in today's video i'm going to share my interview preparation framework there are six steps that i
typically follow for preparing for any interview specifically data science and technical interviews
but i think that tips that i'm going to share the framework that i'm going to be sharing today
it can be applied to any interview that you have upcoming technical or non-technical data science
or non-data science number one step for any job interview that i have is research uh yes i like to
do a lot of research so by research i mean a lot of research a lot of reading a lot of talking and
trying to understand and take good notes of what is expected from this interview from this job so
typically either if i have applied to the role then i already have the access to the job
description where i would try to understand like what is required what are the responsibilities
um and i would also use linkedin to study other people's profile who are working in that role
because that gives me a big idea of like other people's background who are already working in
that role and what typically attracts people to get hired into this role in options where
i already have access to the recruiter where the recruiter has reached out to me for a job opening
those are for me ideal because i have access to the recruiter who is familiar with the job who is
familiar with the job description who's familiar with the team the hiring manager so i use that
the first phone screen with the recruiter as an opportunity to ask a lot of great great questions
and i think there's a misconception that recruiters are out there to get you
honestly like that's actually not the case the recruiters are there because they want you to
be successful they want to help you and they want to process the interview process to convert into
a job offer because that's there literally that's the goal so think of your recruiters as somebody
who you can talk to and ask questions uh for example for me when i'm talking to recruiter
i'm trying to understand about the job and as well as the interview process i would ask them a lot of
questions what the team works on what are the kind of projects that they do all those type of
things and then in addition to that i asked them a lot of questions about the interview process
what does the process looks like what are the what does the technical screen looks like what does the
actual interview looks like and if there is a technical screen involved i ask them what are
the type of questions that i should expect in the interview yeah so sometimes recruiters will share
um what are the type of questions that i should expect in the interview so i take that i take
great notes on them and i've had recruiters that have like shared with me medium blogs of uh people
who have written in terms of like this is how you prepare for the interview um just to give me an
idea because sometimes the recruiters they don't have like a guide to share with all everybody so
they have share like external resources so that's the research with the recruiter so if you have
access to the recruiter make sure that you're asking a lot of good questions like regardless
if you have access to the recruiter or not i also do a lot of research online where i would go to
different websites to understand what are the type of questions that i should be preparing for
in the interview one of my favorite websites for that is glassdoor so for those of you who are
not familiar glassdoor is basically this is not sponsored by the way i literally go to glassdoor
during my research phase to prepare for the job um interview so uh glassdoor has those interview
um basically reviews and in that reviews sometimes people leave questions that they're being asked
so they it doesn't have like all the questions but it does give me a decent idea in terms of like
what type of questions i should be expecting so i would go i typically go and read all the glass
door interviews all the interview experiences plus the questions then i also go on blind where
i see like if there anybody has previously asked this question in terms of like interviewing at
x company for x roll and see like what people are saying what what are the type of interview
questions or um concepts that i should be preparing this research phase takes me a long time
i typically try to schedule my interviews out a few months in advance so that way i have the time
for the research as well as the remaining steps so the step number two that i like to follow
is once i've done the research i already know that what is expected from me from the interview then i
go into the planning phase in the planning phase i basically have a google document where i try to
write down um basically from the research i have a lot of notes on things that i should expect from
this interview so from that note i will see like what are the areas that i'm comfortable with and
what are the areas that i'm not comfortable with so then i have two sections and then from those
two sections i basically create a plan a backward plan depending on like when my interview is let's
say if my interview is three months down the road then i create a plan and coordinate like this is
the concept text for example there's a question about let's say very simple example like there's
a self join in sql that is one of the common questions that has come up in that interview
i personally don't like self join so i know that's like a weak idea for me i'll create a calendar
plan where i would say like okay on this day typically i since i'm working full-time i would
choose my weekends to prepare for the interview so i'll i'll write down okay on this weekend i'm
going to prepare for this concept on this week and i'm going to prepare for this concept um so
that way i kind of have kind of like a backward plan that is coordinated with the interview date
um and where i am right now do the research and do the planning do not skip this step
i think a lot of people what what they do is like when they get the interview call um or before they
start even applying to jobs they the first step they get into is preparing specifically for data
science the data science rules are very ambiguous and it they mean different things different
companies so this is where it becomes even more important for you to put the time into research
in the planning phase so you can figure out what exactly are the requirements for this interview
so you can prepare accordingly all right so that was step one research step two planning
and now step three which is the preparation so let's say if i've created my plan i know
exactly what i'm going to do when that's when i get into the preparation and preparation for
technical interviews that would involve a lot of doing a lot of hands-on practice from lead code
and hang on depending on what i what i need to rehearse on what i need to practice on i would
basically choose my tools my websites based off of that for data science typically i don't find lead
code to be very helpful i know it's like a very popular option for a lot of software development
interview questions and as well as applied science but i personally typically i don't have a premium
version so i don't know it might be helpful i only have the free version so i personally don't find
lead code to be very data science interview prep friendly i prefer hackerrank specifically so i try
to combine both of them um both of them into my interview prep typically i don't do python
problems on lead code i'll do sql problems on lead code that are available for in the free option and
i know don't come after me to get a premium option i will consider it but i think there's plenty of
options out there that are available for free so i don't i don't want to spend spend money on that
because so far it's been working out for me um and then yeah hacker rank i use quite a bit for
sql practice as well as python practice so yeah so like during my preparation phase i will be doing
a lot of like hands-on coding practice um and then in addition to that there would be like conceptual
uh concepts that i would need to fresh on for example they're like if they're like
a machine learning concepts that i need to fresh freshen up on um and or like behavioral questions
i would write down all that there are not many behavioral questions so i would write
down all the behavioral questions and then i'll brainstorm all the projects that i've worked on
that fall into and under that question so i'll create a story using the star method and then i'll
note down everything and then i'll rehearse and practice because i don't want to come up with
these questions these answers in the spur of the moment i want to be as prepared as possible
so yeah a lot of coding practice a lot of uh writing down my notes my projects under
the behavioral questions and as well as like uh freshening up on any concept that i don't feel
comfortable with or i haven't touched in a while so those are the primarily the three specific
ideas that i focus on during the preparation phase the number four step which is mock interviews
and i know a lot of people don't do it and maybe it's working out for you but for me personally i
find mock interviews to be super super super helpful because when i'm preparing by myself
i'm able to do things smoothly let's say like i'm able to finish the problem set i'm able to solve
the problems quickly and i'm able to answer my own questions quickly but when you have another person
there there is like some added pressure that gets added and the same situation happens when you are
in an actual interview where you have another person there is like some nervousness some um um
some pressure that you have on you that sometimes you forget or say things or do things that you
don't mean to do or sometimes if you're like me you're like everything just wipes out for those
of you who don't know what mock interview is mock interview is basically you are trying to mimic an
actual interview but it's not really an actual interview so you are either doing it with your
friend or your colleague or whoever it is that is familiar with that um job family so yeah like
typically i would do um one to two mock interviews i don't do a lot of them but from those mock
interviews what i try to see is i try to get like after i finish the interview i dedicate at least
like 30 minutes with my mock interview trying to understand like what are my what are the feedbacks
and what are the things that i i didn't need to say differently or solve differently or if
they're like any edge cases that i miss that i should be considering so the mock interview is
what it does for me and what it will do for you it will make you feel comfortable answering questions
to another person second it will give you a different perspective in into your preparation
and it will uh basically find loopholes where you possibly are not as prepared so you can take
that feedback and that's typically what i do is like i take that feedback and then i go back to
my preparation material and then i freshen up on those ideas before going to the actual interview
and that's the step number five which is the actual interview um there's not much i have to
say here other than like if you have already done the previous work like all the work and all the
preparation you should feel pretty comfortable on your interview day but yeah sometimes the nurse do
get the best of you so what i typically try to do is like i'll definitely get a good night's sleep
i try to get ready and wear my favorite outfit because i have realized like that makes me feel
confident um and yeah i'll like do my hair and makeup because like i if i'm feeling confident
then i'm basically i know like i'm gonna do well and yeah like just don't um if you are working
like take the day off like don't put extra pressure on yourself to do the interview as
well as the work day so that's my advice to you would be if you are trying to interview other
companies like make sure like you're using their your pto and your vacation time to kind of like
prepare for those interviews so yeah like just be yourself just stay confident and just know that
like even if you don't perform your best it's not end of the world it's just think of it as a
learning experience and if nothing else you met with somebody you network with somebody so yeah
so after the actual interview i basically all the work that i did uh basically it's done right so um
i always always always send thank you um emails to all my interviews after the interview is over
and a lot of times what will happen is that the coordinator is the main poc so you will never
get the interview the in emails of the actual interviews so in this case what i do is i write
thank you notes as if i have those interviewers email and i'll send them to my recruiter and i say
hi joe could you please send this thank you email to this person this thank you emailed this person
and they will do that for you that's typically how i have been doing it because at a lot of the big
companies they won't just hand out interviewers email um unless you're able to get that email
during the interview which i would not recommend because there is no point you
already have access to them you have already talked to them and you already have access to
the recruiter who is going to help you basically communicate communicate through the recruiter so
send your thank you emails to your recruiter and request them to forward it so
that's my tip for you last step and let's not forget about the last step which is
a very very important step is do the reflection uh one of the things that i like to do after my
actual interview is i take notes i start taking notes again about my experience how it went
how i did and what are the some areas where i felt comfortable in and what are some areas
that i didn't feel comfortable in because i'm gonna use that experience um and turn it into
a learning opportunity for my next so i call this step reflection and learn and improve
so the possibility is that if you are in the job market you're probably gonna interview
you're gonna have other interviews as well so use every interview that you do
reflect on it find what are the opportunities that you need to improve on and improve on them
and then so in your next interview you're actually doing better so that's all i wanted to say i hope
this was helpful so the six steps that i talked about research planning preparation mock interview
actual interview and the reflection learn and improve all right with that thank you so much
for watching i hope today's video was helpful let me know in the comments what are you what is your
typical process that you follow for preparing for any of the job interviews and with that thank you
so much for watching i hope you're having a beautiful day i'll talk to you later bye