Over the course of my career I’ve met many great developers that are stuck at dead-end, low paying jobs and they can’t get out. What most of these developers have in common, is the fact that they don’t know how to sell themselves.

At my current job, I interview potential employees that are applying for developer positions and I’ve come to a point where I know if the person will pass the interview or not after a few minutes of talking to them. There are a lot of indicators in the way the candidate acts and in the way he talks, that help me see if they would be a fit for our company.

Through this article, I’m going to share some of my personal knowledge from experiences in interviews where I was the candidate, and some observations from the other side, where I’m the interviewer.

What you should do

What most of the candidates that pass have in common is confidence. They are completely confident in their knowledge, they’re not afraid to voice their opinion, even if they are wrong.

Most interviews begin by the candidate talking a bit about themselves. This is one of the most important parts of the interview. First impressions are extremely important. If you make a good impression at the start, maybe the interviewer will disregard some mistakes later on.

What you need to do is openly talk about yourself. Never begin this part by talking about your past work experience, knowledge etc. What you need to do is to talk about you as a person, what interests you, what makes you happy, what are you personal, not professional goals.

After that, you want to gradually transit into talking about your professional life. Again, talk in great detail about everything, especially about why you have left your previous companies. It is very important to make it clear why you left your previous job. Did you get fired? Why? You need to make the interviewer have confidence in your loyalty to the company.

Most interviewers will start with technical questions after the introduction. This part believe it or not, is not that important. Even if you don’t know something, ask the interviewer to explain it to you shortly, write down what he says so you can research it later. This will make an incredible impression. Make sure they see you writing it down. This part really depends on your knowledge and there isn’t some magic trick to it. Know your shit and you won’t have a problem, if you do, don’t be stubborn and try to learn something new.

The last part of the interview is usually the part where you are the one that gets to ask the questions, and this is the most important part. Before you come to the interview, research the company, so you have questions to ask about them. What I have found to be the most successful method for this part, is to use the interviewers questions against them. Here’s how we do that.

Since in this part of the interview, you’re the one that’s asking questions, use the usual questions that interviewers ask you.

A lot of interviewers ask the following questions:

Where do you see yourself in X years?

Why do you think you would be a good fit for us?

What makes you different?

Why should we hire you over some other person?

When you turn these around and use them against the interviewer, they sound like this:

Where do you see your company in X years?

Why do you think that your company is a good fit for me?

What makes you different from other companies?

Why should I take a position at your company instead of some other company?

These questions achieve a lot. First, the interviewer won’t be able to ask you the same questions later in the interview because you were the one who used them first. Second, you will find out a lot about the company that you wouldn’t have if you didn’t ask those questions. A lot of times, the interviewer won’t be ready for those questions and they will be impressed.

The last part usually comes down to your desired salary. When you are asked for the salary you want, tell them the highest number you can say without laughing. This will throw the ball back in their court and there is no way you undercut yourself. This will make them think about how important and how valuable you would be to the company and they will have to make an offer based on that. Most of the time, this will help you bring in more cash than you expected.

So, nailing the interview comes down to being honest, open, confident, using the interviewers weapons against him and making it clear that you don’t have a problem with learning.

Short list of things you shouldn’t do