Shadowing Practice: Cracking the Behavioral Interview for Software Developers - Learn English Speaking with Video
Les maken...
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what's up guys today we're gonna be doing something a little different
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but I feel like it's gonna be super helpful a lot of engineers can crush it on the technical interview
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but when it comes to the behavioral part that's where a lot of people struggle
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and I know candidates who did great on the technical interview
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but they got a rejection
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because they failed on the behavioral part they weren't able to demonstrate
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that they had proficient communication skills or how well they handle certain situations
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and that's what the behavioral interview gauge is for
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because you can be a technical genius but
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if you can't convey what you're trying to say it's going to be hard to work on a team
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and I'll be the first to admit it I'm not great at just thinking of examples right on the spot
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so usually how I prepare for an interview
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and how well I do on it usually have a direct correlation
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so before going into an interview where I know I'll be ask situational questions I'll usually brainstorm
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and think of about eight to ten examples from my career that can be used to answer different styles of questions.
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Anything from conflict management to a time where I made a good technical suggestion
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because a lot of times you can mold your situations to what the question is asking
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and what I've noticed is that the best answers usually have a story behind it.
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Obviously you don't want to add too much fluff to your answer
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or diverge away too far from what the question is asking
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but if you can kind of paint a picture of the solution to your interviewer
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that usually leads to better results
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so in this video I'm gonna give myself a few prompts
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and answer them as
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if this were a real interview before we get into the video make sure you guys hit the like button
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so I know you guys like this kind of video
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and let me know in the comments if you'd like to see more
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so the first question is gonna be tell me about yourself this is the question
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that most behavioral interviews start with now it's important to mention that even though these are behavioral interviews,
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they will still have some technical aspects to them.
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So let's take a look at how I answered this question.
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Hey, my name is Sam.
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I'm a software engineer and I enjoy solving complex problems.
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I have experience as a full stack web app developer
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and I enjoy working with all layers of the stack and I enjoy building out user -friendly efficient websites.
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My passion for web app development started
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when I was doing my internship at AWS
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and I was given a solo project to work on for the entirety of the internship
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and this really gave me full ownership over everything from the design decisions to the actual coding of it
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and I was also able to gain a lot of experience and exposure to different AWS cloud computing tools.
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After my internship I decided that this is what I wanted to do as a career
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and since then I've gained about three years of experience building
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out dozens of different applications at my current company i'm helping
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out with the modernization of our existing infrastructure this includes building
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out new microservices as well as updating existing ones the technologies i've experienced with include dotnet for building out apis
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and our server side code sql with mysql oracle and sql server as well as experience with different various javascript frameworks,
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including Vue .js and Angular.
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So I believe my experience and my passion would make me a great asset for your company.
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So in my answer, I tried to keep it short and sweet.
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I didn't get into my whole life story, even though it is a tell me about yourself.
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Keep it relevant.
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Don't start talking about your dog or something.
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You guys think I'm joking, but I've actually heard people say that when I've been in group interviews.
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And I would say a sweet spot for this question would be a minute and a half, maybe two minutes.
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Again, that isn't set in stone.
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These are kind of like more like guidelines, right?
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Have you ever seen Pirates of the Caribbean, right?
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These aren't rules.
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They're more like guidelines.
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All right, the next question is going to be, tell me about a time you had to persuade someone at work.
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What did you do?
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Let's take a look at my response.
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At my previous company, our team supported 20 to 30 different web applications.
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And there was really no uniformity in terms of what front -end JavaScript framework we could or should use.
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So what ended up happening is we would have some apps written in Angular, some apps written in React, some written in Vue, it was kind of all over the place.
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And the problem with this was, say you were assigned to write a feature in a certain app and you didn't really know that framework, you would have to at least spend time getting a basic
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understanding of it before you can even start to implement that feature.
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So this potentially increased the development time by a lot.
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So my proposal was to just have all our apps be written in Vue .js
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because it's something that I had experience with.
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I thought it was fairly easy to pick up.
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It's a lightweight app and it's pretty easy to inject into existing applications.
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So what I did was I created a little mini demo presentation
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and I set up a meeting between my team and my manager
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and just demonstrated the pros and cons of using that framework.
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So the result of that was my manager was on board
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and we decided to use Vue .js for all our new development.
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Again, that was about a minute and a half to answer it and it was told like a story.
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I explained what the problem was and what I did to resolve
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that problem and showed how I made a lasting positive impact to the company.
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All right, the last question we're going to look at is tell me about a time you failed at work
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and what did you learn from it?
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So this one time I was assigned the task of implementing a new feature into one of our applications.
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And we used Git as our source control, so as I was working on this feature, I was continuously pushing to our master branch, which isn't good practice
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because you always want to keep your master branch deployable as well as in sync with what's in production.
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Also, if we deployed this app with this feature being partially done, it would break the application.
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But this was an app that barely ever got updated, so I figured I'd be all right
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but of course we had an emergency bug fix
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that had to be made and I was like we actually can't deploy it
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because the app is gonna break luckily with source control you are able to go back
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and we were able to add
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that change to where I started working on the future
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but in the future I learned that in order to you know
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if I wasn't making any changes first create a branch off of master
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and deploy to that branch and then when you're finally done with the future then merge the changes back into master.
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Now a potential issue to this answer is that it assumes that the interviewer knows how Git works.
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Most likely you're gonna be doing one of these interviews with another dev
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so I mean they probably know how Git works but it's possible
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that they don't but I think a really important thing to answering these questions is
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that you don't want to confuse your interviewer by going too into the weeds with a particular technology
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that they might not know.
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So just gauge who you're interviewing with it's it's very easy to get very technical about something
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and totally lose your interviewer and that's not good
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because it means you weren't able to clearly communicate a technical topic
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which is important when you're working with other devs on a team all right
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so the takeaways from this video are keep your answers about
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one to three minutes long the best answers usually tell a story usually there's a problem
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or a situation and you talk about an action
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that you took to help resolve that situation
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and finally don't confuse your interviewer a lot of times your answers might include a very complex technical subject
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that your interviewer isn't going to understand in a two -minute explanation
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so just be aware of that and and even simplify your answer
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if you need to all right guys thank you guys for watching the video
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if you guys would like me to do another one of these uh definitely let me know
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and if you have a specific question
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that you want me to answer in one of these videos let me know in the comments
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and i'll try to include it if if i end up doing another one
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so i will see you guys in the next one.
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And as always, keep on coding.
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Woordenschat en spreektips bij deze les
Deze spreekles is gebaseerd op de video “Cracking the Behavioral Interview for Software Developers”. Deze woorden komen het vaakst terug: answer, interview, app, technical, usually. Deze video bevat 119 zinnen en 1568 woorden om na te spreken. Het gesproken deel duurt 7:52. De spreker praat snel, ongeveer 199 woorden per minuut, dus reken op verbonden en ingeslikte klanken. 83% van de woorden hoort bij de 3.000 meest gebruikte Engelse woorden; de rest kun je beter vooraf bekijken.
Belangrijke woorden in deze video
15 woorden uit de video die het leren waard zijn, met uitspraak en betekenis:
| Woord | Uitspraak | Betekenis |
|---|---|---|
| interviewer zelfstandig naamwoord | /ˈɪntɚvjuɚ/ | interviewer, interviewster |
| framework zelfstandig naamwoord | /ˈfɹeɪm.wɜːk/ | geraamte |
| deploy werkwoord | /dɪˈplɔɪ/ | uitrollen |
| internship zelfstandig naamwoord | /ˈɪntɜːnʃɪp/ | stage |
| server zelfstandig naamwoord | /ˈsɝvɚ/ | server |
| passion zelfstandig naamwoord | /ˈpæʃən/ | passie, hartstocht |
| demonstrate werkwoord | /ˈdɛm.ənˌstɹeɪt/ | demonstreren |
| implement werkwoord | /ˈɪmpləmənt/ | implementeren, (in de praktijk) toepassen |
| resolve werkwoord | /ɹɪˈzɑlv/ | oplossen |
| stack zelfstandig naamwoord | /stæk/ | stapel |
| gauge zelfstandig naamwoord | /ˈɡeɪd͡ʒ/ | meter |
| confuse werkwoord | /kənˈfjuːz/ | verwarren, in de war brengen |
| assign werkwoord | /əˈsaɪn/ | toewijzen |
| topic zelfstandig naamwoord | /ˈtɑpɪk/ | onderwerp, thema |
| proposal zelfstandig naamwoord | /pɹəˈpoʊzəl/ | voorstel |
Phrasal verbs die je zult horen
| Woord | Uitspraak | Betekenis |
|---|---|---|
| end up werkwoord | belanden, terechtkomen | |
| go back werkwoord | teruggaan | |
| pick up werkwoord | oppakken, optillen | |
| set up werkwoord | /ˌsɛt ˈʌp/ | bereiden, voorbereiden |
Zinnen om te herhalen
Korte, volledige zinnen uit de video die je in alledaagse gesprekken kunt gebruiken:
- Don't start talking about your dog or something.
- What did you do?
- Let's take a look at my response.
Grammatica in deze video
De structuren die de spreker het meest gebruikt, met de exacte woorden uit de video:
| Structuur | In de video |
|---|---|
| Lijdende vorm be + voltooid deelwoord — het gaat om wat er gebeurt, niet om wie het doet | was given · isn't set · were assigned |
| Present perfect have/has + voltooid deelwoord — iets uit het verleden dat nu nog telt | I've noticed · I've gained · i've experienced |
Uitspraak om op te letten
De spreker gebruikt 46 samentrekkingen en verkorte vormen, zoals gonna, don't, I'm. Spreek ze kort uit, zoals je ze hoort.
- De klanken “sh” en “zh”: internship /ˈɪntɜːnʃɪp/, passion /ˈpæʃən/, explanation /ˌɛkspləˈneɪʃən/, exposure /ɪkˈspəʊ.ʒə(ɹ)/, efficient /ɪˈfɪʃənt/
- Lange woorden — let op de klemtoon: behavioral /bɪˈheɪvjəɹəl/, infrastructure /ˈɪnfɹəˌstɹʌkt͡ʃə/, explanation /ˌɛkspləˈneɪʃən/, potentially /pəˈtɛnʃ(ə)li/, communicate /kəˈmjuːnɪkeɪt/
Klanken die Nederlandstaligen lastig vinden:
- Stemhebbende eindmedeklinker — /b/, /d/, /g/, /z/, /v/ niet verscherpen: resolve /ɹɪˈzɑlv/, gauge /ˈɡeɪd͡ʒ/, confuse /kənˈfjuːz/, cloud /ˈklaʊ̯d/, solve /sɒlv/
- /æ/ — opener dan de Nederlandse “e”: passion /ˈpæʃən/, stack /stæk/, aspect /ˈæspɛkt/, asset /ˈæsɛt/
- /g/ — een harde plofklank, geen Nederlandse “g”: gauge /ˈɡeɪd͡ʒ/, guideline /ˈɡaɪdˌlaɪn/
Zo oefen je met deze video
- Luister de hele video één keer zonder te spreken en noteer de woorden die je niet kent.
- Begin op 0,75× snelheid, spreek zin voor zin na en ga terug naar normale snelheid zodra het makkelijk gaat.
- Neem jezelf op en vergelijk met het origineel; let daarbij op woorden als interviewer, framework, deploy.
Wat is de Shadowing-techniek?
Shadowing is een wetenschappelijk onderbouwde taalleermethode die oorspronkelijk is ontwikkeld voor professionele tolkentraining en gepopulariseerd door polyglot Dr. Alexander Arguelles. De methode is eenvoudig maar krachtig: je luistert naar native Engelse audio en herhaalt het onmiddellijk hardop — als een schaduw die de spreker volgt met slechts 1–2 seconden vertraging. In tegenstelling tot passief luisteren of grammaticadrills, dwingt shadowing je hersenen en mondspieren om echte spraakpatronen tegelijkertijd te verwerken en te reproduceren. Onderzoek toont aan dat het de uitspraaknauwkeurigheid, intonatie, ritme, verbonden spraak, luisterbegrip en spreekvaardigheid aanzienlijk verbetert — waardoor het een van de meest effectieve methoden is voor IELTS Speaking-voorbereiding en echte Engelse communicatie.