https://cultivatedculture.com Read by Abbey Rennemeyer: https://twitter.com/abbeyrenn Original article: https://fcc.im/2F8uE2H Learn to code for free at: https://www.freecodecamp.org Intro music by Vangough: https://fcc.im/2APOG02 Transcript: Shortly after college, I began chasing something many people want but few ever get: a job they love. I left school with a biology degree and a job in the medical field. It took me about two weeks to realize I absolutely hated it. I was working 6 days a week, waking up at 3:30am in order to be at the hospital by 5:30. Making next to nothing, I quickly racked up $10,000 in credit card debt. I knew I deserved more, but I had no idea how to get it. I saw people in my graduating class living in New York or San Francisco, making six figure salaries and going on exotic trips. I often wondered what they had figured out that I hadn’t. What was their secret? I dedicated the next 12 months of my life to finding the answer. In this article I’m going to share everything I learned along the way. First, I’ll walk you through the exact process you can use to get a job interview at your dream company even if you don’t know a single person there — you won’t even need to apply online. Next, I’ll teach you how to ace the interview process, get the offer, and land a salary you deserve. I personally used these exact strategies to get interviews and offers at companies like Google, Uber and Twitter. They are also the same tactics that my students have used to land interviews and offers at Google, Microsoft, Slack, Deloitte, PWC, American Express, ESPN and more. Referrals Are The Most Effective Way To Get Hired A recent LinkedIn survey on talent trends showed that 1 in 3 people were actively looking for new work. As of January 2017, the population of employed people in the United States was 123 million. This means that, at any given time, 41 million people are looking for work. On average, an open role at a well known company gets ~250 resumes. 75% of these resumes came from some sort of online portal (like the company’s online application, or a career aggregator site like Indeed.com). Once submitted, these applications are screened by Applicant Tracking software that scans them for keywords. At the end of the process, ~5 resumes make it into the hands of a recruiter. That’s 2% at best. Additionally, The Wall Street Journal published an article stating that 80% of jobs aren’t advertised online. That means that 75% of people applying for jobs are all competing for 20% of the opportunities! Oops. When it comes to getting hired, referrals are the most effective way to secure an interview and land the offer. Here are some stats from a recent Jobvite survey: 40% of hires come from referrals, the next largest channel is via career sites at 21% (almost half as many) Referrals get hired in an average of 3 weeks while other applicants take up to 7 weeks Referrals get paid more on average than cold applicants 40% of hires come from referrals (courtesy of Jobvite.com) Finally, over 50% of six figure jobs are filled via referral. Moral of the story? If we want to get hired at our dream job, we need to find another way to get a referral from an insider. The problem is, many of us don’t happen to have friends or family working at places like Google. Part 1: How To Get A Job Interview When You Don’t Know A Single Person At The Company Know Your Role (And Find It) The first step is having a solid idea of the specific role you are looking for, down to the company and title if possible. Next, you need to make sure that role is available. For today, let’s assume that you want to be an Account Manager in the Technology B2B vertical at Google. Looks like a spot is open in New York: Locate Potential Influencers Next, you are going to find someone who not only knows about the role, but could potentially have an impact on hiring for it. Time to fire up LinkedIn. In the search bar, plug in the company name + all of the information I highlighted above (title, vertical/industry, preferred city). However, before you hit “Search,” we need to remember that you are looking for someone who can influence the hiring process. With that in mind, I usually use a title that is one level up from the position that I’m looking for. If you’re not familiar with title hierarchy structures in the corporate world, here is a quick guide (if you are already familiar with how titles are structured, feel free to skip this section): Side Note: A Brief Guide To Company Organizational Structures By Title Every company has a hierarchy starting at the top with the CEO/Founder all the way down to the entry level employees. When researching companies, especially people to speak to within those companies, it helps to know where certain titles fit in the food chain. That way you can ensure you are talking to the right person. Here is a general list of titles that fits almost any company, starting at the top: C-­Level (CEO, CTO, CFO, COO, etc.) Vice President (VP) Director Senior Manager Manager Coordinator (Entry Level) Associates, Executives, and Seniors In many companies, the above titles have some sort of variation that allows for greater segmentation within that level. The most common forms of this are Associate, Executive, and Senior. Here is what those mean: Associate: this title is usually given to someone who is halfway between positions for some reason (maybe there is typically a 4 year gap between levels and they are 2 years in). A person with Associate in their title is usually one notch below a person with the original title. For example, an Associate Account Manager would most likely be one level below an Account Manager. Senior: ­this title is the more experienced version of an Associate. People with Senior in their title are usually one notch above the original title. For example, a Senior Account Manager would be one notch above an Account Manager. Executive: ­this title is usually given to people who are very senior, or around the level of Vice President. The two most common cases are Sales Executive/Account Executive (synonymous terms for a senior salesperson) or Executive Vice President who is two notches above a Vice President and one notch above a Senior Vice President. That should be all the info you need to make an educated decision around where people stand within the company you are researching. Now that you’re familiar with the company structure, let’s get back to finding that influencer who can help you land this job. Since we are looking for an Account Manager role, the next step up would be Senior Account Manager so your LinkedIn search would look like this: Our first result? A Senior Account Manager who works in B2B at Google: Obtaining Contact Info Now we’re going to reach out and set up a meeting. It’s best to do these in person but over the phone can work well if you’re dream job is in another state or country. In order to get in touch with our influencer, we’re going to need their contact info. Here are 3 strategies you can use to find almost anyone’s corporate email address: LinkedIn This one is obvious but it’s a big time saver and definitely worth the 10 seconds it takes to check. On the person’s profile, right under their picture, there can be a button labeled “Contact Info” (I say “can be” because people have the option to remove it). Occasionally, people will have their email address listed right there — voila! If not, let’s move right along… Reverse Lookup Head over to Voila Norbert and enter the first and last name of the person you are searching for, as well as their company’s website. For example, if we were trying to find Larry Page’s email, our form would look like this: Once it spits out their email you can confirm it using MailTester. Matching Formats If that doesn’t work, you can try finding someone else’s email at the company and use that format reverse engineering your target email address. For example, using Larry Page again, if I know that my buddy John Smith’s email is john at google.com then I can assume that Larry’s email is larry at google.com. The easiest way to get a hold of a company email address is to reach out to someone in sales or media because both of these departments usually have inbound lead forms and people on the other end ready to pounce on those leads. We can also use our LinkedIn method here and target salespeople. Salespeople almost always have their corporate email listed on their LinkedIn because it’s a free win for them. If someone is looking for their product and then finds them on LinkedIn, boom — they just got an effortless inbound lead. Once you have the format, you can use MailTester to confirm your target email address. Research, Research, Research Now that you have your potential influencer, it’s time to do some research so you can effectively reach out and build that relationship. Start with the usual suspects — LinkedIn, Facebook, Twitter, Instagram, etc. and look for common points of interest. To be honest, most people are better at this online research thing than I am, so I’ll get back to the meat here. One thing I will say is, don’t skimp. The more you get to know this person beforehand, the better your chances of landing a referral from them. Some people have said to me, “Austin, isn’t this a little weird? I feel like I’m kind of stalking this person.” I totally get it. However, this information is critical for quickly building a strong relationship and getting that referral. Also, in my experience, people tend to expect that you’ve done some research on them. The key is to understand what is kosher to bring up out of the blue and what isn’t. People are OK with you checking out their LinkedIn, but they may be a little weirded out if you mention that picture from Saturday’s Bar Crawl you saw on Facebook. My general rule of thumb is this: if it exists on LinkedIn, it’s fair game to bring up. If you found it somewhere else (Twitter, Facebook, etc.) use a different method. For example, if I see that my influencer is a skiing fanatic, I may bring up that I went on a ski trip a few weeks beforehand. Sending The Email Now that you have your potential influencer and their contact info, it’s time to reach out. Not only is this one of the scarier parts of this process, it is also the most pivotal. To help you get past that hump, I’ve included the exact email script that I used to reach out to people. In this case, I’m reaching out to Tim who works at Google: Subject: Quick Question Hi Tim, My name is Austin and I currently work at Cultivated Culture. I was browsing through LinkedIn and came across your information — I hope you don’t mind me reaching out of the blue here. I saw that you have extensive experience in Google’s Technology B2B vertical and I’m very interested in learning more about that space. I would love to have the opportunity to run some questions by you, as well as tap into any advice you may have given your knowledge of the industry. I know that your time is extremely valuable so please don’t feel to need to respond in depth. If you do have 5 minutes to chat, I would really appreciate it. Best, Austin There are a few key points to the email above: Address the person you are emailing by name State who you are and make it personable Include some flattery that positions the person as an “expert” As for the subject, Fast Company did a study where they emailed 1,000 C-level executives from Fortune & Inc 500 companies. They found that the subject line “Quick Question” made up 66.7% of total replies. I saw similar results. All of that said, this script is just a framework. You will most likely need to tweak your emails to fit the situation. When that time comes, I recommend checking out Sam Parr’s incredible guide on how to cold email like a boss (Sam has started conversations with Jeff Bezos and Brian Lee (aka Jessica Alba’s Honest co-founder) via cold email). It’s the same guide I used to help craft my email templates. Now hit Send! Prepare For Your Meeting In order to prepare, we have to know what we’re preparing for. The goal of your meeting is to position your influencer as an expert, make them feel special, and build a relationship. You should not and will not mention anything about the opening at their company. People innately enjoy helping others and if you follow the steps above, they will bring this up naturally. You will want to prepare a list of questions that gets them to open up about themselves and the company. I like to ask them several softballs to get things warmed up and then hit them with a few questions they are guaranteed to remember. Here is a quick set that I’ve had success with in the past (I’ve found the last one really seems to stick): I saw you worked at [Previous Companies]. How did you end up going from [First Industry] to becoming interested in [Current Company]? You hear a lot about [Current Company] in the news, but I’d love to hear more about why you love working there. What’s your favorite part? What is one totally unexpected lesson you’ve learned from working at [Current Company]? The “Million Dollar” Question Regardless of the questions you choose, there is one that you must always be sure to ask: “What is the biggest challenge your team is facing right now?” Really dig in here, get them to be specific. This information is going to be critical in helping you land a referral from this person, as well as getting the offer farther down the road. Your Homework: Adding Value (In A Big Way) Okay, so you met with your influencer, things went great, and you identified a major pain point that the team is having. Now we’re going to focus on that last piece. Over the next week you are going to research the crap out of your influencer’s problem. Then you are going to come up with a solution and draft up a proposal for how you would solve it. Your proposal should include: A summary of the problem (to illustrate that you understand their pain) A step-by-step framework of how you would solve this problem A brief outline of how your skill set positions you as an asset to implement that solution Truthfully, this process deserves a post of its own but this should give you a good idea of what you need to do. If you’re the type of person that likes concrete examples, check out this guerrilla usability test that Raghav Haran ran for Airbnb. Once you have all of this information, consolidate it into a Word document, head over to Upwork, and hire a graphic designer to make your proposal look amazing. If you’ve never hired on Upwork before, here is an amazing guide by Dave Nevogt on how to do it right. Following Up With Your Proposal Now we’re going to reach back out to our influencer with the proposal. Here’s the template I used: Hi [Influencer], Thanks again for taking the time out to chat last week. I spent a lot of time thinking about what you said regarding [team’s biggest challenge]. In fact, I created a short framework that should help you solve it. Please find that attached. If you have some time, I would love to chat about it in more detail. Please let me know if you have any questions, I’m looking forward to hearing your thoughts! Best, Austin It’s very important that you do not mention the open position in any of your emails or the proposal. Be patient and wait for their response. When they do get back to you, they will not only bring up the opening but they will ask you if you’re interested. Kindly accept and play it cool. You’re in! Part 2: How To Breeze Through The Interview Process Fast forward — our influencer passed along our resume to HR and they have reached out to set up a phone screen. Once we get past that, we’ll be on to interviewing with the team, and then getting the job. A note to developers: The advice below does not cover technical interviews, which are typically required for developer/software roles. However, the advice below will help create more time to prepare for technical interviews by minimizing the amount of preparation needed for other parts of the interview process. If you are applying for a development role, I suggest you read Cracking The Coding Interview by Gayle Laakmann McDowell. Interviews can be daunting, especially at companies like Google, Amazon, or Uber. I’m sure you’ve read the horror stories about crazy questions they ask people like “Quick — How many golf balls can fit inside a school bus,” or, “how many gas stations are there in Manhattan?” The truth is, most of these companies have done away with those questions. They crunched the numbers and found that the answers didn’t correlate with high employee performance (shocker, I know). In fact, Google’s own Senior Vice President of People Operations called them a “complete waste of time.” These companies have since reverted back to the standard style of interviews, which is great for us because it makes it much easier to identify patterns. We can essentially “guess” what questions will be on the test and prepare answers that will blow our interviewers away (it works way better than it did in college, I swear). Here is the process I used to prepare for each one. Nailing The Basics: Questions You’ll Get In Every Interview According to renowned career guru Penelope Trunk, one of the easiest ways to be a better interviewer is to prepare for the most obvious questions. You may be saying “well duh,” but you’d be surprised by how many people spread themselves too thin by trying to prepare answers to every possible question. 99% of the interviews you go on will follow the exact same template. If you can master the format, your confidence will skyrocket and you’ll be prepared for almost any situation you get thrown into. The Universal Job Interview Format: Tell me about yourself (your experience, why you are interested in this role, etc.) A mix of behavioral questions, which we’ll dive into shortly What questions do you have for me (the interviewer)? Let’s tackle each individually. Tell Me About Yourself This is your first impression. More importantly, it’s the only part of the interview that you totally control. Do NOT rattle off your resume like a grocery list. In order to nail this part you need to craft an interesting story — your story. You want it to be concise (around 2–3 minutes) and you need to think about what you want to convey. I recommend: Choosing 2–3 themes to build your story around (for me, those themes were Persistence, Agility, and Success) Including quantitative metrics whenever possible Addressing the question of why you want to leave your current position (they are going to ask you this anyways, addressing it early shows that you’re aware it’s a concern of theirs and helps put them at ease) To help get you started, here is what my story looked like. To give you some context, I was a biology major who was interested in landing a job in digital marketing: Growing up, like most people, I wanted to be a doctor. I went to [college] where I majored in biology and planned my course to medical school. Not long after, I decided that pre-med wasn’t for me. I wanted to get into digital marketing, and I wanted to be in New York. I set my sights on this goal and created a plan that would get me there. In 2013, I graduated with my biology degree and took a job in medical device sales where I worked from 5:30am — 12:30pm covering surgical cases in the operating room. Then, every day, I would come home and study digital marketing until 8:00pm. In order to gain relevant experience, I got certified in Google Analytics & AdWords and created my own consulting firm that focused on using search engine marketing to generate leads for private golf communities. We were able to increase home sales by an average of 20% while reducing the cost per lead by around 10%. Armed with my new credentials, I began to look for positions in New York. Eventually, I was offered a position at my current company (a promotional analytics company in New York). During my tenure there I have grown my book of business by 467%, spearheaded the creation of an internal group dedicated to marketing the company on the internet, and helped close the second largest deal in company history. However, the company has restructured several times since I was brought on. I’ve had 3 different managers over the past year, as well as 3 titles with different sets of responsibilities. I’m looking for something a bit more stable and [company I am interviewing at] has been somewhere that I have wanted to work since I got into this industry. I’m really excited to have this opportunity. Pro Tip: You are telling a story. Don’t be afraid to embellish a bit. I’m not saying you should lie or make up stories, but you want to sell yourself and you can bet your butt that your competition isn’t afraid to inflate their credentials. Behavioral Questions Next up is the dreaded set of behavioral questions. The ones meant to tease out your thought process and your ability to be a “team player.” This is the part where our educated “guesses” are going to come in handy. The behavioral section is broken down into two parts that I call Standard Questions and Company Specific Questions. Let’s start with the former. Standard Questions You are going to be asked a variation of one, if not all, of these questions in every single interview you go to: Why do you want to work for us? Tell me about a time you exhibited leadership Tell me about a time where you had to work as a team Tell me about a time you’ve had to work with a difficult person, or difficult people Tell me about a time you failed Tell me about a time you overcame an obstacle Tell me about a time when you had success If you can answer these 6 questions, you can handle 9 out of 10 interviews with no other preparation and be totally fine. Just follow the same set of rules I mentioned above in the Tell Me About Yourself section: Craft a concise story Make sure to include quantitative metrics that illustrate your success Anticipate and address objections Company Specific Questions These are questions that fall in the middle of the 7 listed above and “why are man hole covers round?” Never fear though, we can anticipate these too. Head over to GlassDoor. If you’ve never heard of GlassDoor, it’s a great resource for any job seeker that includes salaries, reviews, and interview information for almost any company in the world. First, you are going to search for the position you’re applying for. In keeping with our theme, we’ll search for “Google” under Companies & Reviews: Next, we’re going to click on the “Interviews” Tab: Then scroll down and click on “Filter Interviews” which will bring up some advanced settings. Here we’ll type in the title of the job we want (Account Manager, in this case) and the location (New York, NY). We’ll also select “Received Offer” because the people who didn’t receive offers tend to be slightly, ahem, biased: This will pull up a list of reviews from everyone who interviewed and received an offer for that position. The general comments are really helpful, but we want to focus on a section called Interview Questions towards the bottom. I usually comb through 10–15 of these and add all of the interview questions into a Word doc so I can answer them later: Now you have your second set of questions to prepare for. What Questions Do You Have For Me? Finally, once they are done peppering you with questions, your interviewer will ask if you have any questions for them. This is the most crucial part of the interview. Why? Because so many people neglect it. If you can ask some questions that are even slightly outside of the box, I’ve found that really sticks with the interviewer more than any other part of the meeting. After every interview I’ve been on, I asked for feedback. Without fail, the interviewer made a positive comment about the questions I asked. The good news for you is that I asked the same exact questions in every single one. Here they are: What is your favorite part about working here? What is the biggest challenge you are facing right now? Let’s say that, in one year, you are looking back on this hire. What has that person done to exceed expectations on every level? Ask about a current event (for example — I saw that [Competitor X] came out with this product. How do you see that affecting your business?) What is the most unexpected lesson you’ve learned while working at [company]? Tell me a little bit more about you, what do you like to do outside of work? These questions work because they are based on specific principles of behavioral psychology. They break down barriers and help build a positive association in your interviewer’s mind. If you’re interested in the details, you can read more about it here. Say Thank You While we’re on the subject, be absolutely sure to send a thank you note to everyone you interviewed with. Also include a personal touch to each one (something that you gained from that last question). Many people I talk to say “but I don’t have their email.” Ask for it! At the end of every interview always, always ask for a business card or write down the person’s email in your notebook. If you forget, try using the techniques I outlined above for finding people’s emails and you should be fine. Part 3 — Following Up & What To Do If They Say No This is one of the most common mistakes I see from job applicants. I understand how nerve wracking it is to sit there and wait while everything is completely out of your hands. One of the toughest things I had to learn throughout my interview process was that, while this is a HUGE deal to you, it’s really just another agenda item on the hiring manager’s schedule. They will get back to you, and if they don’t? You don’t want to work for someone who doesn’t have the courtesy of replying to the people they do business with. When Can I Send Them A Reminder? The rule of thumb is one business week. If you interviewed on a Tuesday, wait until the next Tuesday to email them (as J.T. O'Donnell says, never send a nudge on a Monday). When you do, don’t push or be blunt. Keep it short and sweet: Hi [Interviewer], I hope you had a great week! I wanted to quickly follow up and see if there was anything else I could help with regarding the application process. If so, please let me know. Best, Austin That’s it. If they don’t respond to that after another 3–4 days, you have your answer and it’s time to move on. What Happens If They Say No? Ugh. The worst case scenario. Don’t get down just yet though, we’re not done here. I have this quality where I have trouble taking “no” as an answer. When I was interviewing with Google, the initial screener told me that she wasn’t going to put me through because she “didn’t think I was qualified, and didn’t want to waste the team’s time.” I was not happy. So I sent her this: Hi [Recruiter], Thank you again for carving out the time to speak this afternoon. I really appreciate your feedback, and I wanted to add one final note: I completely understand your concerns regarding my experience with [skill]. You are correct that I didn’t have much experience with that at [previous company]. That said, this doesn’t stem from an inability to produce results, but rather a lack of opportunity to do so. While my experience on paper may not match up to the initial expectations of the position’s description, I have do have two qualities that work in my favor: I am an extremely efficient learner, and am also very effective at translating those learnings into practice. Second, I’m much more tenacious than your average individual. My career has hinged on these two qualities. I left college with no digital experience and a biology degree — all of my digital knowledge was obtained through self study. I spent 8 months selling myself without the on-paper experience to back it up. When I was finally given the opportunity to apply my knowledge in a business setting, I playing a critical role in landing the company’s 2nd largest deal in history. I am confident that I can have the same success in this role. I have the resources necessary to learn what I need in order to be successful at [company], and am prepared to do whatever it takes to make that happen. I understand that [company’s] interview process is extremely challenging, and that only the top talent ends up with an offer letter at the end. I also believe that I am worthy of a shot at that letter. [Company] is known for hiring people who excel at the intangibles, as well the ability to learn new things and apply them to existing knowledge. That is my forte. I am not asking for an offer. I am simply asking for the opportunity to speak with the hiring manager to make my case for the position. I’m sure you will find the best person for the position, I would just like to have a legitimate shot at being that person. If you give me that chance, my next set of answers will not disappoint. Thank you again for your continued consideration. Best, Austin Now that may be a little aggressive… Ok, it was pretty aggressive. But she wrote me back an hour later and pushed me through to the next round! Mission accomplished. The moral of the story here is, don’t give up if you get a “No.” Try to identify why you were turned down and then send a note to hiring manager addressing those items (feel free to copy mine). Taking Action There you have it. The exhaustive, step-by-step guide to landing an interview and then getting an offer from the company of your dreams. What are you waiting for? Get out there and start researching!

Alex and Drew open the show talking about interview protocols and discuss the book Drew is reading: Cracking the Coding Interview: 189 Programming Questions and Solutions, by Gayle Laakmann McDowell. They review hightlights from the previous week's meetups in the Vancouver tech scene, then Alex talks about progress and encountering rabbit holes with learning to code from her blog currently hosted on Medium. They also discuss drawbacks (bloat) and benefits of software, including how awesome the Jet Brains IntelliJ IDEA IDE is. Our guest this week is Dean Sutton. Dean is the CEO and Co-founder of Insight Diagnostics which is a medical technology company from Vancouver and speaks about the projects they're working on and the process of fundraising. Dean believes in developing technologies, companies and movements that truly matter. He's focused on building health technologies, clean energy and early stage technology development. Dean recommends a few resources if you're just getting started: read Lean Startup by Eric Reise, go out to meetups and events and speak to Universities about their recent or upcoming grads in the fields and technology you're looking to pursue. Dean supports the Vancouver startup / technology scene from a founders perspective and is providing guidance and support through Farmteam and has provided early stage financing for startups through resources such as Wavefront, Creative Destruction Labs and many more. Dean is also looking for technical talent with health tech experience to join his team, so if you're on the hunt, reach out to him by email or on twitter @DeanSutton.

Check out Ruby Remote Conf!   02:12 - Ra’Shaun “Snuggs” Stovall Introduction Twitter GitHub Facebook 02:29 - Noel Sagaille Introduction Twitter GitHub Censible 02:56 - The Pomodoro Technique Parkinson's Law 04:43 - Community and Community Leaders The 4-Hour Workweek: Escape 9-5, Live Anywhere, and Join the New Rich by Timothy Ferriss “Hometraining” Being John Malkovich Polyphasic Sleep Carl Jung 19:11 - Values Altruism Autonomy 26:02 - Mentorship Switching Roles Advocacy Mastermind Groups Homage Picks RFC 2119 (Sam) James Edward Gray II: Implementing the LHC on a Whiteboard (Coraline) Cracking the Coding Interview: 150 Programming Questions and Solutions by Gayle Laakmann McDowell (Coraline) Thinking about your health (Chuck) FitBit One (Chuck) Block & Flow (Ra'Shaun) Censible (Ra’Shaun) Heroku Pipelines (Noel) Dialogue - A proposal by David Bohm, Donald Factor and Peter Garrett (Noel)

Check out Ruby Remote Conf!   02:12 - Ra’Shaun “Snuggs” Stovall Introduction Twitter GitHub Facebook 02:29 - Noel Sagaille Introduction Twitter GitHub Censible 02:56 - The Pomodoro Technique Parkinson's Law 04:43 - Community and Community Leaders The 4-Hour Workweek: Escape 9-5, Live Anywhere, and Join the New Rich by Timothy Ferriss “Hometraining” Being John Malkovich Polyphasic Sleep Carl Jung 19:11 - Values Altruism Autonomy 26:02 - Mentorship Switching Roles Advocacy Mastermind Groups Homage Picks RFC 2119 (Sam) James Edward Gray II: Implementing the LHC on a Whiteboard (Coraline) Cracking the Coding Interview: 150 Programming Questions and Solutions by Gayle Laakmann McDowell (Coraline) Thinking about your health (Chuck) FitBit One (Chuck) Block & Flow (Ra'Shaun) Censible (Ra’Shaun) Heroku Pipelines (Noel) Dialogue - A proposal by David Bohm, Donald Factor and Peter Garrett (Noel)

Check out Ruby Remote Conf!   02:12 - Ra’Shaun “Snuggs” Stovall Introduction Twitter GitHub Facebook 02:29 - Noel Sagaille Introduction Twitter GitHub Censible 02:56 - The Pomodoro Technique Parkinson's Law 04:43 - Community and Community Leaders The 4-Hour Workweek: Escape 9-5, Live Anywhere, and Join the New Rich by Timothy Ferriss “Hometraining” Being John Malkovich Polyphasic Sleep Carl Jung 19:11 - Values Altruism Autonomy 26:02 - Mentorship Switching Roles Advocacy Mastermind Groups Homage Picks RFC 2119 (Sam) James Edward Gray II: Implementing the LHC on a Whiteboard (Coraline) Cracking the Coding Interview: 150 Programming Questions and Solutions by Gayle Laakmann McDowell (Coraline) Thinking about your health (Chuck) FitBit One (Chuck) Block & Flow (Ra'Shaun) Censible (Ra’Shaun) Heroku Pipelines (Noel) Dialogue - A proposal by David Bohm, Donald Factor and Peter Garrett (Noel)

This week, we talk with Gayle Laakmann McDowell in Palo Alto, CA. Gayle is the Founder and CEO of CareerCup.com and Author of multiple interview books, including Cracking the Coding Interview, Cracking the PM Interview, and Cracking the Tech Career. Her background is in software development with undergrad and graduate degrees in Computer Science from the University of Pennsylvania, and a MBA from the Wharton School. She previously worked as a software engineer at Google, Microsoft, and Apple. On today's episode, Gayle shares her advice on how to crack the coding interview. She also shares tips on how to move from one functional area to another, and how to avoid common mistakes. Listen and learn more! If you've enjoyed the program today, be sure to subscribe to the Copeland Coaching Podcast on iTunes to ensure you don't miss an episode. To learn more about Career Cup, visit Gayle's website at http://www.careercup.com/.

02:36 - Software Development and Reality Construction by Christiane Floyd Hermeneutics 05:42 - Peter Naur: Programming as Theory Building   07:55 - The Art of Empathy: A Complete Guide to Life's Most Essential Skill by Karla McLaren 13:14 - Programming Elixir: Functional |> Concurrent |> Pragmatic |> Fun by Dave Thomas 14:32 - ng-book 2 16:09 - Paper Reading Group Adrian Colyer's Blog We hear you like papers by Ines Sombra (Slides) 19:58 - Mindset: The New Psychology of Success by Carol Dweck 20:29 - Cracking the Coding Interview, 6th Edition: 189 Programming Questions and Solutions by Gayle Laakmann McDowell 22:01 - Ruby Rogues Book Club Books Episodes Ruby Rogues Episode #23: Book Club: Smalltalk Best Practice Patterns with Kent Beck Ruby Rogues Episode #87: Practical Object-Oriented Design in Ruby with Sandi Metz Ruby Rogues Episode #68: Book Club: Growing Object Oriented Software Guided by Tests with Steve Freeman and Nat Pryce Ruby Rogues Episode #97: Patterns of Enterprise Application Architecture with Martin Fowler Ruby Rogues Episode #178: Book Club: Refactoring Ruby with Martin Fowler 22:43 - Books to Learn When You’re Learning to Become a Software Developer Peopleware: Productive Projects and Teams by Tom DeMarco The Mythical Man-Month: Essays on Software Engineering by Frederick Phillips Brooks Software Project Survival Guide by Steve McConnell Code Complete: A Practical Handbook of Software Construction by Steve McConnell     The Pragmatic Programmer: From Journeyman to Master by Andrew Hunt Pragmatic Thinking and Learning: Refactor Your Wetware by Andy Hunt The Practice of Programming by Brian W. Kernighan and Rob Pike 33:07 - Technical Programming Books Programming Perl: Unmatched power for text processing and scripting by Tom Christiansen (The Camel Book) Unix Power Tools by Shelley Powers Ruby Cookbook by Lucas Carlson Programming Ruby: The Pragmatic Programmers' Guide by Dave Thomas, with Chad Fowler and Andy Hunt Agile Web Development with Rails 4 (Facets of Ruby) by Sam Ruby    SQL Queries for Mere Mortals: A Hands-On Guide to Data Manipulation in SQL by John Viescas The Art of SQL by Stephane Faroult PostgreSQL: Up and Running: A Practical Introduction to the Advanced Open Source Database by Regina O. Obe SQL Pocket Guide by Jonathan Gennick SQL Antipatterns: Avoiding the Pitfalls of Database Programming by Bill Karwin Why's (Poignant) Guide to Ruby       Why The Lucky Stiff 41:17 - Pramming and Business Books The Hard Thing About Hard Things: Building a Business When There Are No Easy Answers by Ben Horowitz Creativity, Inc.: Overcoming the Unseen Forces That Stand in the Way of True Inspiration by Ed Catmull In The Plex: How Google Thinks, Works, and Shapes Our Lives by Steven Levy The Phoenix Project: A Novel about IT, DevOps, and Helping Your Business Win by Gene Kim    So Good They Can't Ignore You: Why Skills Trump Passion in the Quest for Work You Love by Cal Newport The Passionate Programmer: Creating a Remarkable Career in Software Development (Pragmatic Life) by Chad Fowler Soft Skills: The software developer's life manual by John Sonmez The Rails Freelancing Handbook by Mike Gunderloy The Smart Girl's Guide to Privacy: Practical Tips for Staying Safe Online by Violet Blue Doxing Practices of an Agile Developer: Working in the Real World by Venkat Subramaniam Picks Mark Manson: The Most Important Question of Your Life (Jessica) Dan Luu: Normalization of Deviance in Software: How Completely Messed Up Practices Become Normal (Coraline) The Noun Project (Avdi) Lies My Teacher Told Me: Everything Your American History Textbook Got Wrong by James W. Loewen (Avdi) CES (Chuck) Bill Buxton: Avoiding the Big Crash (Jessica)

02:36 - Software Development and Reality Construction by Christiane Floyd Hermeneutics 05:42 - Peter Naur: Programming as Theory Building   07:55 - The Art of Empathy: A Complete Guide to Life's Most Essential Skill by Karla McLaren 13:14 - Programming Elixir: Functional |> Concurrent |> Pragmatic |> Fun by Dave Thomas 14:32 - ng-book 2 16:09 - Paper Reading Group Adrian Colyer's Blog We hear you like papers by Ines Sombra (Slides) 19:58 - Mindset: The New Psychology of Success by Carol Dweck 20:29 - Cracking the Coding Interview, 6th Edition: 189 Programming Questions and Solutions by Gayle Laakmann McDowell 22:01 - Ruby Rogues Book Club Books Episodes Ruby Rogues Episode #23: Book Club: Smalltalk Best Practice Patterns with Kent Beck Ruby Rogues Episode #87: Practical Object-Oriented Design in Ruby with Sandi Metz Ruby Rogues Episode #68: Book Club: Growing Object Oriented Software Guided by Tests with Steve Freeman and Nat Pryce Ruby Rogues Episode #97: Patterns of Enterprise Application Architecture with Martin Fowler Ruby Rogues Episode #178: Book Club: Refactoring Ruby with Martin Fowler 22:43 - Books to Learn When You’re Learning to Become a Software Developer Peopleware: Productive Projects and Teams by Tom DeMarco The Mythical Man-Month: Essays on Software Engineering by Frederick Phillips Brooks Software Project Survival Guide by Steve McConnell Code Complete: A Practical Handbook of Software Construction by Steve McConnell     The Pragmatic Programmer: From Journeyman to Master by Andrew Hunt Pragmatic Thinking and Learning: Refactor Your Wetware by Andy Hunt The Practice of Programming by Brian W. Kernighan and Rob Pike 33:07 - Technical Programming Books Programming Perl: Unmatched power for text processing and scripting by Tom Christiansen (The Camel Book) Unix Power Tools by Shelley Powers Ruby Cookbook by Lucas Carlson Programming Ruby: The Pragmatic Programmers' Guide by Dave Thomas, with Chad Fowler and Andy Hunt Agile Web Development with Rails 4 (Facets of Ruby) by Sam Ruby    SQL Queries for Mere Mortals: A Hands-On Guide to Data Manipulation in SQL by John Viescas The Art of SQL by Stephane Faroult PostgreSQL: Up and Running: A Practical Introduction to the Advanced Open Source Database by Regina O. Obe SQL Pocket Guide by Jonathan Gennick SQL Antipatterns: Avoiding the Pitfalls of Database Programming by Bill Karwin Why's (Poignant) Guide to Ruby       Why The Lucky Stiff 41:17 - Pramming and Business Books The Hard Thing About Hard Things: Building a Business When There Are No Easy Answers by Ben Horowitz Creativity, Inc.: Overcoming the Unseen Forces That Stand in the Way of True Inspiration by Ed Catmull In The Plex: How Google Thinks, Works, and Shapes Our Lives by Steven Levy The Phoenix Project: A Novel about IT, DevOps, and Helping Your Business Win by Gene Kim    So Good They Can't Ignore You: Why Skills Trump Passion in the Quest for Work You Love by Cal Newport The Passionate Programmer: Creating a Remarkable Career in Software Development (Pragmatic Life) by Chad Fowler Soft Skills: The software developer's life manual by John Sonmez The Rails Freelancing Handbook by Mike Gunderloy The Smart Girl's Guide to Privacy: Practical Tips for Staying Safe Online by Violet Blue Doxing Practices of an Agile Developer: Working in the Real World by Venkat Subramaniam Picks Mark Manson: The Most Important Question of Your Life (Jessica) Dan Luu: Normalization of Deviance in Software: How Completely Messed Up Practices Become Normal (Coraline) The Noun Project (Avdi) Lies My Teacher Told Me: Everything Your American History Textbook Got Wrong by James W. Loewen (Avdi) CES (Chuck) Bill Buxton: Avoiding the Big Crash (Jessica)

02:36 - Software Development and Reality Construction by Christiane Floyd Hermeneutics 05:42 - Peter Naur: Programming as Theory Building   07:55 - The Art of Empathy: A Complete Guide to Life's Most Essential Skill by Karla McLaren 13:14 - Programming Elixir: Functional |> Concurrent |> Pragmatic |> Fun by Dave Thomas 14:32 - ng-book 2 16:09 - Paper Reading Group Adrian Colyer's Blog We hear you like papers by Ines Sombra (Slides) 19:58 - Mindset: The New Psychology of Success by Carol Dweck 20:29 - Cracking the Coding Interview, 6th Edition: 189 Programming Questions and Solutions by Gayle Laakmann McDowell 22:01 - Ruby Rogues Book Club Books Episodes Ruby Rogues Episode #23: Book Club: Smalltalk Best Practice Patterns with Kent Beck Ruby Rogues Episode #87: Practical Object-Oriented Design in Ruby with Sandi Metz Ruby Rogues Episode #68: Book Club: Growing Object Oriented Software Guided by Tests with Steve Freeman and Nat Pryce Ruby Rogues Episode #97: Patterns of Enterprise Application Architecture with Martin Fowler Ruby Rogues Episode #178: Book Club: Refactoring Ruby with Martin Fowler 22:43 - Books to Learn When You’re Learning to Become a Software Developer Peopleware: Productive Projects and Teams by Tom DeMarco The Mythical Man-Month: Essays on Software Engineering by Frederick Phillips Brooks Software Project Survival Guide by Steve McConnell Code Complete: A Practical Handbook of Software Construction by Steve McConnell     The Pragmatic Programmer: From Journeyman to Master by Andrew Hunt Pragmatic Thinking and Learning: Refactor Your Wetware by Andy Hunt The Practice of Programming by Brian W. Kernighan and Rob Pike 33:07 - Technical Programming Books Programming Perl: Unmatched power for text processing and scripting by Tom Christiansen (The Camel Book) Unix Power Tools by Shelley Powers Ruby Cookbook by Lucas Carlson Programming Ruby: The Pragmatic Programmers' Guide by Dave Thomas, with Chad Fowler and Andy Hunt Agile Web Development with Rails 4 (Facets of Ruby) by Sam Ruby    SQL Queries for Mere Mortals: A Hands-On Guide to Data Manipulation in SQL by John Viescas The Art of SQL by Stephane Faroult PostgreSQL: Up and Running: A Practical Introduction to the Advanced Open Source Database by Regina O. Obe SQL Pocket Guide by Jonathan Gennick SQL Antipatterns: Avoiding the Pitfalls of Database Programming by Bill Karwin Why's (Poignant) Guide to Ruby       Why The Lucky Stiff 41:17 - Pramming and Business Books The Hard Thing About Hard Things: Building a Business When There Are No Easy Answers by Ben Horowitz Creativity, Inc.: Overcoming the Unseen Forces That Stand in the Way of True Inspiration by Ed Catmull In The Plex: How Google Thinks, Works, and Shapes Our Lives by Steven Levy The Phoenix Project: A Novel about IT, DevOps, and Helping Your Business Win by Gene Kim    So Good They Can't Ignore You: Why Skills Trump Passion in the Quest for Work You Love by Cal Newport The Passionate Programmer: Creating a Remarkable Career in Software Development (Pragmatic Life) by Chad Fowler Soft Skills: The software developer's life manual by John Sonmez The Rails Freelancing Handbook by Mike Gunderloy The Smart Girl's Guide to Privacy: Practical Tips for Staying Safe Online by Violet Blue Doxing Practices of an Agile Developer: Working in the Real World by Venkat Subramaniam Picks Mark Manson: The Most Important Question of Your Life (Jessica) Dan Luu: Normalization of Deviance in Software: How Completely Messed Up Practices Become Normal (Coraline) The Noun Project (Avdi) Lies My Teacher Told Me: Everything Your American History Textbook Got Wrong by James W. Loewen (Avdi) CES (Chuck) Bill Buxton: Avoiding the Big Crash (Jessica)