Modesty in Interviews

Candidates learn quickly that modesty doesn’t pay off in interviews. The “Aw shucks, my colleagues actually did all the work” approach doesn’t do much to sell your skills to the interviewer.

Still, vanity doesn’t look good either. One example is when candidates use “I” more than “we”. As in “I did x, y, and z” vs. “We completed this project.” It’s important to point out your accomplishments, but it’s also important to show that you are a team player.

So just how do you strike a balance between the two? Well, point out your contributions to each project you worked on. Explain what your efforts entailed in terms of technologies used, obstacles overcome, knowledge gained, and lessons learned. Give credit to others where credit is due, but also point out the value you added to the project.

As an example, contrast these two hypothetical paragraphs and see if your BS meter goes off.

“I led the team in requirements gathering, negotiating features with the product manager, and creating technical specifications. I created the architecture and high level design, identified risks and developed mitigation strategies, and performed the bulk of the implementation. I made sure the schedule was followed and resolved any team obstacles. The result was that I delivered the product on time with all key features and outstanding quality metrics.”

“As a part of the implementation team, I worked with the team lead, the product manager, and project manager on technical requirements and design. I advocated the refactoring of legacy components to improve quality and enable easier unit testing using NUnit. In this way I helped contribute to the overall quality and on time delivery of the product, while also learning more about Unit Testing and Test-Driven development.”