Why Do Software Developers Get Rejected For Job Interviews
Causes and practical solutions to be more hirable
Have you been struggling for a while now to land an entry-level job? You have been sending countless applications for months and you are getting low responses or even rejections during the interviews.
Sometimes you send emails requesting them why they have rejected you but rarely do you get an answer from them and you start to feel lost and nobody cares about your skills or what you can offer.
You doubt it might be your technical skills because you haven’t taken this new edgy course about this new library that nobody actually uses or needs. You think they only hire through recommendations and friends and that no place for rising developers and talents or you need a prestigious degree or a certificate to work in a good place or you need to understand all the algorithms and data structures there!
You are feeling lost and would like to get some guidance…
Don’t worry my friend, in this article I will show you the essential skills needed to pass the interviews and get insights on what you are doing wrong and be able to land a job offer soon 🥳
Let’s go…
Note: We will discuss the skills you need for the hiring process but if you would like to get tips on how to write good CV you can check this article
Weak Communication Skills
Working in a team would be a daily activity for you when you join a new company that’s why weak communications skill is a big red flag and would turn your application down. If you can’t communicate your ideas clearly, it will make a hard time for your team to make progress.
There is a good saying:
“If you want to go fast, go alone. If you want to go far, go together”
That’s why you need to improve the ability to explain what’s in your mind to other developers and be able to make them understand what you mean and intend to do.
To practice it; the easiest way is to do pair programming with a friend and try to code together. If you can record a video of it and publish it on YouTube that would be a huge bonus.
Identical to Every Candidate
Currently, everyone knows developers are making a load of money and they are nearly the highest paying job and their salaries are always going up and up such that everyone would like to jump on the software development ship and learn how this magic works.
Consequently, employers now get thousands of applicants whom at least half of them are disqualified, a very small percentage would actually qualify to start the hiring process, and then very limited would actually get an offer.
The problem is that every candidate knows the same required languages and technologies but very few would have a very distinctive thing that separates them from the others.
Like for example, a candidate might have an active application working that they built for a hobby, another has a mobile app with 1 million downloads, another contributed to open source projects, another has online content explaining technical materials.
Mine was developing well over 60 projects for 35 clients from 10 countries during my freelance time and that’s why I got my first job interview the second day and then got the job offer the same day after just 2 hours from my interview!
So, find what makes you unique that would make the hiring managers very eager to hire you before other companies. Try to become the prize, not the frontrunners!
Lack of Practical Experience
This one could kill a good CV! No matter how many languages you can write in and how many frameworks and libraries you know. What matters is that you can deliver solutions to the clients of the company. This is the number one priority for any candidate!
I can write in few programming languages which I learned during my journey doing software but if you ask me in some of them I might not remember it well because I haven’t practiced it enough.
But the ones I am good at are those that I have built good functioning projects that deliver value to end-users.
Thanks to all the projects I have built, I have gained enough practical experience to be qualified for jobs and you will need to do the same. If your Github portfolio has no good practical projects, chances are you might find it challenging to get a software job.
Practice what you have learned in the study books
Arrogance and Ego
If you ever in an interview showed signs of ego and that you believe you know everything because you can write things your friends can’t understand. I assure you that you will be rejected.
Developers like to work in teams and learn from each other‘s skills. Egoistic people are toxic and they might think their solutions are better than others because it was theirs and that other colleagues are stupid.
During one of the interviews I did for a candidate, I found him showing ego and lack of humility and believed he knew everything. I then started to ask him advanced questions about Javascript and he wasn’t able to answer any of them and I wanted to show him that no one knows everything and of course he was rejected.
Be humble and be eager to learn new things from other people, no one will ever know everything. That’s why we work in teams!
Unfit Company
You might have the right skills, you might know the required frameworks, you have built a good amount of projects but you still might be rejected.
You need to think of developers as very expensive suits. When you need one, you would like to have the one that fits perfectly for your shape and the occasion.
Same with developers, hiring them is very expensive and time-consuming. It takes a long time to find the right candidate and a long time to walk them through the application.
That’s why companies want the perfect fit, the one that would fit the team culture, have some relative experience in what is the company doing, show interest to work on the project, and have ideas on how to improve it both on the technical and the business side.
You don’t have to change your personality to fit in but rather you should target companies that you would enjoy working in and you will fit in the team.
