mastering the technical interviews w/ anthony mays

full transcript

auto-generated from the audio, so expect a few typos. the audio is the source of truth.

all right all righty what's going on everybody happy uh Monday um it's uh great to be with you all this morning um I'm pretty pretty excited pretty excited Anthony his second time guest Second Time guest and honestly it's one of these people it's one of these things where like I would say so I've had some people message me like hey I I really want to come on your show why haven't you invited me and to be honest with you the my really good friends who I consider good friends in the Tech Community I don't even think about it I don't even think about it um

and because it's just my friends and it's like I I know you um and so I've I've wanted to get Anthony on again and I just haven't thought about it because Anthony's out here just crushing life and and then I saw him at render and I was like man I gotta get them on and and he just released an insane um at least it looks insane I want to look into it some more but just very well done interviewing uh video series so we're going to talk about that today um oh hold on real quick it says they I lost connection to um [Music] all

right are we good to go we'll give you a hold on I'm gonna check this I knew something was wrong when I clicked on it earlier and um I didn't have a profile picture on it all right it says it says we're here now cool awesome uh that being said a few more things few housekeeping item think of my jiggers first off uh if you are tuning in say hey would love to hear from you also if you're watching on LinkedIn please um please please let me know it's working on LinkedIn um I'm on my LinkedIn now I'm scrolling it it looks like we're on

but if you are watching LinkedIn please comment let me know um but I do tell people to comment say hey because it's a networking platform right I mean I I just I've kind of coined us what this is it is a it is a daily Meetup where people can come together you can watch the show you can learn some things like from Anthony this morning and you can network with others so now we're not in the metaverse yet we don't have now I'll tell you what I'll tell you what Anthony guidance catcher 2.0 with the Apple Vision Pros I think I think we may I

think we may be onto something um bruh man I could barely get my quest uh two out of the uh out of wherever it is man I'm telling you this this this VR is not where it's at I'm telling you it's that AR stuff man yeah yeah and it's got to just be able to be like the glasses I'm wearing right now I just I am not enthused about having 3500 on my head like dragging my skull to the ground um so uh so anyways um so comment say hey also to ask questions um this is an interactive show um and so uh you know

it's it's very difficult to um uh you know this is a time where you can ask Anthony questions and um and he doesn't bill you for it right so take advantage also um I knew this would happen we are getting we are getting um questions on LinkedIn and there's a ton of people on LinkedIn Anthony it's just not coming through stream yard so I'm gonna try to bounce the best I can within both things there's a lot of people already on there okay awesome um uh let's see here what else I also want to give a shout out to that conference with the coffee beans

over here I will be keynoting I'm speaking about coffee Anthony now we're chit chat about about it um great cop great thing of coffee beans um use code gc2 you get a few bucks off fantastic also fantastic conference that I'll be there in July um cool all right enough I do want to give a shout out to people who have tuned in Colin it's good to see you um Becky uh Yolanda um it's so good to see you all Steven type way it's great to see all Ricardo it's good to see you all this morning all right so uh I do I get chat messages

from YouTube Brandis good to see you and Marie it's good to see you as well all right Anthony let's give the people what they want who are you what do you do and we'll go from there ready all right cool thank you so first of all Taylor thank you s o much for having me on here um it was an honor and pleasure to be asked and as I told you earlier there's not many people that can get me out of bed you know this early in the morning I still operate on developer hours I don't care if I'm not working at nine to five

anymore you know but anyway hi I'm Anthony 22-year software engineer I spent eight years at Google and cut my teeth there doing data visualization and Analysis and uh left last year during Black History Month uh number one because I got jokes but number two because uh I wanted the opportunity to expand my impact in the industry helping people get in the tech and primarily underrepresented folk get in understand what they're doing and uh to to help them from not just a technical level but from an inspirational level to just understand how to make the best out of this new wealth and opportunity generator we call

Tech and so it's it's exciting for me to be able to do it and I I do it in a couple of ways one with one-on-one coaching which I offer through mortgage a lot of my Consulting um in in Surf services like that but I also work with companies who are on the other side of that bridge to help them understand this is how you find a good talent just how you think about interacting with underrepresented people and this is how you help bridge the gap so that everybody benefits and that it's a real win-win so that's what I do I'm lighting the way for

the next generation of technologists I love that I love that I think Anthony you know I got to give you props I mean one of the things I love about you and um is is that one of the many things now also that you love coffee and you're super nerdy about it which puts you even even more of a notch in my book is the fact that you're you're all about empowering people with the soft skills and the mindset which which which I think listen I mean we we all talk about leak codes and hacker ranks and and all these technical skills and how to

master the Fang interviews and yada yada but you're kind of going at it from a different way so can you talk I know you we talked about that but I think it's it's been a long time since you've been on the show so can you quick refresher of why the mindset is so important to you yeah well you know this this came as a result of doing mock interviews with people over the years and um I I love this process of working with people testing them out being in the interviewer's chair and then trying to look for the best in folks and what I noticed

is that a lot of clients that I work with they didn't struggle necessarily with algorithms and data structures they didn't struggle with writing code in fact for solutions to problems you know I would show them hey this is this is the answer that I was expecting and it didn't look complicated at all it wasn't even that that hard to grok where a lot of candidates go wrong is that they don't think about how to think they don't think about how to navigate a problem how to communicate so that they get the information that they need they're not um sticking to a well-defined repeatable robust problem-solving

strategy that helps them get from beginning to end and I realize that they don't just do this in the context of a specific interview question or a specific interview problem but all throughout the interview um they don't they they don't have this way of of saying okay what's the information that I need how do I act on that and then go and chart a path to success right and you know I don't want to uh make it out like I didn't have the struggle this is exactly my struggle too where every time I went into an interview I was treating it like a completely brand

new thing instead of you know thinking efficiently like okay what's that process that I can apply to help guarantee success and I feel like this was important for me because the stakes throughout my career have always been high I think being a black man in Tech I wanted to uh I wanted to stick around I wanted to be here um to to survive and to thrive and to take care of my family and I always felt like if there was anything that I did wrong people would look for an excuse to say no and so I wanted to make sure that I was operating at

such a high level that I was undeniable I love that and because of that that motivation and because of that mindset it led me to do the things that I now teach other people to do um you know which is to to ask the questions to be thoughtful about um what their strategies are and you know having different ways of tackling whatever problem they're facing so yeah that's that's that that still gets me jazzed to this day I love that I love that so so let's so let's talk about uh what you've done lately right mastering technical interviews you know it's uh big content guy

Love video work I Saw You release this video and I was like holy cow this is incredible um talk about the mastering technical interviews talk about again if you just want to dive in and what's involved and again you use this time to to obviously um get give others the opportunity to to Really join you in this journey yeah absolutely so first thing you know even though the title says mastering technical interviews um this this journey for me is about being very comprehensive I wanted to help folks who were just getting into the industry and you know your technical interview might be the uh you

know a project-based interview or maybe your technical interview is a behavioral interview that has some Knowledge Questions sprinkled in or maybe you're going for the Amazon interview or The Meta interview or the Google interview and you're trying to nail that no matter where you are in that journey I think there's something in this course for you and I designed it as a way to support folks who are largely technical in the work that they do looking to get into into Tech or to something that's Tech adjacent and one of the early decisions there were a couple of decisions that I made very early on that

were important to me number one I wanted to make sure that um that this was something that was authentically me and so I knew that I had the opportunity to maybe where I've been asked to do courses before sure and all this stuff but I was like but are you gonna let me be me um you know and what am I like I'm a guy that loves hip-hop I love music I love um coffee being real with you right yeah I want to cut through descriptive stuff and amen and be able to talk straight at you and so there's a lot of elements to this

thing that I think were important um just to help folks that I knew that I could help be the most comfortable getting this information and not feeling like I'm some college professor I'm just trying to rain down a bunch of facts on you yeah and so um you know and I think I was partly inspired by you and by Brandon um you know uh in terms of just like making sure that I brought quality to this because I know there's people who like do webinars and courses in their car with their cell phone and they're dropping great knowledge but the quality is just like what

are you doing yeah you know for me I really um I was very blessed to have a grant from um Google's Tech Equity Collective initiative and um in support from goody nation and so uh with that I was able to just take this to another level and I think this course really exceeded my wildest dreams and I hope that people who uh who who buy it and pick it up Echo that and feel the the love and the heart that I poured into making it a good course so so let's talk let's dive in right Discord right there's a Discord asked of it um talk

talk about the courses too right is it is it a is it like nine hours of video is it three hours like give me a little bit more information from that side of things yeah absolutely so I want to make this a three hour course um is designed to be around three to five minutes some go longer some are a little bit shorter but I wanted to make sure to deliver as much possible as as much information as I could in a short amount of time because it's not useful to you if you're just like you know spending a whole week on this stuff I

don't think you you've got to go that hard um there's there's just a lot of little tweaks in your mindset that you can make to get you along your way and a lot of it is just about exposing you to what the process is and so there's three hours of that but then there's also Community I wanted to make sure that folks felt like they could have my support directly and so there's a Discord community and um you gotta you gotta have the course in order to get into the community you like I want you can't go Rogue and get in the Discord that's right

like I want you getting the information and having that foundation and then we can talk and so um you know if you get the course you get into the community and then if you choose to pay a subscription you can um you can get into various levels that unlock things like like regular webinars me or with friends of Mines coming in matter of fact I'd love to have you as a and then also um you can unlock the opportunity to have one-on-ones with me and so I think this is just so um so great because I know that it's not enough just to give you

information and then kind of leave you there it's important to come alongside you and and answer questions and clarify things and just help meet needs and so yesterday I had someone who's asking about cover letters and uh you know I was just providing them some guidance around like here's here's why I don't do cover letters here's why it's pretty rare in the industry but if you do here's some things you should think about in in diving into that and so you know I want to see people who um are experiencing some kind of positive life change as a result of the information I'm giving them

and I know that it's more than just again giving you a video it's also about being able to just be there and celebrate with with you when you do get the job yeah so w hen you're just like yeah that that right there and and and um I think that's so important I feel like I feel like I have a few things I want to say I'm all over the place um so first off I want to talk I just get so am talking to you um so first off I want to talk about Community right and and I know I have a Discord James

Quick's got a Discord Danny Thompson's got a Discord you've got I mean so like so people probably wonder like that gum like like who like why do I need to be in one who who should I be in like all that stuff so can you talk about just the power of Discord and why people really need to I mean they don't need to be in it but why it's so important yeah I mean I I think it's really about tribe at the end of the day there I love that you know I I don't I don't build stuff for everybody um I I'm not building

stuff for the whole world there's a certain um type of person certain group of people who who rock with me and that I rock with and um I think the great what's great about the internet and the web is that you have the opportunity to interact with those folks and and you can find them they can find you and and then we just kind of build that tribe around the things that we believe in value and so you know being able to have that in and have some intentionality to that matters and so uh you know I think that there are a lot of such

tribes that you can find that align to your interests and there's nothing wrong with that um right there and not only that but when I think about Community I think about it in the the True full sense of the word where it's not like uh here's an email list let me yeah seriously slap a bunch of stuff to you yeah but it's really about how do I serve how do I continue to serve and and how can you help me because I'm still learning as a coach and as an engineer I'm still learning things and it's important for me to be able to talk with

folks to understand what their unique challenges and situations and issues are and to have th at that closeness because I tell you when I work with my clients I tell them like hey I'm your coach now like I am very much invested in your success yeah um but you've got to work hard and so there's this this partnership that we have in this communication that that we have and and also just helps me to be more scalable you know I want to I want to have a lot of impact Beyond just myself and I think that having a community where folks feel supported and have

access us to me is I think useful yeah and uh you know it's it's I I think using tools like Discord I mean I could use Facebook or some of these other things but um you know having been using Discord for like the past couple of years I've seen how cool it is just to be able to do all the things that that need to be done so yeah I mean that's that's what it is it's about just being people focused being um client-centric yep and making sure that um when people are interacting with Morgan Latimer they're interacting with me and with the Legacy that

I am helping to drive forward I love that talk talk about um you know I know actually and and Brandon mole who's who's who who's been commenting on the on the show so far Brandon and I were actually messaging um in Lincoln DMS and I'm probably gonna get him on the show um here soon but you know we were talking about how like trying to get job Seekers to the point like where where their mindset because like I I feel like interviewing hear me out here I'm trying to put my thoughts away interviewing I feel like is like a marathon yeah how do you train

for the marathon right people people try to wake up out of bed and try to just run a marathon immediately right and that's really difficult and I feel like this course I feel like your course is is kind of like the help training for the marathon yeah but but in your experiences without giving too much away right because people still gotta do the course of stuff where where do you think people um really mess up or really you k now uh have issues from a mindset perspective yeah I think that's a great question and you know I should have talked to you before I made

this course I think that Marathon analogy is is more spot-on than you realize first things first um if you're gonna run a marathon you need to know where the finish line is and I can't tell you how many people don't know where the finish line is they're just like I'm just gonna run we just we're gonna just run forever right we're just gonna run and I hope that somebody tells me when this thing is over because I'm I'm kind of tired of running you don't even realize that you're not anywhere near the Finish Line because not only do you not know where the finish line

is but you don't know the route and you spend all this time following other people um and and you know there are all these distractions and you begin to lose heart because you don't you don't really understand what this is and you know I think you know for those who are professional marathon runners you know that the course in La is different than the course in New York or in Boston or wherever you may be there's different challenges there's different kinds of things and similarly when you're interviewing with companies each company has their own process they they have their own definition of the Finish Line

they have their own routes and it's not to say that there aren't some common elements right um there's a starting line there's a line there's paths there's security and barricades and all this other kind of stuff there's common elements but each company deals with it differently and so you you need to be very intentional focused on like for this particular company and for this specific role what does success look like um versus this other company and for this other role and for this other process what does success look like within that context and um and be playing you know and be very intentional in planning

things and and thoughtful and right you know that that is t hat's hard work you know that's a whole other job right many people who are looking for um for for new roles probably already have a job they don't have the luxury of spending eight hours a day nine hours a day trying to figure this out right and so um it can seem daunting and but I you know I struggle to think of a better way I I think one of the things that I've enjoyed is over the past few years I've gotten acquainted with a company called carrot they're the world's largest interviewing company

um they hired me as an advisor for their purpose program called brilliant black minds and so I've been working as an advisor for them over the past year but one of the things I really enjoy about companies like Harrod is that they're able to take this this data around interviewing and then draw conclusions that make um you know interviewing more fair and Equitable yeah and so you know I look forward to the day when you can like take one interview and then 10 companies hit you up like oh hey hi I'm blah blah blah you took this interview and it turns out that you cleared

the bar for you know my company and this company in that company you know why don't you come and just do the final round um based upon that one interview performance because again that's the thing right there's no there's no standardization among interviewing in the industry right if there was it would actually help everybody everybody involved um and then number two is that people also uh but but also two I would tell you that trying to get to that level is such a huge lift it would be so difficult and that's why the interviewing process is so hard that's why you got to look at

individuals like Anthony what are you doing Master mastering technical interviews because it is such a huge lift and to try to get that mindset right is just huge um but yeah I mean that would be awesome if there's a way to be like hey these 20 companies have this standardization and you've passed this like I don't know you know it's one of the things I encourage folks to do is and and I say this in in the course like is real as I'm gonna say it right now the interview is not about you it's not right I think so many people have this this thinking

that hey I'm awesome I know my stuff and you know if I go into the room and the interviewer is naturally going to see my brilliant shining forth like the morning sign and the reality is they don't care about you they care about themselves and what they're trying to accomplish correct right and so for companies there's a lot of self-interest in terms of like what's going to help my bottom line right what's gonna what's gonna help me save money and and all these other kinds of things and so you know you've got to realize that like any good salesperson you've got to show the company

and the interviewer what's in it for them you know say that and as a guy who's on the job search right now that really resonates so say that one more time say that one yeah yeah yeah again it's not about you it's about the value that you bring to the company and to the interviewer to the hiring manager um I was very honored and blessed to have our developer who's a friend of mines on you know we've gotten to know each other over the social media streets and I had her share her thoughts around that around the importance of just thinking about what the company

wants what do they need and how does how do your experiences and your skills help them solve their problems right think about that first um you know we don't we don't buy products because we want to make companies Rich we buy products because they help us accomplish something that we wouldn't be able to accomplish without it right and and so I think that that's you know when when you think about it that way you're going to be more inquisitive you're going to ask the questions that you need to ask you're going to get to the bottom of things that you need to get to the

bottom uh because you're going to be asking yourself oka y what is the way that I can provide this company by what problems are they solving I just can't tell you how often how surprised I am that when people have the opportunity to ask questions of me as an interviewer nobody asks hey so what are like the top three most important problems that you're trying to solve yeah yeah right like that it's a simple question but it's a very important one yeah oh hey you know this problem too I've done something like that in the past where with this previous client I blah blah and

we chopped it up and I was able to make them you know this much money you're saving this much time like it's one of those things that a lot of people could do but they don't because nobody has told them to to um to change how they think about the process yeah so you know there's tons of little insights like that that are I think are baked into this course and uh again I'm just hoping that people will pick it up and and give it its time and appreciate what's in there let me ask you this is obviously we're kind of winding down our time

and and and this always happens time flies me having fun with friends um let's talk about just some general stuff you're seeing in the market right now man I mean obviously that was some gold from the interview and perspective is there anything else any other wisdom that you want to impart on people or hiring managers right now yeah yeah yeah yeah so um you know I think that uh well you didn't ask but I guess I always anticipate this hey I'm machine learning um is the biggest uh Trend that I'm seeing move the needle right now um and I you know I've had 22 years

in my career um I'm knocking on the door of 40 this year by God's grace so thank you about that I thought you were like 30.

I always look younger than I am which you know I'm grateful for but um I've seen these big you know generational shifts um like mobile like the internet itself because I guess I'm that old now and machine learning is um now doing that thing and I e ven find myself using it more and more and and you know that's really going to change the job landscape in another five to ten years with the jobs that you see today won't exist tomorrow because they'll be done using things like large language models and other kinds of Innovations in that area and so I think that um but

right now it's a great tool to use for getting your resume ironed out for learning about an interview process for thinking about how to engage with some of these behavioral questions Knowledge Questions Etc et cetera and so I think it's not the people who it's not that Ai and machine learning is going to take your job as the people who know those things yeah and so I think that even now as a candidate you need to to start getting yourself well versed in this new landscape and I'm not saying you got to be an expert but be knowledgeable and know how to use these tools

to your advantage 100 um Marie comes in here I want to get to her question around resumes how much do you suggest we modify the resume to match the role is it worth the time when there are so many open roles yeah yeah so absolutely um what what a lot of people will do is that there may be a lot of open roles they'll take one resume and shotgun it out to 100 companies and only get five callbacks and then they come to me and say hey Anthony I've been applying to all these places but I'm only getting five con uh uh callbacks and you

know it's because you're not thinking about how you're making that unique value proposition to each one of those companies in each one of those roles so um you know a lot of times I mean just in a very basic way just you can modify your resume by using the words they use right yeah use the words they use um now I'm not saying lie and be deceptive but um you probably have done a lot of the things that they're asking for you're just not communicating in a in a way that they understand and communication is hard and so a lot of times you want to

take the words and Co ncepts that you find on the job description make sure that you're reflecting that back to them in your resume so that it makes it so much easier for a source or a recruiter who's by the way only spending like seven seconds on your resume and you're making it easier for them to see the things that they need to see so that you can move on in the process so one of the things um Anthony I'm interested in your thoughts so with resumes that I've been kind of preaching is the very top of the resume some people put the objectives and

some people put the professional summaries in yada yada what I say is I say do like a a summary portion and it's bullet pointing out and it's basically overviewing the skills you have as it relates to the job so what so for example um it let's say you're you're a full stack engineer with react node and AWS right so so let's say your resume let's say is going to be for the most part very full stack both highlighting react and back-end node and AWS Technologies but your summary is reflective based off the job description you're submitting to right so for example if you're saying to

more front-end heavy then it's we're going to dive into a lot of the more the front end right 10 plus years of front-end engineering experience with five years using react three years in angular two years using Tailwind yada yada so that way when when someone non-technical like myself or an internal recruiter pulls up your resume they're going to read that summary part the very top of their resume is going to be in your face you're they're going to see all these front-end Technologies they're probably listen this is just me if I have a good summary I'm not reading the rest of your resume I'm calling

you so I'm interested to kind of hear your thoughts on that strategy and you can tell me if I'm wrong but that's just kind of because I do think as I mean trying to edit your resume per job is going to take a lot of time but if you can just edit a few bullet points on your summary to reflect it I think that could help the time yeah I I think that I think that works well and here's the thing it's not about the technology Taylor if you said that you could make me five hundred thousand dollars a year using two toothpicks I'd be

like bruh hired how's it how much is it going to cost me for you to make me 500 000 a year using two two uh two toothpicks right if you can make me that much money I don't care if you use react Tailwind Java C plus plus whatever you don't have to use any technology at all if you're just a Genie in the lamp and I just gotta you know rub your head a couple of times I'm going with that so it's not about the tools and Technology it's about the results that those tools and Technology produce when they're in your hands okay and so

um I think when I when I think about the summarization and even how you phrase the rest of your resume it's about four things how do you make me money how do you save me money how do you save me time how do you drive efficiency those are the things those you need to be answering at least one of those questions really well whether it's in your summary or in the rest of your bullet points a lot of you are so focused on the tools and technology and I get it right like um some you know a lot of sources are going to at least

use that as as the litmus test to figure out if you've at least got the skills yeah but it's not about whether you have the skills it's about whether you can use the skills to accomplish those four objectives that I mentioned earlier so you know you can't just stop it like hey I know how to use react tons of people know how to use react and can at least be dangerous with it yeah the question you need to answer is can you make me money using react can you save me time using react and I think that if you can do that and and really

get that in my face in that first half of that of your uh the first page of your resume resume you're probably going to get a call back hmm you're here first people um all right so as we wrap up here last two questions I always ask people you already hinted at it already but tools technologies that you you're kind of looking into right now obviously AIML I want to dive since we already since you already kind of answered that talk about maybe a little bit further about what job Seekers can you give like a practical example for me or or or for the people

watching about how they could try to use AI yeah yeah yeah I mean so um for me I've been using chat GPT recently um just to help provide some copy and so I may take my resume put it in there and say hey can you reword this based upon this job description um and so just providing some basic service like that is useful but then also doing some investigation hey you know tell me about this company and the problems that they're trying to solve um you know just or can you give me some context about their background so that if I walk into a behavioral

interview or I walk into an interview with a recruiter for that recruiter screen I can say yeah hey what do you know about our company oh great question I know that y'all are dabbling in this and blah blah blah blah and that this has been your direction in history being able to have that shows that I have an interest in the organization and that I came prepared so there's a few ways that you can also just for thinking about you know again using your resume how might I answer this behavioral question we all know what the behavioral questions are going to be um it's an

open book test really right you you um but knowing how to communicate that in in a way that's comprehensible and makes sense is something that you can also use too for that practice so um though those are just um three or four of a hundred ways that you can use um those tools of Technologies to help you in your job search last question I always ask so this is guidance counselor 2.0 because we had guidance counselors in middle school high school and college but n ow as adults not so much um what would be your biggest piece of career advice to your younger self hmm

uh I think my biggest piece of career advice to my youngest self would be to take risks taking form risks for sure but take risks um uh one of the biggest mistakes I ever made was throwing away my application to Google in college because I didn't think that they would ever want to hire somebody like me and uh I I didn't I I was too afraid of failure to be successful hmm you know um I was too afraid of failure to be you heard it here first everybody that's gonna happen just dropping bombs this morning it's a Monday early for you and you your your

brain is just working this morning yeah I mean so um I think that that I would go back and um and tell myself and slap myself upside the head and and just encourage myself not to be afraid of failure but to embrace the opportunities for learning that come as a result of that and um who knows how much farther I would have been in my career faster if I had understood that earlier in my career I love that I love that all right y'all well thanks again for hanging out with us to say Anthony stay on real quick so I can say bye to you

backstage but y'all have a great one please go connect with Anthony check out mastering technical interviews like I said the individuals I bring on the show I trust um and uh if you are looking for a community and you are looking for help interviewing I would highly recommend Anthony um and so please go check stuff out Anthony thank you my friend let's uh let's make sure we don't wait like a year before to have you on again okay I appreciate it all right y'all have a