Prepare the non technical interviews
When seriously looking for a new job, a lot of engineers prepare for technical interviews – they warm up on leetcode, read design interview questions etc. but very few prepare for the non technical interviews when they should.
There are different flavors of non technical interviews, but the most common ones are the hiring manager and the cross functional ones. The questions you will get are easier than finding some dynamic programming algorithms, but if you have never thought about them ahead of time, your answer will be messy and you likely won’t be able to spin up a good narrative about yourself/your work.
The way to prep is just to try to answer these questions ahead of time:
- Tell me a time when you had a disagreement with your leadership and how you fixed it?
- How did you address disagreements across stakeholders in the past?
- What is the most impactful project you had at your previous job?
- Etc.
There are tons of these questions online so I won’t list more here but you get the gist.
My advice is to just read a few before brushing your teeth, taking a shower or before going for a run – basically anytime your brain has some idle time. You should try to answer them truthfully but also in a way that makes you shine – so pick carefully your examples. Once you find a good answer, write them down to make sure you don’t forget them! You will likely end up with a few events/stories that fit for multiple types of questions.
If you worked hard to pass all the hard technical interviews, it would be terrible to be rejected on some “easy” questions because you just never thought about them – so prepare for them!