🎯 New GradsSoftware Engineer1 min read

New CS Grad: 6 Interviews, 4 Offers in 1-2 Months with a Live Demo Trick

A recent CS graduate from a well-regarded private university landed four job offers from six interviews within one to two months of graduating. He attributes his success to strong work experience, a full-stack skillset, a clean resume with a personal site, and being skilled at the non-technical side of interviews. A standout tactic was doing a short live demo of a personal project during interviews.

Key takeaways

  • →Prioritize real work experience and shipped projects over GPA -- interviewers respond to evidence of output.
  • →Prepare a live demo of a personal project you can show in under five minutes; it stands out from purely verbal answers.
  • →Build a strong personal site alongside your resume so recruiters who find you have somewhere to go deeper.
  • →Practice the non-technical side of interviews -- communication and presence matter as much as algorithms at most companies.
  • →Respond promptly and proactively to recruiter outreach; inbound interest from companies converts to offers at a high rate.

I've just graduated, and I have a job. I interviewed at six companies and had four offers.

My coursework is good but not stellar, but I have lots of work experience, an in-demand skillset (full-stack web dev), and a solid history of projects with strong results. I went to an upper-tier private university that companies actively recruit from.

The total time varied by company but was generally one to two months. Most companies moved quickly regardless of their ultimate decision. The longest lapse was usually between initial contact and the first interview.

Of the six companies: two were big Silicon Valley names, one was a small consulting firm, one was a large insurance corporation, and two were large private software companies outside the Valley. I went with one of the last two.

Three of the companies actually contacted me first -- and interestingly, all three made me offers. I have a clean single-page resume and a personal site with more detail.

More importantly, I am good at the non-technical side of interviews. That helped me everywhere except at companies that do nothing but demand you regurgitate rote CS knowledge -- like Google.

One trick I used: a short live demo (under five minutes) of a personal project during interviews, sometimes with a brief code walkthrough. Not everyone cared to see it, but when they did, it was almost always well-received.

Adapted from a public post by ivraatiems on Hacker News. Read the original →