First of all, that’s awesome, congratulations.
Secondly … don’t get your hopes too high. There are a lot of recruiters that just spam interviews requests. There are good recruiters - they usually work for the company. There are pretty good recruiters - they often work for an in-country recruiting company that has close ties to companies. And then there are the bottom of the barrel - sometimes they are just noisy call centers, overseas. I had one trying to get me to take a Java position. I explained, no, I do JavaScript. “Oh, I’m sure that’s close enough, let’s set up an interview.” I ended up hanging up.
I don’t say that to discourage you, just to give you realistic expectations. And maybe it take some pressure off - you’re probably going to have to do a lot of these. Odds are, you are going to have to do a lot of these things.
would the recruiter ask me normal interview questions not relating to coding or what?
The recruiter will usually ask about the types of things you’ve done and what you know. They will ask about experience and education. They may have a list of keywords to ask, “Have you used React? Redux of MobX?” They may not even know what these are, they’re just going down the requirements list. They will ask you about your situation, trying to gauge if you are a good fit. Very rarely, they may have a few technical question, usually just some form that they’re reading. They may jot down your answer to pass on with their recommendation.
from youtube videos I think i would have this non-tech phone interview and then probably they will test my coding skills.
I would expect this interview with a recruiter, then possibly and interview with an HR person, then a technical interview, maybe two, then an interview with someone higher up, like a senior tech.
I did not feel ready yet and I started learning HTML, CSS and now still learning JS since May …
OK, then look at this interview as part of the learning process. This is something that devs often ignore - interviewing and job searching are skills to be practiced and learned. My job hunt lasted about a year, maybe only trying hard in the last 6 months. One thing I found was that as time went on, I was getting deeper in the process. I was only a slightly better dev in that time, but I was a much better interviewer (with a honed CV). In the beginning I couldn’t get past the first interview. At the end, I had three offers.
How can I pass this interview and get selected by this recruiter?
Well, there are two aspects to this. First, are you a good fit for the job. This is really important, not just for them, but for you. Trust me, you do not want to be in a job that is not a good fit for you. But you don’t have much control over this - you can’t control the job and you can’t control your readiness in the short term.
The second part is you. Be genial. Be optimistic and enthusiastic. You want that person to think, "yeah, this is someone I want sitting next to me for 40 hours a week. This seems like an easy and fun person to work with. Don’t lie about what you know. You can always say, “Oh, I’ve heard about that, that’s on my list of things to learn.”
Review your portfolio and CV. If it’s for a specific company, look it up online. Review the job requirements and make sure you understand every requirement on the list. (Keep in mind that these are often overblown - they don’t really require all those things.) If they “require” the ElephantPajamas.js library, if you haven’t used it, at least look it up and figure out what it is.
In any case, good luck, let us know how it goes.
