Feedback on my first (failed) interview and project

Hi everyone,

After about 6 months of learning I decided to start showing my portfolio around a bit. I sent it to 5 job offers and the same day I got an interview.

The interview went ok I suppose, I wanted to be honest about me being self taught, only studying web developing for half a year, no previous profesional experience (all things I mentioned in the e-mail I sent requesting the job). So the interviewer told me to do something and we would see how that goes.

A few hours later I received this:

And in the mail it said, you can use Bootstrap if you want, and you must use Sass.

I have never used Sass before, it was on my learning queue, so I learn about it for 2 hours. I got the file Monday morning and Tuesday evening I sent him 2 files back, a static one done with Bootstrap and one responsive done without it:

Boostrap: https://sergioca87.github.io/test-interview-bt/

Responsive: https://sergioca87.github.io/Test-interview/

I’m sure it’s full of flaws and all but the thing is, they received the files and replied with “ok, we’ll take a look and let you know”…After a week I sent an e-mail asking if they had a chance to see it and showing interest for the selection progress etc. Another week goes by and nothing, it’s been now about 15 days.

My question is, after just 6 months, doing this in a day and a half, is it that bad that is not even worth a reply? I wish they explained what could have been done better or differently.

Thank you for any feedback.

Edit

Link to repos: https://github.com/SergiOca87/Test-interview
https://github.com/SergiOca87/test-interview-bt

I’m no developer but can at least answer this much: it doesn’t mean anything. If it did, lots of people out there who send hundreds (not 5) of applications and receive possibly 5 copy/pasted refusal email with no given reason would jump off the window.

As for me, I’m impressed with your results.

Thank you. Well I guess I thought that it’s different when you actually ask someone to do a project that can take many hours to make and a real effort, that I would get a reply. I was really interested in some feedback from their part and not getting any made me doubt myself, at first I was pleased with what I sent but after 2 weeks of silence I started wondering if it was terrible you know :smile:

The big screen design looks OK, the responsive one doesn’t. You’re not using as much width as you could that paragraphs look stretch.

On the bootstrap design the height looks messed up, you should’ve make it into a single responsive design (not two separated), also, you should’ve used real text, not just lorem ipsum. I’m friends with two software engineers who have a consulting business and from time to time, work as if it were an agency. You’ll see, clients want to see how the finished product would look like, when they face upon a placeholder text are a bit annoyed, that’s not what they want their product to look like.

Good luck, hope I was able to help you at least a little.

You’re going to get way more rejection than acceptance. Don’t take it personally.

Your work looks fine to me (I’m not a designer), though I can’t see your code and it’s not always about the final outcome. Remember that there are dozens of reasons why they wouldn’t hire a well-qualified programmer. You may have been in the top 5, but if they’re only looking for 1 person, then it could come down to the other person having slightly more experience, a list of referrals, or being the boss’s sister-in-law’s cousin’s kid who really needs a job because she’s fresh out of design school but is too lazy to look for a job herself.

Hey thank you for your feedback. I had to copy their design with their same text though.

your’re right - I answered a bit quickly but still, I’m not immensely surprised. But then…you don’t know, maybe they’re slow ! :slight_smile:

in interviewing as well as in life, you can’t let someone else’s response affect you personally because

  • you can’t control it
  • you don’t know what they are thinking
  • you don’t know how much other work they are dong
  • you don’t know what their urgency is
  • you don’t know if they have a backlog of great applications

I think we all agree it’d be nice FOR YOU if they replied quickly, but everyone in this world acts in their own self-interest (even if you do good things for others, you do them b/c it makes you feel better on some level).

So keep learning and move on, don’t get hung up. Send a kind inquiry letting them know you are or are not available for an interview but don’t sound desparate and don’t pester.

and for what it’s worth, I think your projects look GREAT

Your story has inspired me!! Keep up the good work. I was blowing through the task until the first algorithmic challenge messed me up. I felt horrible. Went to the help section and felt even worse (even the terminology was too much). Since then i have really took to learning. No matter if its on FCC challenges or not. Just wherever the rabbit hole leads. It sure feels like the right way to go, and i assume this is the way that you took. I mean YOU GOT AN INTERVIEW. Awesome, I wish you nothing but luck!!

I know, just getting an interview alone gives some validation to the whole learning by yourself. I had the same happen to me, I was breezing throught the Javascript section and then the algorithms hit me and I started wondering if this was for me at all because they are HARD. But then I went on to learn CSS well and CSS is deeper than it seems, it does take hard work too to do things well. It is essential to use more than FreeCodeCamp, I recommend Team Treehouse even if it’s a paid thing, you can for example take a great course on Sass, taught by the creator of Sass, there’s great Javascript courses too, it’s good to learn with a teacher and some structure. Keep it up. (I should really finish my algorithms :slight_smile: )

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Getting an interview from 5 applications is a great response rate. Keep it up and you will find something!

That’s the year resolution, I’d be happy even with an internship of course. I’ll definatelly keep sending CV’s.