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Bibliographic Details
Main Authors: Bell, Brian, Thomas, Teresa, Lee, Sang Won, Brown, Chris
Format: Preprint
Published: 2025
Subjects:
Online Access:https://arxiv.org/abs/2507.02068
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author Bell, Brian
Thomas, Teresa
Lee, Sang Won
Brown, Chris
author_facet Bell, Brian
Thomas, Teresa
Lee, Sang Won
Brown, Chris
contents To obtain employment, aspiring software engineers must complete technical interviews -- a hiring process which involves candidates writing code while communicating to an audience. However, the complexities of tech interviews are difficult to prepare for and seldom faced in computing curricula. To this end, we seek to understand how candidates prepare for technical interviews, investigating the effects of preparation methods and the role of education. We distributed a survey to candidates (n = 131) actively preparing for technical interviews. Our results suggest candidates rarely train in authentic settings and courses fail to support preparation efforts -- leading to stress and unpreparedness. Based on our findings, we provide implications for stakeholders to enhance tech interview preparation for candidates pursuing software engineering roles.
format Preprint
id arxiv_https___arxiv_org_abs_2507_02068
institution arXiv
publishDate 2025
record_format arxiv
spellingShingle How do Software Engineering Candidates Prepare for Technical Interviews?
Bell, Brian
Thomas, Teresa
Lee, Sang Won
Brown, Chris
Software Engineering
To obtain employment, aspiring software engineers must complete technical interviews -- a hiring process which involves candidates writing code while communicating to an audience. However, the complexities of tech interviews are difficult to prepare for and seldom faced in computing curricula. To this end, we seek to understand how candidates prepare for technical interviews, investigating the effects of preparation methods and the role of education. We distributed a survey to candidates (n = 131) actively preparing for technical interviews. Our results suggest candidates rarely train in authentic settings and courses fail to support preparation efforts -- leading to stress and unpreparedness. Based on our findings, we provide implications for stakeholders to enhance tech interview preparation for candidates pursuing software engineering roles.
title How do Software Engineering Candidates Prepare for Technical Interviews?
topic Software Engineering
url https://arxiv.org/abs/2507.02068