The fourth class day will be interview day. Your interview will take place in a hiring platform, Evidenced. An assessor will ask you questions about your code and your projects. You can be asked about any part of any of your projects, so make sure you understand it all, including the parts your teammates wrote.

You can see the details of the interview in the day-plan.

Prerequisites:

Your interviewer will expect you to have a secure understanding of:

• All of the projects you have worked on during the Checkpoint, including the code other people wrote
• Professional English at a B2 level
• A limited subset of JavaScript concepts at a junior level

Review these areas before your interview. Read over the day plan for interview day so you know what to expect.

And remember: the assessor is not there to catch you out. They are there to help you do your best. If you don’t understand a question, ask for clarification. If you don’t know the answer, say so. If you need a moment to think, take it. 🌱

A few things it’s useful to know about interviews:

• You don’t need a script. The best way to prepare is to understand your code, and to try explaining it to someone.
• You are allowed to look at your code. It’s much easier to talk about code you’re looking at!
• Ideally you should share your screen and show the code you’re talking about.
  • Be ready to open any of your projects in VSCode, and share your screen.
• You can practice on the interviewing platform we use. Ask in your class Slack channel how to do this.
• Your interviewer wants to see you at your best, not catch you out. Small mistakes aren’t the end of the world. Your interviewer isn’t expecting you to say everything exactly perfectly. They’re looking to see how you think about and explain things.
• It’s the interviewer’s job to get the information they need. If you don’t fully answer a question, they will ask a follow-up question. You don’t need to read their mind.

Practicing, and getting feedback, will help you interview.

You may want to do a mock interview before your real one. You can always ask in the #cyf-interview-practice Slack channel for a mock interview with a volunteer. If you do, you should probably share with your mock interviewer what style of interview you’re preparing for. Send them a link to the day-plan which describes what you will be asked and what we’re looking for in your answers.

Check your understanding.

Before you join the Checkpoint, you should have a secure understanding of a limited subset of programming concepts at a junior level. The projects, activities, and interviews are designed for people who have a working knowledge of the following foundational concepts:

JavaScript fundamentals

• Variables: let, const
• Primitive data types: String, Number, Boolean, undefined, null
• Data structures: Array, Object
• Navigating Objects: Object.entries, Object.fromEntries, Object.keys, Object.values
• Navigating Arrays: Array.includes, Array.slice
• Operators: =, ==, ===, !=, !==, >, <, >=, <=, &&, ||, !, %, +, -, *, /
• Control structures: if, else, else if, return
• Functions: function, =>, scope, callbacks, and extracting a function
• Loops: for, for of
• Higher order functions that take callbacks: Array.map, Array.filter, Array.find, Array.findIndex

JavaScript in the browser

• Asynchronous programming: Promise, async/await
• Web APIs: fetch, addEventListener, setTimeout, document
• Manipulating the DOM with Web APIs: Finding elements, Creating elements, Adding elements to the DOM, Removing elements from the DOM, Changing elements currently in the DOM

JavaScript Testing

• Assertions in Jest: test, expect, toEqual, not

Git

• Git commands: status, clone, add, commit, push, pull, merge, branch, checkout