Where you should focus your efforts depends a lot on your experience. Depending on your Self-Evaluation, follow one of the below sections that outlines what areas you should focus on. No ExperienceOur Recommendations

• Gain experience through online learning and building small projects
• Take Data Structures & Algorithms classes at school or online ASAP
• Practice easy technical problems 
• Develop skills for the behavioral interview 
• Write a resume 

When you have no technical experience, the most important thing you can do is gain some. Luckily for you, a job isn’t necessary to obtain valuable, impressive, and resume-worthy experience. One of the best ways to get hands-on technical experience is by creating a simple project. We have a whole section on personal projects that will guide you through finding a personal project that’s meaningful to you, ideas for projects, and what projects will stand out to recruiters.

What if you don’t have enough coding knowledge to build a project? No problem. There are a ton of online resources that will teach you the skills you need and help you build a project along the way. Take a look at the job descriptions for roles you want. What technologies are listed? Search for projects using these technologies as keywords (e.g. Beginner Java project, Simple React website tutorial, How to build a small neural network using Pytorch, etc.). 

You should also focus on building a strong Data Structures & Algorithms foundation. Take these classes at your university (or online) as early as possible. We also have a whole section dedicated to Data Structures & Algorithms. 

As you are building your Data Structures & Algorithms foundation, start to practice coding questions that will appear in technical screens. At this stage, you can start with easy problems to get comfortable with this new type of coding. Follow our guide to practicing LeetCode for further information. 

Because you don’t have technical expertise to lean on, you should excel on the behavioral side. Many companies are just as interested in your willingness to learn, drive, and approachable personality as they are in your experience. Read more in the Behavioral Interview section. 

Even if you don’t have much to put on your resume right now, it’s important to have one. This should be one of your first tasks. We have a module dedicated to writing a resume with no experience, made just for you — because we’ve been there before. Update your resume as you learn new skills and create small projects. 

Some Experience

Our Recommendations

• Apply your past experience to creating a new project
• Get good at solving LeetCode easy and medium problems
• Learn how to properly showcase your experience and personality in a behavioral interview 
• Refine your resume 

You have some experience, whether that’s a past internship, university research, or a personal project. Now it’s time to level up. Look to build upon your past experience by taking it a step further. If you worked on building websites in your last internship, try building one on your own. If you did research with a professor, build an application to put your knowledge into action. Or, you can contribute to an open source project. Because you have some experience already, you don’t need to spend all of your time building these outside projects. They are nice-to-haves that will make you stand out. If you have the time to add a project like this, read more in the personal projects section. 

You should spend most of your time getting good at solving technical problems. Online Assessments will be a barrier for most interviews, so you need to pass them. You should practice until you’re pretty good at solving LeetCode easy and medium problems. Given that you have prior knowledge, do your best to show it off during technical interviews. Follow our guide to practicing on LeetCode for further information.

While the technical aspect is important, you can’t forget about the behavioral side. If you come off as unprepared, disorganized, or unlikable, it doesn’t matter how well you did on the technical portion — you probably won’t get hired. The behavioral interview is also important for communicating how you will use your knowledge from past experiences in your next position. Read more in the Behavioral Interview section. 

Your resume should reflect all that you have learned and your potential. Focus on refining it to maximize your chances of getting interviews. You should follow the steps in our resume section to make sure you are beating ATS screens, staying out of the “no” pile, and standing out.  ‍

Expert

Our Recommendations

• Create a full-stack, real world project using industry standard technologies 
• Get really good at technical problems (even if you don’t know how to solve hard problems, know how to approach them)
• Know how to answer behavioral questions, especially with examples that include your technical experience and team-work skills

Because you’re looking to land a competitive internship, you need to stand out in the crowd. The best way to do this is to have excellent past experience and projects listed on your resume. You need to demonstrate that you know how to code using industry-standard technologies. If you haven’t pushed code into production in a past internship, show that you can work with real users in a personal project.

Since these internships are highly competitive, there isn’t much room for error. You will most likely be given hard technical problems in interviews. You aren’t always expected to have the correct answer, but should demonstrate you know how to break these complex problems down and communicate your thought process. So, you should be very really comfortable with LeetCode easy and medium problems (meaning that you can solve 95% of them in under 15 minutes). You should also work through some hard problems, look up their solutions, and understand the thought process behind them. Follow our guide to practicing on LeetCode for further information. 

While your focus should be getting technically strong, you should still spend time preparing for behavioral interviews. ‍