Leo Liu was a computer science senior with solid technical skills. He had solved over 200 LeetCode problems and memorized every classic system design pattern.

His first campus recruitment interview still fell apart.

David Zhang spent seven years managing supply chain operations at a mid-size manufacturing firm. He was good at his job — his process optimization projects had won two company-wide awards. When the industry hit a downturn, he decided it was time to move.

Kevin had decent English on paper — CET-6 score of 580, no problem reading technical documentation. But his first English interview at a multinational company was a disaster.

The interviewer asked in English: “Tell me about a time you had to influence someone who disagreed with you.”

Jason was a backend engineer who had solved over 300 LeetCode problems. Hard problems didn’t scare him. He walked into his first big-tech technical interview confident that his coding skills would speak for themselves.

The interviewer gave him a system design question: “Design a URL shortener.”

Maya is the kind of person who lets her work speak for itself. As a UI designer with four years of experience, she consistently delivered high-quality designs that passed internal reviews on the first try. But the moment she stepped into an interview room, she became a different person — voice dropping to a whisper, words rushing out in a jumble, eyes darting away from the interviewer.

Jay Wang spent four years in course operations at an education company. When the industry contracted, he set his sights on transitioning into internet user operations — a move that made sense on paper. His work involved user segmentation, data analysis, and conversion funnel optimization, all core to SaaS user operations.