Prepare

Once you've landed an interview, it makes a lot of sense to take an hour or two for some dedicated preparation. I'd recommend doing the following for every single interview that you're serious about:

1. Research the product/service. Make sure you know what the company offers and who their customers are.

2. Research the tech they use. Make sure you at least know the flashcard-level definitions of all the programming languages, frameworks, and databases they work with.

3. Research the team. If possible, figure out who will be conducting the interview, and do some digital sleuthing to learn a bit more about them. If they post online about work, read their posts!

If you show up to an interview and are asked, "What do you know about MySQL?" and your response is "nothing," you're going to look unprepared and uninterested. Especially if MySQL was listed in the job description or you could have easily found out that they use it with a few minutes of research.

This doesn't mean you need to go learn everything about MySQL before the interview if you've never used it before, but you should at least know:

• It's a relational SQL database

• It's open source

• It's similar to PostgreSQL and MS SQL Server

Just learn a few high-level details so that when you're asked about it, you don't look like a deer in the headlights.