Whether you are actively looking for your next role or just browsing to see what’s out there, interviewing regularly is very important. It gives you a reality check of a number of things including, the kind of compensation you can expect, the opportunity to work on exciting roles which could be more aligned with your long-term goals, and too many others that I won't be covering here. In some very small percentage of interviews, it can also be a good networking opportunity. Yes, I have connected to some really interesting people after the interview.

So why don't people interview more and miss out on all the fun? The most common excuse I have heard is

But I am not “fully” prepared yet…

Usually, people try to first be “fully” prepared until they feel confident in their abilities to answer anything that would be thrown at them before scheduling their first interview.

If were to plot a graph, they want to have a certain preparedness baseline

Great, I am listening, So to translate that into time, they would need maybe 3 - 6 weeks of prep until they reach their desired preparedness and then start interviewing

So, that would translate to 3 -6 weeks of prep and another 3-4 weeks or interview and then offer which would be
~10 - 12 weeks till your first offer.

But who are we kidding, things are not that linear, life happens and you get off schedule. Between you work related emergencies and family commitments, this next graph shows a more realistic expectations

The initial preparations don't start as expected, You don’t reach your preparedness levels till 5 - 6 weeks. Not even close, and then you are starting to lose motivation and start interviewing anyway.

The realistic timeline gets us the first offer close to ~15 - 18 weeks.

Now, thats a huge problem.

Let's see how we can improve that

Iterative Interviewing

Instead of planning and preparing all in the beginning, we are going to Just start and adjust as and when required and only when necessary. We get rid of the excessive studying/preparing phase and let the actual interviews guide us in the process. Let's divide the entire experience into 3 phases

Phase 1: Gathering Data, fault finding,

This is the first, most important stage, and most challenging of all. In this step, all you have to do is schedule your 1st interview.

The preparation time for this interview should be 1 week. 2 weeks at the max if you think you need it but not more than that.

In this one week, you will prepare as broadly as you can. There is no way you are going to ace it. Look at it as a mock interview. In fact, if you do pass it then you have over-prepared. Thats it. Say it 10 times to yourself. This has to go as bad as possible.

Once the interview is over do these things right after it's over. Don't even get up from the chair.

1. Frantically type out all the questions discussed.
2. All technical areas that you need to prepare
3. Is there anything on your resume, that you haven’t worked on for a while or that does not relate to your job function?

Schedule the next Interview Exactly a week from the first one.

Phase 2: Hone your responses and work on weaknesses

After 3 rounds of phase 1, exactly 3 weeks after you decided you wanted to interview. You have 3 interviews under your belt. Hopefully, you did poorly on all of them which is great. So now you have loads of data on things you need to improve and how.

Now, you can take 2 weeks at max to begin the next phase and just study based only on your interviews so far. Repeat the steps after the interview in phase 1.

Phase 3: Practice, Practice, Practice!!

Now it's a number game. By this time you not only know what you need to do but exactly how you want to execute it.

Your confidence is also yours to improve by leaps and bounds. Just remind yourself that you have done all of this will 1 week of prep. Imagine how good you will be with 4 weeks and 4 interviews later. It’s only going to get better.

Now 3-4 weeks of prep and 2 more weeks of interviews which gets you your first offer in 5 weeks. Isn’t that something?

Finally, just relax and be awesome!! You got this!!