Tips to crack the coding interview

Introduction
Top 10 steps to crack coding interview

Practice on paper

Collecting the best resource for learning

Do Mock Interviews

Write down your mistakes

Work on Software Design Skills

Listen to Every Detail

Company-specific preparation

Speak your thoughts

Write Clean Code

Test Your Code

Tips for cracking the coding interview
FAQs

Introduction

Interviews can be overwhelming for even experienced candidates, and it is the first step to getting qualified for that dream job. When it comes to a programmer, coding interviews are considered one of the toughest rounds to crack as it assesses a candidate’s skills, logical thinking, intelligence along ability to solve problems and decisions. So, before attending the coding interview, one must prepare well for their interviews in advance. Cracking the coding interview is not easy as it involves working with algorithms, problems, and complex scenarios that require strong technical and logical skills to crack. Check out the free coding course.

In this blog, we discuss some of the important tips and tricks for cracking the coding interview.

Top 10 steps to crack the coding interview

• Practice on paper
• Collecting the best resource for learning
• Do Mock Interviews
• Write down your mistakes
• Work on Software Design Skills
• Listen to Every Detail
• Company-specific preparation
• Speak your thoughts
• Write Clean Code
• Test Your Code

Step 1: Practice on paper

Practice is the key to success, and coding interviews are no exception. Practicing on paper helps you train your mind to recognize algorithmic patterns and also gives you the much-needed confidence to solve the surprise problems that the interviewee might throw at you.

Learning to code with autocomplete assistance offers luxuries such as syntax highlighting, code completion, and quick debugging, but coding on paper does not! So, prepare these challenging interviews with a plain text editor, a piece of paper, or a whiteboard.

Step 2: Collecting the best resource for learning 

Cracking the coding interview is not easy, so one of the best ways to enhance your coding skills is by learning! Learn coding with the help of books, youtube content, blogs, and courses. 

Here is the list of top five books that can be a great resource to crack the coding interview

• Programming Interviews Exposed by John Mongan, Noah Suojanen Kindler, Eric Giguère
• Cracking the Coding Interview by Gayle Laakmann McDowell
• The Algorithm Design Manual by Steven S Skiena
• Elements of Programming Interviews by Amit Prakash, Tsung-hsien Lee, Adnan Aziz
• Programming Pearls by Jon Bentley

Some of the free online courses to crack coding interviews are listed below:

• Ace Coding Interviews
• Coding Interview Questions and Answers
• Common Coding Interview Problems
• Solving Coding Interview Problems from Top MNCs

Some of the free resources for preparing coding interviews are:

• FreeCodeCamp
• Cracking the Coding Interview
• BaseCS
• Educative.io
• LeetCode
• An Interview Primer

Step 3: Do Mock Interviews

Just like drama rehearsal, take up mock interviews before appearing for the actual interview. 

Practice as many interview questions and answers as possible from the above-given resources(step2) and start giving mock interviews. This can help you to learn a lot by experiencing the real mistakes which may happen during mock interviews.

Some of the free mock interview sites are: 

1. LeetCode
2. MyCareerStack | Programming Questions
3. Logicmojo
4. Stack Overflow
5. GeeksforGeeks – A computer science portal for geeks
6. Programming Interview Questions | CareerCup
7. Algorithm Tutorials
8. CrackTheInterview
9. Hacking a Google Interview
10. Techinterview

Step4: Write down your mistakes

After each mock interview or practice session, try to analyze your mistakes and learn from them. Remember this step for next time, so you’ll be less likely to repeat the same mistakes, and eventually, this will become second nature.

Step 5: Work on Software Design Skills

Coding interviews are not just about coding questions but also about solving problems with software and system designs. These questions throw candidates off their feet due to their complexity. It is very important as a fresher to understand software design and the development process as it would definitely make you stand out from the array of competitors.

Step 6: Listen to every detail

Coding interviews are interactive so practice your attentive listening! Your active listening reveals your intelligence and inquisitiveness in the interview.

When you listen to a problem, you need to pay attention to all of the details so that you are not off to the races solving the wrong problem. Asking for clarification is encouraged.

Step7: Company-specific preparation

Spending some time researching about the company helps a lot to drive your conversation with interviewers. This boosts your confidence since you know the latest interview format and the kind of questions being asked by the company.

Step 8: Speak your thoughts

While solving a coding problem, it is always better to speak out about your approach so that the interviewer knows about your thinking process. Candidates should engage the interviewer in a meaningful conversation while solving the problem, as this might help the interviewer by pushing them in the right direction.

Step 9: Write Clean Code

In the interview, write the code so it is easy to read and understand. To master the coding interview questions, one must know the algorithm well. If you don’t understand the algorithm well, you’ll struggle to code it.

Step 10: Test Your Code

In the interview, you can’t test your code on a computer. You need to check it using the power of your own brain manually.

One of the faster approaches to testing the code is to:

1. Read the code line-by-line, explaining what each line of code does to the interviewer.
2. Scrutinize the code that looks odd to you. 
3. Check spots prone to error. 
4. Test with a small test case and also null or extreme cases.

Tips for cracking the coding interview

• Practice coding 
• Do company-specific preparations
• Analyze different interview seniors and prepare for a unique strategy.
• After getting the problem, never waste your time thinking. Instead, get your thoughts down on paper, and write different approaches.
• Communication skills play an important role during the interview.
• Don’t get discouraged if you get stuck.
• Think loud and explain your approach to the interviewer
• Test for all edge cases before giving the final output.
• Get coding certificates to boast on your resume.

FAQs

Conclusion

This article on  “Tips to crack the coding interview” provides you with the necessary tips to crack the coding interview. Each interview will teach you something important. Thus, don’t over-expect or get dejected.

Follow the above-mentioned tips to prepare for your coding interview and be present in the situation i.e. in the interview room but don’t rush to the end. So, be open and embrace the journey. Interested to take your coding career further and learning all about software development? Get yourself a Post Graduation in Software Engineering and learn with the best.