How does it feel when you know you know that but hard to express or to let other people know that you know. You know what I mean?

That happens often with developers, especially with junior developers. Some junior developers are extremely talented and, in my opinion, they can also come up with better solutions than experienced developers. This is because they are new and inexperienced. They can think out of the box! Experienced developers are used to looking at code and have opinions and ways of patterns of thinking which might affect creativity.

But then why are some junior developers are struggling to get a job? They know that they know but then what does go wrong when they interview for jobs?

It is as simple as lack of self-confidence and not lack of knowledge. Many Junior developers have a fear of rejection, because they are junior, inexperienced and new to the industry. In their subconscious they worry too much about their lack of experience. This thought is not good in an interview. Talented developers sometimes forget a very simple answer in an interview. For example, if asked “ What is the difference between Async/await and a promise in JavaScript?” they go blank. Nothing comes to the mind. A clean slate.

Does it mean they do not know? No, they do know. They have used it on one of their projects in the portfolio they made and submitted with their resume. It is the fear of being new, the fear that comes from that thought that their lack of experience is more important than their capacity to learn and grow. So, they fumble in an interview.

Interviewers look for people who are full of confidence. They want someone who can own a problem and be ready to find a solution rather than getting confused about what is going to happen if I don’t know the solution. Having strong technical knowledge is great and having multiple projects on the portfolio built on multiple tech stack is fantastic! But, having self confidence and faith in yourself is a whole different ballgame.

In today’s open source world, you can learn about new technology in a few weeks for free! The Internet is your friend and a Dev community is very helpful. But Having confidence in yourself is something every developer should cultivate. This can be more helpful than knowing a technical question in an interview.

Photo by Miguel Bruna on Unsplash