I’m pretty much writing this for myself, but people who are in college and are similarly clueless about the real world might find it helpful.
Some thoughts in response:
1. In the early stages, you can get a lot of interviews by going to career fairs. I personally find this a lot easier than applying online and get a much higher response rate. This requires that you be able to talk to strangers for a long time, which I’ve had some trouble with but it was easier for me than I expected since the conversations are fairly formulaic (ask about their company, tell them what you’re looking for, talk about your resume, give them your resume and leave).
2. *Cracking the Coding Interview* is a popular book for practicing programming interview questions.
3. If a company asked me about specific features of Java, I would not work there. This tells me that they have no understanding of what makes someone a good programmer. I have never had a good software company ask me a question like this.
1. and 2. good advice, thanks.
3. I believe this: the company that asked me about specific features of Java was in finance, and one of the things that made me less inclined to work there is that their interview questions weren’t very interesting/their interview process seemed less selecting for the right things.