I just had a first-round interview, and the questions were a bit unusual
I applied for a backend role with 3 years of experience and had my first-round interview today.
Instead of technical questions, they really dug into 'a project you failed at recently and what you learned from it.' It wasn't that I hadn't prepared, but after three follow-up questions, I got tongue-tied.
Next time, I should prepare my failure stories in STAR format too. They said the results will be out next week.
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Oh, if you get three follow-up questions on a failure story, that really messes with your head lol. You did well.
Backend interviews are really like that these days. More teams screen technical skills through resumes/take-home assignments and focus the interview on personality + problem-solving. In particular, they keep asking these two things: 'What was your judgment back then?' and 'What would you change if you did it again?' Organize your answers with STAR, but the conclusion needs to go beyond 'what I learned' and include 'so how did your behavior change afterward' or it falls flat. Once you're at the 3-year mark, you're in the stage where they look at the basis for your judgment rather than execution ability, so preparing failure stories is actually the key.
Well, that's a bit... If you memorize a failure story using STAR, there's a good chance you'll get grilled just the same in follow-up questions. Rather than the format, isn't it more important to first sort out what you actually felt at the time?
Got a source? lol Or is it just a feeling?