10 Mistakes to Avoid if You Want to Land a Programming Interview

Want to land some programming interviews? That all starts with your résumé and carries through to how you conduct yourself for screening and interviews. Your résumé will be the first or second thing (after your cover letter) company representatives tasked with hiring a new programmer will read to learn more about you. A résumé serves as a concise summary of your accomplishments and the only impression prospective employers will have about your abilities until they talk to you in your programming interview.

The initial reviewer of résumés acts as the company gatekeeper, and that person will determine if you’re worth considering for the job.

What’s more, your résumé will be put in the shredder if you give a poor performance during one or more of your interviews. You can’t come across as anything other than polite and straightforward if you want the job.

So, it’s important that you don’t make even one of the following ten résumé mistakes. Feel free to use this information as a checklist as you review your résumé and prepare for your programming interview.

Your résumé has typos, spelling errors, and uses incorrect grammar

The first and most obvious problem a reviewer will find in your résumé is a typo, a spelling error, or incorrect grammar. It’s very easy to make these résumé mistakes, which is one good reason why it’s a good idea to use a résumé writing service.

So what, you say? Just a little typo here or spelling error there isn’t a big deal because everyone makes mistakes, right?

An employer is judging you from the moment the person reviewing your résumé and cover letter takes a look at both. Just one error means you’re not just unprofessional, but you also lack attention to detail.

In software development, attention to detail means the difference between getting an application completed on time, getting good reviews from customers, and/or getting the next round of funding from investors so the company can stay afloat and employees can keep their jobs.

Your résumé is too long

It’s tempting to tell the company everything about your employment history in your résumé, especially if you’ve had a long career, because you want to impress the reader with how much experience you have and how many programming languages you know.

Resist that temptation and put yourself in the shoes of the résumé reviewer. Reviewers have dozens if not hundreds of résumés to go through, and it becomes overwhelming not only to read through your pages of experience but also to pick out what experiences you have that are relevant to the job opening. Most hiring personnel will agree it’s easier and faster to put a long résumé in the “to shred” pile.

So, you need to tailor a different résumé for each job opening. Start with the master copy of your résumé, create a copy for the company, and then edit that copy so that it fits the job description and is to the point. A one-page résumé is ideal, but don’t make it longer than two pages.

You want to tell your prospective employer that you’re valuable to the company because your skills fit the job description to a T. A short résumé will not only tell your prospective employer that, but also potential interviewers may be curious to learn more — especially if you add links to your online resources such as your blog and social media profiles.

You start your résumé with an objective

A company is not interested about what you’re looking for or what your career objectives are. Putting an objective at the beginning of your résumé shows that you’re only interested in what value you can get from the company, not what value you can give it.

What’s more, having objectives in your résumé shows that you wrote it because no professional résumé service will put objectives in a résumé, that you had no one who knows about writing modern résumés review yours.

Your résumé layout looks sloppy and is hard to read

The presentation of your résumé determines if it’ll be read by anyone other than the initial reviewer. Now you may think that because you’re a computer programmer, your presentation doesn’t matter — it’s the code examples that count!

The initial reviewer is an expert in one thing, and it’s not computer programming. So, you need to win over the perception of that gatekeeper and ensure the résumé is designed so that it’s easy to read and presents your information in a way that reviewers can find what they need. A professional résumé service will ensure that your résumé is well-designed.

If you’ve decided not to take our advice and you write and design your résumé yourself, here’s an even better idea (because we’re always thinking): Ask one or all of your mock interviewers to review your résumé before you send them out. Having those mock interviewers pick apart your résumé may not feel good, but doing so will give you a far better chance of having a résumé that glows when the reviewer reads it.

You have inappropriate material on social media

You may have links to your social media profiles in your résumé, but even if you don’t, the initial reviewer will likely search for your profiles online. If the reviewer doesn’t but sends your résumé to others for further review, those reviewers will definitely search for your name on Google, within social media websites, or (probably) both.

If company reviewers find anything that they think is questionable if not downright objectionable, they’ll run, not walk, to the shredder to rid themselves of your résumé. (You likely won’t hear anything back from the company about the job, either.)

Make sure you take the time to clean up your social media profiles and present a professional image.

You lie during the phone screen or programming interview

Employment, like any other relationship, is based on trust. Your employer reasonably expects that you’ll get your work done, do a good job, and be honest. However, if you lie during an interview because you think it’s better to give an answer, you’d be embarrassed if you didn’t, and/or you think not answering will cost you the job, the opposite is true.

Presume your interviewers are experienced at interviewing and will know when you’re lying either because at least one of them knows the subject matter and will call you out on your lie immediately, they’ll see your mannerisms change, or (likely) both. When that happens, expect to be thanked for your time and escorted out of the building.

If you don’t know the answer to a question, say so and put a positive spin on it. If you honestly haven’t studied the specific issue the interviewer asked you about, you can say, “You know, I haven’t encountered that yet, but I will now because I’m curious.”

Or, if you don’t remember the answer to the question, you could say, “You know what? I should probably know the answer but I don’t remember what it is. Could you please tell me? Because I’m really curious to know about it so I can study that more.”

When you answer confidently and in a way that tells your interviewers that you want to learn, they’ll more likely think your lack of an answer isn’t a big deal and they’ll move on to the next question.

It seems acceptable, especially if you take your behavioral cues from politics, that you should “double down” if someone says you’re lying. That is, you should be argumentative and insist that you’re telling the truth when at least one interviewer says you aren’t. This strategy only compounds your problem — because being argumentative during your interview isn’t professional — and will reinforce the interviewers’ perceptions that they shouldn’t hire you.

You are arrogant and/or argumentative during your programming interview

An interview can feel contentious or even threatening. You may think that you’ll have to defend yourself — aggressively, if necessary — because you don’t want to look weak. In reality, that strategy will expose a couple of your big weaknesses: you’re immature and you can’t get along with other people.

When you’ve gone through at least one mock interview so you’ve worked out any and all of your behavioral issues, and you know you’re a good programmer, it’ll be very difficult for an interview to fluster you.

Instead, you’ll know that if an interviewer asks you a question that you don’t know the answer to, or challenges the answer to your question, you don’t need to argue. You also don’t need to put up defenses and become arrogant such as by saying the interviewer doesn’t know what he’s talking about.

You can simply remain calm, focus on the question or answer instead of the questioner, and discuss the issue. If you can’t, then you’ve just told the interviewers that you’re not confident in your abilities. Don’t be surprised if the head interviewer ends the interview right there.

If you were calm and collected during your mock interview, don’t change your behavior because you’re in a real interview. It’s human to want to change your behavior when you find yourself in a different situation, such as when you get promoted. Instead, in your real interview, double down on showing the confidence you displayed in your mock interview.

You have a bad reputation

The world is smaller than you think, especially if you’re looking for work in one city or region. Always presume that employees at various employers talk to each other because there are plenty of opportunities to do so, such as at conferences, business luncheons, and Meetup events for human resources people, developers, and other groups.

If you developed a bad reputation at one company where you’ve had social issues with other employees, had issues with your boss, and have burned bridges, that behavior will catch up to you when you’re looking for another job.

What’s a good sign that you have a bad reputation? When you send out at least 10 to 20 résumés and cover letters and you either receive generic rejection letters or no response at all from every single company you’ve applied to.

Getting the feeling that you’ve created a bad reputation is an experience that you’ll always remember, but if and when you make a commitment to change and build a good reputation instead, do things to make yourself stand out. Today is a great day to start.

Professional résumé services may have their fingers on the pulse of the technology community and make a list of who has a bad reputation so they can prepare for that if a person on the list wants to use their service.

A professional résumé service may offer services to rebuild your reputation — for an extra fee. So, having a bad reputation may also require you to shell out money you didn’t expect to spend to get your foot in an employer’s door.

You don’t dress properly at your programming interview

People discriminate naturally, so when you arrive at the company for your interview, the first thing your interviewers and other company personnel will notice is how you’re dressed. And if you’re not dressed professionally and groomed properly, no matter if a company representative says you can dress casually, then you’re telling the interviewers that you’re not professional.

When interviewers see that you’ve taken the time and effort to dress properly and look like a professional, they’ll not only see you as a professional but also as someone who is an excellent programmer — just as you said in your cover letter and résumé.

One or more interviewers may comment on the way you look and say that you don’t have to dress that way in the job. That’s a good sign that you’ve made a positive impression, because some of your interviewers think you’re worthy of being hired.

You give the impression you’re hiding something

If you go into a programming interview, it’s natural to feel somewhat nervous if you haven’t practiced before — and especially if you haven’t interviewed for a job before or for a long while. That’s why you should hold at least one mock interview so you can get the butterflies out of your system.

Building up your confidence during a mock interview has another beneficial side effect — you’ll avoid giving the company interviewers any one of the following several negative impressions:

• You’re hiding something — maybe you lied on your résumé.
• You don’t do well in high pressure situations.
• You’re not an authentic person.

When you’re nervous, you’ll make at least one interviewer nervous and you may not “click” with those people. When you’re confident, you’ll create a connection between you and your interviewers, and it’s more likely you’ll come across as someone who can be trusted, who knows what you’re doing, and that you’re a genuine person.

There may be one or more interviewers you won’t connect with regardless because they have some issues, such as they may be intimidated by your skill set or another programmer might dilute their power.