Turning Tough Tech Interviews into Wins with Jonathan Corrales

0:01Light that spark fire nation JLD here and welcome to entrepreneurs on fire brought to you by high level, the all-in-one sales and marketing platform. Today, we'll be breaking down, turning tough tech interviews into wins. To drop these vibe bombs, I brought Jonathan Corrales in the EO Fire studios. Jonathan is a tech industry veteran and founder of Ready Aim Interview, leveraging 20 years of software and hiring experience to coach professionals to ace interviews and negotiate top roles. And today, we'll be talking about standing out in the world of tech, preparing for interviews in today's world, breaking out as a beginner, knowing when you're ready, the common interview pitfalls, and oh, so much more.

0:36And a big thank you for sponsoring today's episode goes to Jonathan and our sponsors. Are you ready for the ultimate all-in-one platform for entrepreneurs, marketers, coaches, and agencies? Build funnels, automate follow-ups, manage clients, and even white label your own software. Say hello to our featured partner, High Level, and visit highlevelfire.com to start your free trial today. Jonathan, in, say what's up to Fire Nation and share something that you believe about becoming successful that most people disagree with. Yeah, well, I'm excited to be here, JLD. Thank you very much for having me.

1:15Yeah. You've got to do a lot of stuff manually at first. Put in the reps, Fire Nation. And that's why we're talking about turning tough tech interviews into wins. And you don't do that by just winging it. And I want to start by talking about standing out in the world of tech. I mean, the tech job market feels more crowded than ever, Jonathan. So what separates the candidates who break through from those who actually get overlooked? That is a very good question. And I've spent the last two years trying to figure out the answer to that. So I've interviewed about 1 ,200 people now in the last two years.

1:55And I asked them questions about their job search and what's working for them and what isn't working for them. And the one common thread that I see from job seeker to job seeker that's getting traction is that they are on some sort of schedule. They are doing their applications, they're networking with people, but it's consistent. It's what they're doing day to day. They're not taking breaks, even when their motivation wanes a little bit. they'll still go in and put in the work, even if they're just going through the motions. And I've seen that very consistently for the last two years, not just for the job seekers that I've interviewed, but also for my clients.

2:40So that is definitely one easy way to stand out is just be disciplined, have a schedule and stick to it. Well, I love preparation. I mean, it's really what I've hung my hat on in the last 13 years, 4 ,826 episodes as of today. So let's talk about preparing for interviews in today's world, Jonathan. I mean, the technical interview, it is evolving fast. What is the smartest way to prepare for a tech interview in today's world? What I tell all my clients is, number one, don't forget the fundamentals. They're, you know, the first principles of what you do for a living. That's still key. Even with AI and all the stuff that's out there right now to help you do your work, you still need to understand the why and the decisions that are being made by the AI as well.

3:31So think about your trade-offs. Think about common skills like design, testing, for example. All of those things are still relevant, even if you can go faster because of AI. For interviews in particular, some companies are experimenting with one-way interviews interviews or AI driven interviews and all the job seekers that I've spoken to that have gone through those processes say it's a terrible experience. It's not something that, uh, that I think is a step in the right direction, but you have to start being comfortable with talking to a camera. So in your own time, prepare for whatever interview you're coming up, up for, by practicing.

4:25Practice in front of a mirror, practice in front of a camera, force yourself to stare at the lens as you're practicing your responses and try to be as natural as possible. It's actually an instruction that most of those interviews put on the website or on the UI, for example, is it'll say, act as if you're talking to a human. And I know that sounds weird to say today, but it's the reality. Hiring teams are trying to do a lot more with less. Well, I want to talk about breaking in as a beginner because a lot of people feel like it's too late or maybe it's even too competitive to break into tech.

5:07So what do you say, Jonathan, to beginners who are intimidated by the competition? There's a lot of people who are guessing or betting that junior positions are going to disappear altogether with AI because AI can do what juniors can do and they can do it at scale. But the reality is that eventually people will get old and when they cycle out, someone else has to cycle in. So if you are still interested in joining the tech market, even as a junior, it's still possible. In fact, I just helped a recent grad get an offer in, in, uh, in the summer. And we did exactly what, what, what I just said. We focused on the fundamentals.

5:55We practiced his, his, uh, responses and his design and all of his technical skills. And he got a job. There are many places that are still hiring juniors, you just have to show that you can do the job. So before, you didn't necessarily need a portfolio. Today, you should have a portfolio. If you're in tech, you should have a GitHub. You should have some sample projects on there. If you're not a coder, but maybe you're a designer, you want to have some sort of portfolio where you can demonstrate your capabilities. having something to show is good enough to get you into an interview then the next step is how do you impress them enough in the interview to turn that interview into an offer some job seekers are very creative and they put together pitch decks that are basically a smaller version of their portfolio and they they position themselves as the number one hire for for those those uh companies, even as juniors.

7:01And that works very well. So that's something that I recommend thinking about. Think about practice, think about how you're positioning yourself and what can you bring to show what you could do. Fire Nation, we're going to talk about knowing when you're ready, common interview pitfalls, systemizing success when we get back from thanking our sponsors. I'm all about the basics when it comes to running my business. And there's nothing more basic and important than how you talk to customers and keeping your team on the same page. That's why today's episode is sponsored by Quo, spelled Q-U-O, the modern alternative to run your business communications.

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11:09So here's the funny thing. Last night I was doing a talk at a local university, local community college, and it's part of a four part series. This is the third session. And I talked about this exact thing. So when you're looking at an opportunity, whether it's a job application or you want to start a business or whatever the case may be, sometimes you're not going to feel 100%. You can't let that stop you. You sometimes have to make things up as you go along. Now, I'm not saying fake it till you make it, but if you're not 100 % qualified for a role, you still feel like you've got a good shot. If you had an interview, apply.

11:53Now, I want to add a caveat to that because there's so many applicants for positions today that you need to have at least a baseline of qualification. And what I mean there is, are you at least hitting all the minimum qualifications on a job role? You don't have to hit all the preferred qualifications. You don't have to have every responsibility on that job description in your resume, but can you hit the minimum qualifications? And that's usually a short list, maybe four or five bullet points, especially if you're going for a bigger company. So make sure that you hit those before you hit apply.

12:29Fire Nation, at the end of the day, I would actually challenge people to realize that is anybody 100 % qualified when they're applying for a specific role? Like it's very likely that every single candidate you're going against has a deficiency in some area. So you're going at it on the same playing field, which is you're not 100 % and that's just the game. So how do you push yourself in the best position? which I think putting yourself in the best position could be about avoiding the common interview pitfalls. So Jonathan, get specific here. Where do most candidates stumble in interviews? The number one issue in most interviews is they didn't do the prep work before the interview.

13:14So what I mean by that specifically is you have to have some talking points about why you're interested in that specific role. You want to make the company feel special. And I know that it's hard to do that when all you really want to do is make a living and get a paycheck, but they need to feel like they're special. And so you need to know a bit about the company's customers, a bit about the company's competitors. You need to know a little bit about your colleagues. If you can put all of those things down into like four or five bullets, you can address that when you're introducing yourself you can tell them you know i've had all this great experience and that's what brings me here to this company i'm really interested in the work that you're doing with this group of people and the problems that you're solving and you know you're really positioning yourself as as somebody that that can come in and and make an impact on their business you're also demonstrating how you're going to show up to work every single day.

14:19If you show them that you're going to show up prepared, that you're going to have notes, you're going to have research done, they want to have that person on their team because that person's not going to require a lot of supervision or hand-holding. They can come in and start getting meaningful work done. So that's the first place you want to start, and that's where most people falter. Whether it's a phone screen or a technical interview or a final round, you want to show them that you really care about their mission, their values, make it come off as genuine as possible. That actually reminds me of a story that I want to kind of share real quick.

14:56I remember I went in, this is my first job interview after being in the army. And I went through the whole interview. I felt very prepared. I felt like I answered all the questions like really well. And then just before we were leaving and we were wrapping up, the interviewer looked to me and he was like, do you have any questions for me? And I was like, I'm going to look like, like I just got it all together. So I like puffed my chest out and I said, no, I have absolutely no questions. And he looked at me with like a little bit of disgust. And he was just like, ah, I was really rooting for you.

15:28Always have a question for the interviewer. Like make us know that you care. And I was like, Ooh, like that was such a miss. And long story short, I ended up getting the job because they're actually hiring a lot of people. So it wasn't too competitive. And so I always walked away with that being like, you know what? I would have really had some massive regrets had I not gotten this job for making that big mistake there. So let's talk about systemizing success, Jonathan. You talk about making interview prep feel effortless. How can job seekers systemize their preparation so it becomes a repeatable process that delivers results.

16:08So there's a couple of ways that you can do that today. You can do it in sort of an old school fashion and just have a pad and pencil and put together a checklist for yourself, something that you're going to do every single day. Most folks want to do some sort of digital kind of solution to it. You could use an Excel spreadsheet. There are all sorts of extensions that are out there like teal career flow simplify where where they basically enable you to to track your applications and where are you in the process are you in the phone screen are you in the final round you could do the same thing with a spreadsheet so what i what i normally recommend to job seekers is that you have some form of schedule that you've created for yourself now the one that I recommend is the 333 method.

17:00It's actually a productivity framework. It's three hours, three applications, and three network actions or outreaches. So what I always recommend is that you put that on your calendar. And if you could do it first thing in the morning, spend three hours doing your applications, doing your outreach, then you're done for the day. You you can come back and do another session later. And most people ask me like, well, do I do three max or do I do three at a minimum? It's three at a minimum. So three hours at a minimum, three applications at a minimum, three networking activities. And then use your calendar, use reminders and don't skip two days in a row.

17:45Some days you're not going to feel like doing it. Just go through the motions. Even if you just put out three easy applies, that's all that you can do and do it. You know, that kind of reminds me of, um, Jerry Seinfeld was always asked, like, how do you come up with so many good jokes? Like you just have all these jokes are always new material. And he said, you know what? I just have a minimum of one joke a day that I must write. And I put an X on the calendar every single day that I write one joke. Sometimes they're terrible and I'll never use them, but I wrote one joke. And that That's the key.

18:18Sometimes I start and that first one's terrible, but the second and third one are amazing. He's like, but once you start that chain, you don't want to break it. And it's just to that point. Like if you skip one day, it's so easy to skip the second day and two days turn into four, four turns into a week. And then it's just, you know, just going down the drain of despair. So let's not have that happen, Fire Nation. And let's end with a closing value bomb, Jonathan. For Fire Nation members, they're chasing their dream job. What's one daily habit beyond what we just shared about being consistent, that will give them an edge in every interview they participate in?

18:55I'd say forget motivation and focus on discipline. We want to try to remove motivation from the process as much as possible and just make it a routine. If you can turn this into a routine, and this goes for anything in life, if you can make something into a routine, you're going to make so much progress and you're not even going to notice that you're making progress because you're just taking one step and then another step and then another. And that's why I recommend having this stuff on your calendar, just like your workouts. You know, if your workouts there on your calendar early in the morning, you never miss a day.

19:31You always work out. You're always healthier. So do the same thing with your job search, especially if you've been laid off. The average job search right now is six months. Most of the job seekers I speak to are on the market for nine months or more. And you want to try to accelerate that as much as possible. And going back to what I was saying earlier, the difference that I see in a job seeker that's on the market for weeks versus a job seeker that's on the market for months is consistency. And if you're relying on motivation on those days when you're not really motivated, you're not submitting your application, so you're not building your pipeline.

20:08So let's forget the motivation, focus on discipline and use your calendar. It's there. That's what that's what it's made for. Jonathan, if Fire Nation is listening to this and they want to connect with you, they want to learn more about what you have going on. What is your call to action for our listeners today? So I have a couple of things. The first one is you can connect with me on LinkedIn. So my URL is in slash Jonathan, J-O-N-A-T-H-A-N, Corrales, C-O-R-R-A-L-E-S. all together. You can reach me there. You can also check out our website, www.readyaiminterview.com. Everything is spelled correctly.

20:47On LinkedIn, I'm actually running a study where I'm researching what's working in 2025. If you want to participate in that, you can look at any one of my posts from now until the end of the year and book a call. And I'd love to talk to you. We only have four questions to ask. And then after that, we can talk about anything you want. That could be a resume review. That could be venting about the job market. It's your choice. Fire Nation, you're the average of the five people you spend the most time with. You've been hanging out with JC and JLD today. So keep up that heat. For links to everything we talked about, visit eofire.com.

21:25Type Jonathan in the search bar and the show notes page will pop right up. Jonathan, I want to say thank you for sharing your truth, your knowledge, your value with Fire Nation today. For that, we salute you, brother. And we'll catch you on the flip side. My pleasure. Thanks, JLD. Hey, Fire Nation, a huge thank you to our sponsors and Jonathan for sponsoring today's episode. And Fire Nation, are you an entrepreneur on fire who's looking to share your amazing message with the world? If yes, we are now accepting applications for entrepreneurs on fire. To learn more about becoming a guest, visit eofire.com slash guest.

21:58And I'll catch you there or on the flip side. Are you ready for the ultimate all-in-one platform for entrepreneurs, marketers, coaches, and agencies? Build funnels, automate follow-ups, manage clients, and even white label your own software. Say hello to our featured partner, High Level, and visit highlevelfire.com to start your free trial today.