How I Learned to Interview for Contract Jobs

"Interviewing is a skill and of its own, but it's a different beast," she says. "I didn't realize at first that they were looking for behavioral indicators of how you're going to act if they hire you."

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Episode notes

On this episode of Ruby for All, Andrew and Julie are excited to have as their guest, Adrian Valenzuela, who’s a Ruby Developer, open source contributor, and maintains a tutorial blog called, Mugen Ruby. Today, Adrian talks about how he got into web development and picking up contract gigs, which he was hired for based on his involvement in the community rather than just his skills. He also dives into his experience and struggles with various corporate job interviews, and the different type of tests he’s taken in interviews. Adrian shares advice how finding a community of people and sharing knowledge is important to overcome struggles, and how he’s going to continue to write tutorials, contribute, help others, and build while waiting for a corporate job to arise. Press download to hear more!

[00:00:53] Adrian talks about his background as a barber and how he got into full-time web development in 2020 due to the pandemic.

[00:04:38] We find out when he started picking up contract gigs but found interviewing for corporate jobs to be a beast, his struggles with the interviews, and how he found it easier to get contract jobs through referrals or another way.

[00:07:47] Julie wonders what the process was like for his contract job, how he connected with a person at RailsDevs, and explains he was hired based on his involvement in the community rather than just his skills.

[00:11:35] Adrian gives us some details on how interviews are structured currently, including types of questions and assessments that are used. He tells us about technical tests, some ghosting after taking tests, and how there’s a lot of competition out there.

[00:15:15] Adrian is currently working on a project implementing an MVP from scratch, and he’s planning to continue writing tutorials, contributing, and building while waiting for corporate opportunities to arise.

[00:17:36] If you’re in the same position as Adrian and experiencing the same kind of struggles, he shares some advice on what’s helped him the most.

[00:21:03] Find out where you can find Adrian and his blog online.

Panelists:

Andrew Mason

Julie J.

Guest:

Adrian Valenzuela

Sponsors:

GoRails

Honeybadger

Links:

Andrew Mason Twitter