by EdgeLink on Jan 13, 2015 in EdgeLink Charity, EdgeLink Oregon, Uncategorized
EdgeLink regularly encourages its employees to get involved in the local community, so when I first heard about an opportunity to conduct mock interviews at Epicodus, I jumped at the chance to volunteer.
Located in Portland, Oregon, Epicodus offers a four-month, hands-on course on programming. Class instructors immerse students in a number of cutting-edge programming languages, with the goal of graduating fully-fledged, ready-to-work programmers and developers.
Epicodus’s immersive program has an extremely high success rate: roughly 97-100% of students who graduate receive a job offer within just months of looking for work. It’s clearly an intriguing and ambitious program, and I was excited to help out by preparing some students for the interview process.
I teamed up with EdgeLink Direct-Hire Services Manager, Mark Schacter and headed over to Epicodus in December. I met with a gentleman who came to the program after a big career change. In his last career, he had experience as a hiring manager, but it had been a while since he was on the receiving end of an interview.
Now, as a front-end developer, about to graduate and start looking for work, he sat in the mock interview, ready to learn. We started out with a more structured interview but soon switched gears to a more informal conversation. I provided some constructive criticism on how to answer certain types of interview questions and also took the time to review and critique his resume.
After an hour or so together, he seemed thankful for the insight, and I was grateful to have been able to help. Epicodus is an excellent program, giving people the tools they need to succeed in the Technology world. I’m looking forward to any future opportunities to help them out!
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