Steps to getting a job

[static token]

I am currently looking to get a job by October. I am a recent grad in CS and I am reviewing all of the core concepts of my programming classes on CodeAcademy.

I plan to do Grokking the Interview next.

Any tips are welcomed please

[dense panther]

Start applying as soon as you can and see how you resume stacks up on the resume screen phase of things

And get some practice with intervening hopefully

[static token]

I’ve had good success applying

[dense panther]

Oh okay good

[static token]

Just get murdered on technical OAs

Even very easy ones

[dense panther]

Ahhhh alright gofcha

Not a bad place to be though

Resume must be alright

[static token]

GM sent me one for an adjacent matrix and I couldn’t solve it

[proud rock]

If you do better learning from physical books, I'd suggest "Cracking the Coding Interview" by Gayle Laakmann McDowell. You can find older iterations of the book as a pdf online for free. Lots of tips and practice problems.

[buoyant bay]

My personal routine for grinding LeetCode over the summer:
Level 1: 1 problem/day on Grind75 easy. Could speed up if you're comfortable with the problems
Level 2: 2 problems/day on Grind75 medium, 1 (optional) hard on Grind75 from the 75 question list (all other problems on the full 169 question list)

Maximum 30 minutes per problem (my personal balance between personal stubbornness to solve a problem on my own as well vs not wasting time), exceeding is fine if you have a partial solution though stop if it fails, then peek and do a writeup on why the solution works.

Like pi said, CTCI, although perhaps a little dated for the DSA-heavy processes we have now, is still very good. Decent amount of overlap in questions, and she provides hints too. Would recommend having a read through.

Grokking is nice as well. Most problems can fit decently into a pattern with some nuance. No personal experience with CodeAcademy.

[static token]

I actually do horrible learning from books

CTCI seemed like Chinese to me

I feel as if it overcomplicates the severity of what is actually needed

[static token]

Right now I am doing the Java courses on Codecademy before doing Blind75/Grokking

[proud rock]

The other thing I can suggest is doing your practice problems out loud. Not only does it prepare you for a tech interview, but (at least for me) hearing my thoughts out loud helped me organize and explore the problem and eventually find a solution.

[static token]

As far as programming experience, I took Programming I, II, and Data structures for my degree @proud rock is that enough to start

I am brushing up still because it’s been so long some basic concepts were slipping by on CodeAcademy

I think once I finish Codecademy I’ll be fine to start grokking and just fill in gaps as needed

[proud rock]

not sure what programming I and II covered, but tbh if you made it through a DSA course, that's enough to get started

[static token]

Covered everything through polymorphism and encapsulation

[static token]

Is Grokking better to start before blind 75 if I don’t have the best knowledge? @proud rock

[tawdry igloo]

I recommend the techinterviewhandbook grind75. They have a very handy algo cheatsheet and resources, and good selection of problems that progressed throughout the weeks

Tbh, you can just read the concepts of the patterns shown on Grokking free somewhere else. The paid problem explanation of Grokking is not the best imo

My plan has been read through some patterns and try them out, then go back to grind75 and progress weekly

[static token]

I got contacted by a recruiter from Yahoo today (thought that company was dead). I am not sure if it’s a good job, but I would like to be prepared for that interview if possible

So I am on a time crunch

[buoyant bay]

Yahoo I know at the very least is still very much a thing in Japan, less so in the US though.

[static token]

What should I tell the recruiter that reached out today?

They want to interview me, but I am still working my way through Codecademy principles

[dense panther]

why does this matter?

[static token]

I can't Leetcode

[dense panther]

isnt the best way to get good at something to practice?

sounds like an interview is great practice

also, you have no clue what kind of interview this will be

assuming anything without confirming makes little sense to me

[static token]

Well, I won't be able to even start in the interview; so it would be a waste of time for both of us I feel

She said it was a technical interview consisting of two coding questions in 45 mins

[dense panther]

i mean its your life but to me it seems obvious that you gotta start and try somewhere, sounds like a good chance

i took many interviews i initially thought i wasnt prepared for

turned out fine, good learning experience, or i got a job

but i admit, i am a very 'go out there and fail' kind of person when it comes to going after what i want , might not be everyones thing

[static token]

I just want to have a legitimate chance of actually getting the job

[dense panther]

i hear you, but then you already know the answer to this question

you simply ignore the invitation to interview

[static token]

would that blacklist me?

[dense panther]

?

ignoring an email?

yeah not a big deal aha

[static token]

If I apply again in the near future

[dense panther]

overthinking this

literally not a big deal lol

could easily just say you didnt see it

the most likely situation is no one will care or remember

i have ignored like 100 amazon recruiter emails

im confident if i applied i would still get another one asking me for an interview LOL

[buoyant bay]

Personal opinion:

Technical interviews are generally incredibly shallow with regards to the amount of language-specific features that you need to know. With regards to Java, the most I'd say to be ready to practice interviews is looping, conditionals, and potentially some of the new Java 8-15 features like var and Streams/Collections, along with standard library stuff like data structure operations (LinkedList, Deque, Heap, Stack).

Chances are you're going to be spending a lot more time working on building up your technical interview muscle (identifying common problem patterns and solving them quickly), which is difficult if not impossible to cram especially if you're not used to it. With a limited timeframe to prepare (assuming that a job should be obtained by October), any time spent on one is not spent on the other. In other countries like the UK the interview questions may bias towards trivia ("if I initialize this with its supertype and call a method, which one is used"), but in the US it seems DSA is the main gatekeeper.

This video clarifies what I mean, in the sense that you probably don't want to stress over learning every little thing about Java at the moment. If it turns out that you don't understand something, then go back and focus on that part. The cool part about Java is that most of the data structures implement the same interface and thus have the same/similar operations (push/add/put, pop/poll/get, size/length), so there's not a lot of syntax.
https://youtu.be/RDzsrmMl48I