technical-screening

Technical Screening

Technical Screening or the process of a mentor recruiting students into their group.

Interview Objectives

• Forming a list of students for RSSchool stage#2.
• Creating "Mentor-Students" subgroups. Each mentor interviews more people than they plan to mentor (For example, +2 students). After all the interviews, a mentor can dismiss a part of the group to retain the number of students they can mentor. Mentors may delay dismissal for a few weeks to make a more considered decision.
• Checking the students' level of preparation.
• Providing students with interview experience.

Attention! RS School does not pre-check

• Mentors' adequacy
• Students' adequacy

Number of Students and Invitation Order

The number of students invited to interviews depends on the number of mentors who have signed up for the course.

Students receive invitations in the following order:

1. On the recommendation of a mentor if the mentor is ready to mentor those students.
2. Based on the results of the first stage of the course.

Interview Process

Interviews take place during during the last week of the stage#1 and the first week of stage#2. You can track current interview information on app.rs.school in the Interviews section. There you will find a link to the interview description, the interview deadline, and a registration button.

Stages

1. Registration. To participate in the interview selection, the student must click the Register button. If an Interviewer is already displayed for the student, there is no need to click the button; they should contact the interviewer.
2. Pairing. After the distribution, students will see their Interviewer — a link to their account on app.rs.school with contact details. The student must contact the interviewer within the first week to agree on an interview date. If an Interviewer is not shown to the student, they are not invited to an interview and automatically moved to the wait-list
3. Conducting the Interview. The interview can be conducted online. The average interview duration is ~60 minutes.
4. Interview Results. After a student completes the interview, the Result column will display the mentor's decision: Yes — the mentor takes the student; otherwise, the student is moved to the wait-list.

Wait-list is a list of the students who were either not invited to an interview or were rejected by a mentor after the interview. Mentors can recruit additional students from this list if possible.

Redistribution. Additional redistributions may be conducted at the administration's discretion, involving students from the wait-list.

Interview Topics

• Basics of OOP.
• Basic data structures and their organization (array, list, stack, queue, tree, hash table, etc.).
• Ability to implement a fairly simple algorithm in JavaScript. Example tasks
• Basic sorting and searching algorithms.
• Binary number system.
• Several questions on tasks solved in stage#1
• Basics of HTML/CSS:
  • Display attribute values
  • Selector weights
  • Pseudo-classes and pseudo-elements
  • Box model
  • em vs rem, relative and absolute values
  • Positioning: document flow, position property, overflow, and z-index
  • Flexbox
  • Grid
  • ...
• Basics of JS:
  • Data types
  • Variables
  • Number methods
  • String methods & String templates
  • Ternary, Nullish Coalescing, Optional Chaining, and Logical Operators – Syntax and Use Cases
  • Switch case - examples where it can be useful
  • Loops - for, while, do while
  • Be able to discover cases of implicit data types conversion into boolean, string, number
  • Type conversions
  • Strict comparison

What Students Should Do if They Fail the Interview

Students can continue studying independently or enroll in the next batch. All the lectures, assignments, and chats are publicly accessible. The assignments will not be checked by a mentor. The grades for the tests and cross-checks will be given. Mentors may recruit students during the course if possible.

What to Do if a Student is Dissatisfied with the Mentor Interview

In such a case, the student needs to describe the situation and their complaint here // TBD

FAQ

Typical Student Problems

1. I can't contact the mentor because their profile does not contain contact details.
2. Contacts are there, but the mentor does not respond for more than 3 days.
3. The mentor can no longer mentor. You need to leave a comment in the issue link here // TBD

Question: Do I need to register for an interview with a mentor if I already have a mentor?

Even if you already have a mentor, you need to register. Then, in case of any problems with the mentor, you can be put on the waiting list and later expect to get a new mentor.

Question: How can a student switch to another mentor?

The course does not provide an option for students to choose a mentor.