I participated in my first ever interview in 2009 as a candidate for a software engineering internship. Before that, there were a couple of awareness programs arranged by the university to make students ready for the interviews but I was not able to put much attention on it so I faced the interview with lack of preparation. During the interview, I realized that I have not taken time to cover the basics for an interview. My self-introduction was horrible and it didn’t contain any of the important points to put me in a better conversation. I was not prepared with the information of the projects and technologies I have included in the CV, so my answers were mostly as “I’m not sure ....” or “as I can remember ...” which ruined my confidence. Even I have not refreshed the knowledge on the basics such as OOP concepts, Databases or Algorithms which made me skip some of the questions asked. I got rejected from my first interview and then the second and then the next.
After getting rejected from 3 consecutive internship interviews I was desperate and only very few students from my batch were left like me. The worst thing happened to me was that I wasn’t able to get myself corrected after the first interview and I was repeating the same mistake. In the end, the head of my engineering department had to directly involve to find me an internship opportunity.
After the internship, I joined back the university to complete my fourth year and at the end of it there was a career fair organized by the university. As same as the last time, there were a series of programs to prepare the students for their interviews and this time I took the best out it. There was a new program called Mock Interviews and I got very valuable constructive feedback during the first mock interview and then I requested another one to test myself further. With all that I was well prepared for the job interviews and was able to get a job offer sooner than many of my colleagues. I realized that “The Mock Interview” helped me a lot to get prepared for my real interview. Later years I have contributed to conduct a number of mock interviews for students and all those students have found that it was helpful for them as well and one of the students personally talked to me to appreciate the feedback I provided after getting his first job offer at a renowned company in Sri Lanka.
During my 7 years of work life, I have interviewed a considerable amount of candidates and I see my story in many of them. Whenever I see such an unprepared candidate I get to remember how I suffered in my interviews for the internship. At the same time, it strikes me how much of a difference could have been made with some simple guidance for them. Mock Interview LK is a result of that feeling.
With the help of a few of my friends who have years of experience in the software industry, we started a free service to provide mock interviews for the candidates who are in need. Candidates can make a request to us by filling the Google Form pinned in our FB page or else they can send us a quick request via Email, Messenger or Twitter. The requests will be served with an online mock interview at a convenient time for both parties. At the end of the mock interview, there will be a feedback session which will consist of feedback on the CV as well as how did the candidate perform during the mock interview.
We do have resource people to provide mock interviews in the software industry but based on the requests we’ll try to get more resource people from other industries. Please spread this word to candidates who are in need so we can help them to face their next interview more confidently.
Mock Interview LK is there to make everyone ready for their next interview. It's all for free, do not miss the opportunity.
