i have a recruiter screen scheduled for next week for an entry-level software engineer role at Home Depot's tech division and i am genuinely spiraling a little.
i have one internship, two school projects, and a lot of LeetCode. i don't know if LeetCode is even what they want here or if i should be prepping STAR stories or both.
the JD mentions 'customer focus' and 'collaboration' a lot. is that code for heavy behavioral or just standard corporate boilerplate? any recent experience from people who went through at the new grad level would really help.
4 replies
corp_refugee
not boilerplate. they do lean behavioral, even at entry level. yes have some STAR stories ready. the internship is enough material, just be specific about what YOU did.
careerveteran
for a new grad the technical bar is lower than you think. they know you don't have 5 years of production experience. what they're really assessing is: can you communicate clearly, do you take ownership, and are you someone people would want to work with. your internship story about something that went wrong and how you handled it is worth 3x a perfect LeetCode solve in their rubric.
newgrad_neil
ok that's actually calming. i do have a story about a production bug during my internship that i caught at 11pm before launch. was mortifying at the time but maybe that's useful.
qa_quinn
that 11pm bug catch story is gold. lead with that. seriously.