Introducing a Technical Interview Preparation Activity in a Data Structures and Algorithms Course

Technical interviews have predominantly been used by companies to recruit students for software-related and other computing jobs. Since the content of the interviews has an overlap with Data Structures and Algorithms (DSA), we introduced a mock interview activity to promote students' awareness of the technical interview process and build students' confidence in problem-solving in a DSA course. In this short paper, we (1) describe the logistics for embedding such an intervention, and (2) explain the affordances and opportunities for improvement of the activity through student perspectives. Students were explained the technical interview process and asked to interview each other twice during the semester on coding problems. Students received the intervention positively describing that the activity helped them to understand the technical interview process, prepared them for future interviews, built their confidence to secure a job, and supported them in knowing their strengths and weaknesses. Opportunities for improving the activity include providing interview questions explicitly, offering an alternate activity for students who are not interested in computing careers, and reducing the length requirement for interviews. Given students' positive reception of the intervention, we recommend that instructors adopt these mock interview exercises in computing courses to improve students' access to professional development opportunities.