The Ultimate iOS Interview Playbook E-Book

Avi Tsadok

• Herausgeber: Packt Publishing
• Kategorie: Fachliteratur
• Sprache: Englisch

Seitenzahl: 448

Veröffentlichungsjahr: 2023

Beschreibung

As an iOS developer, you must possess a diverse skill set encompassing Swift coding, design knowledge, and mastery of development tools. And while the demand for iOS developers remains high, the competition for landing your dream job has intensified in recent years. Being a skilled iOS developer is no longer enough — acing interviews is now just as essential as having technical expertise.
In The Ultimate iOS Interview Playbook, you'll discover innovative ways to stand out as an iOS developer and pass every job interview. It will guide you to build your developer brand and present your skills to potential employers. This comprehensive guide covers over 100 interview questions, from Swift fundamentals and frameworks to complex design patterns and app architecture. You'll learn how to approach coding assessments like a pro and avoid red flags that could hinder your chances of success.
Drawing from the author’s experience of interviewing hundreds of iOS developers and having been a candidate themself, this book addresses the challenges of showcasing your skills and knowledge within a limited timeframe.
By the end of this book, you'll be ready to excel in any iOS interview, demonstrating your strengths and confidently tackling even the most challenging questions, ultimately paving the way to secure the job you've always wanted.

Leseprobe

The Ultimate iOS Interview Playbook

Conquer Swift, frameworks, design patterns, and app architecture for your dream job

Avi Tsadok

BIRMINGHAM—MUMBAI

The Ultimate iOS Interview Playbook

Copyright © 2023 Packt Publishing

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Every effort has been made in the preparation of this book to ensure the accuracy of the information presented. However, the information contained in this book is sold without warranty, either express or implied. Neither the author, nor Packt Publishing or its dealers and distributors, will be held liable for any damages caused or alleged to have been caused directly or indirectly by this book.

Packt Publishing has endeavored to provide trademark information about all of the companies and products mentioned in this book by the appropriate use of capitals. However, Packt Publishing cannot guarantee the accuracy of this information.

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First published: August 2023

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Published by Packt Publishing Ltd.

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ISBN 978-1-80324-631-4

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Contributors

About the author

Avi Tsadok, a seasoned iOS developer with a 13-year career, has proven his expertise by leading projects for notable companies such as Any.do, a top productivity app, and currently Melio Payments, where he steers the mobile team. Known for his ability to simplify complex tech concepts, Avi has written 4 books and published 40+ tutorials and articles that enlighten and empower aspiring iOS developers. His voice resonates beyond the page, as he’s a recognized public speaker and has conducted numerous interviews with fellow iOS professionals, furthering the field’s discourse and development.

A heartfelt thank you to my wife, Tammy, for her unwavering support during the tumultuous journey of writing this book. Your patience during my mad writing spells has been nothing short of amazing. I am eternally grateful.

About the reviewer

Francesco Deliro is an experienced and passionate iOS software engineer. With over nine years of experience in the mobile industry, Francesco, currently at Revolut, has worked with several companies and start-ups, including Glovo in Spain and Bestever.AI in the USA.

Francesco’s expertise lies in Swift development, UX design, and clean architecture. Throughout his career, Francesco has demonstrated a deep passion for coding and the latest technologies. He has actively contributed to several open source projects, showcasing his commitment to knowledge sharing and collaboration within the developer community.

Table of Contents

Preface

Part 1: Everything about Interviews

1

Before the Interview

Performing company research

Knowing where you’re going is part of the interview

Company profiles affect our answers

Learning the company characteristics

Building the unofficial company profile

Building our resume

A resume is like a book or a movie

Structuring the resume outline

Working on design and layout

What is the personal information part?

Formulating the personal summary section

Listing our expertise

Skills

Miscellaneous

Avoiding red flags

Inviting another set of eyes

Preparing for the interview

Taking our time

Technical, personal, and logistics preparations

Summary

2

Going through the Interview Process

Understanding the hiring process

Learning the hiring funnel

Distinguishing between different companies

Getting ready for the screening interview

What does the screening interview include?

Send a thank-you email

All about the iOS technical interview

Worked-on projects

Answering Swift and algorithm questions

Solving basic questions about UIKit and SwiftUI

Mastering development tools

Cracking the coding interview

Live coding interview

Working on a home assessment

Passing the architecture interview

Summary

3

Developer Branding

Understanding the importance of developing a brand

Learning what a brand is

Increasing our chances of passing the resume scanning

Increasing our chances of getting an offer

Expanding our network

How to start building your brand

Contributing to the community

Being a star in Stack Overflow

Maintaining a public GitHub repository

Joining an open source project

Writing content

Being experts

Improving wording and expression capabilities

Increasing our network

Making the world aware of our knowledge

Combining all and more

Understanding that every in-person interaction is important

Summary

Part 2: Swift Language and Coding

4

Data Structures and Algorithms

Learning the importance of data structures

Increasing efficiency

Making our code modular

Reusing our code

Using data structures for an API

Answering classes and struct questions

“What’s the difference between a class and a struct?”

“Which is better, a class or a struct?”

“Why are structs faster than classes?”

Answering questions about Swift array

“Please list the Swift array advantages”

“How to remove duplicates from an array?”

“How do you implement a queue using an array?”

“How do you create a new array by mapping the elements of an existing array in Swift?”

Covering the Codable protocol

“How do you handle optional properties when using the Codable protocol?”

“How do you use CodingKeys enumeration to map the keys in a JSON object to the properties of a custom data type?”

“How can you convert a formatted date string to a date object in Codable?”

Preparing for dictionary- and set-related interview questions

“Can you use a dictionary to store configuration data?”

“How do you use the filter method to select a subset of key-value pairs from a dictionary based on a condition?”

“What is the time complexity of common set operations, such as inserting an element or checking for membership?”

“Is it possible to store any type of data in a set collection in Swift?”

Summary

5

The Swift Programming Language

How do we master all Swift features?

Basic Swift features

Answering optionals questions

Solving access-level questions

Handling questions about Closures

Advanced Swift language features

Solving computed and lazy variables questions

Solving extensions questions

Solving generics questions

Solving error-handling questions

Solving protocol questions

Solving memory management questions

Summary

6

Managing Your Code

Planning

“How do you create a project timeline and plan for the iOS app’s development process?”

“How do you estimate development time for a task?”

“How do you create a technical design document for an iOS task?”

Testing

“What is the meaning of unit and integration testing in the context of iOS development?”

“How do you perform performance testing in iOS applications?”

“Can you explain what it means to write a testable code?”

Debugging

“Can you explain how to debug memory leaks in iOS applications?”

“Can you explain how to debug UI-related issues in iOS applications?”

“How do you debug performance issues in iOS applications?”

Documentation

“Can you explain how you document your iOS code?”

“Can you explain how to document design patterns and best practices in iOS development?”

“How do you handle the documentation of code that multiple team members are developing?”

Summary

Part 3: The Frameworks

7

Building Great User Experiences with UIKit

Answering questions about Auto Layout

“Can you explain what content hugging and compression resistance are in Auto Layout and how they are used to control the layout of UI elements?”

“Can you explain how to use size classes in Interface Builder to adapt layouts for different screen sizes and orientations?”

“What is the purpose of the safe area in Auto Layout, and how do you ensure that your views are properly positioned within the safe area?”

Solving UIView questions

“Can you explain how the responder chain works in iOS?”

“How can you respond to device orientation changes in UIView?”

“Why does UIView not have a ‘viewDidAppear’ method as UIViewController does?”

“Can you explain the difference between setNeedsLayout, layoutSubviews, and layoutIfNeeded in UIView? When would you use each of these methods, and how do they impact the layout process?”

“What is the difference between the frame and bounds properties?”

Understanding everything about UIViewController

“Can you list all the life cycle events or methods of a UIViewController, in the order in which they occur?”

“Can you explain the concept of UIViewController containment? How would you implement it in your app?”

“How do you pass data between view controllers in iOS?”

Making sure we are ready with UITableView

“How does the queuing mechanism work in a UITableView, and what are some best practices for optimizing its performance?”

“What is pagination in UITableView, and how would you implement it to efficiently load and display large amounts of data while maintaining good performance and user experience?”

“What are the different approaches for adjusting cell size in a UITableView, and how do you determine the optimal size for cells based on the content they will display?”

Performing navigation well

“What is the purpose of the navigationItem property in a view controller, and how can you use it to customize the behavior and appearance of a navigation bar in iOS development?”

“What are some of the preset options for presenting a UIViewController in iOS, and why is it important to understand these options?”

“How would you design a navigation system for an iOS app using the coordinator pattern, where view controllers don’t decide where to go next, and a coordinator object is responsible for managing the navigation flow?”

Empowering user experience with animations

Going over the core concepts of animation in UIKit

“How can you create custom transitions between UIViewControllers in an iOS app?”

Summary

8

SwiftUI and Declarative Programming

Entering a new era of development

Understanding declarative programming

“What’s the difference between declarative programming and the “classic” programming paradigm, also known as imperative programming?”

“How does declarative programming help handle state management in iOS apps?”

Learning states and observable objects

“Can you explain the differences and use cases for the @State and @Binding property wrappers in SwiftUI?”

“What is the purpose of @ObservedObject in SwiftUI, and in what situations would you use it instead of @State or @Binding?”

Navigating SwiftUI views

“How do you pass data between views using the SwiftUI navigation system?”

“Can you explain how to use @Environment(\.presentationMode) to dismiss a presented view in SwiftUI navigation?”

Expertise with the SwiftUI life cycle

“How does SwiftUI handle state changes during the view life cycle?”

“How do you use the onChange modifier in SwiftUI, and what state changes does it respond to?”

Expertise in Combine

“Can you provide an example of how you would use Combine in an iOS app?”

“How do you debug a Combine stream?”

Summary

9

Understanding Persistent Memory

Mastering Core Data questions

“How do you design a Core Data Stack that supports concurrency while ensuring thread safety, and how can you use NSManagedObjectIDs in a multi-threaded environment to facilitate this?”

“What would your Core Data data model look like for a recipe app that includes ingredients, cooking instructions, and user ratings?”

“How would you approach testing Core Data in an iOS app?”

Handling persistent state with UserDefaults

“Explain how an iOS app and its extensions can share data using UserDefaults. What steps are involved in setting up and using UserDefaults to share data between an app and its extensions?”

“Can you explain how to store a struct or a class in UserDefaults in an iOS app?”

Storing sensitive information in the Keychain

“What is a Keychain Access Group, and how can it be used to securely share Keychain items between different components of an iOS app, such as the app and its extensions?”

Working with the filesystem

“Can you explain the purpose of each of the following folders in an iOS app: Documents, Library, Cache, and Temp? How would you decide which folder to use for storing different types of files in your app?”

Summary

10

Libraries Management

Mastering CocoaPods

Learning how CocoaPods is built

“What best practices do you follow when working with CocoaPods, and why are they important?”

“What is the difference between pod update and pod install?”

Learning about the Swift Package Manager

Creating a Swift package

Going over the package manifest and folders

Swift package common commands

Using a Swift package

“What are the advantages and disadvantages of using the SPM compared to CocoaPods?”

“What are some best practices for organizing and structuring Swift packages to optimize build times and minimize dependency conflicts?”

Summary

Part 4: Design and Architecture

11

Design Patterns to Solve Complex Questions

Building a UI with MVC/MVVM

Solving different problems with MVC and MVVM

Learning MVC

Exploring MVVM

“How would you implement navigation in an MVVM architecture, considering that the ViewModel should not have knowledge of the View?”

“Why is the MVVM architecture considered good for testability in iOS app development?”

Decoupling with Dependency Injection

Using constructor injection

Simplifying things with setter injection

Using pure functions with method injection

Decoupling our code using protocols

Communicating using delegation

“How does the delegation pattern differ from other communication patterns, such as notifications or closures, in Swift?”

Sharing a state using Singleton

“How would you avoid using a Singleton in your code? Can you describe some of the alternative approaches you might consider?”

“Can you describe the potential issues with using Singletons in a multithreaded environment, and how can these be addressed?”

Improving performance with Concurrency

Working with GCD

Creating advanced queues with OperationQueue

Blocking threads with NSLock

Using the Combine Future publisher to implement async operations

Going over concurrency development best practices

Summary

12

Drilling into App Architecture

All about the Separation of Concerns principle

Defining the Separation of Concerns principle

Explaining the importance of SoC

Going practical with the Separation of Concerns principle

Designing app architecture

Breaking the architecture into application layers

Learning about data flow

Designing an offline-first system architecture

The architecture design interview

Entering the head of our interviewer

Approaching the mission

Starting the design

Communicating with the interviewer

Summary

13

Acing the Coding Assessment

Succeeding in live coding

Learning about the different live coding tests

Preparing ourselves for the coding interview

Starting to code

Coding like a pro

Excelling in a home assessment

What does a home assessment look like?

The different skills being tested in a home assessment

Going over examples

Avoiding red flags

Inability to explain or defend a solution

Dichotomic thinking

Limited error handling

Poor code quality

Summary

Index

Other Books You May Enjoy

Part 1: Everything about Interviews

This initial part of the book focuses on the essential steps to take before starting the interview process. It covers various actions, such as finding a suitable company, writing a compelling resume, understanding the interview process, and establishing a strong developer brand. By the end of this section, you will have the necessary tools to succeed in your first interview.

In this part, we have the following chapters:

Chapter 1, Before the InterviewChapter 2, Going through the Interview ProcessChapter 3, Developer Branding

1

Before the Interview

We consider ourselves good iOS developers. How good? Well, we have done some impressive things in our lives. For example, we built gorgeous animations, implemented Combine, uploaded app versions to the App Store, and debugged complex bugs.

So, what is the problem exactly? Why do we need this book?

Because knowing Swift, UIKit, and Combine are remarkable, and debugging, algorithms, and CI management are all essential skills for an iOS developer. But one skill needs to be added for many developers, and that’s how to be a player in the iOS developers’ labor market. Playing in this market requires us to learn and adapt to new skills that some of us may still need to learn, such as skills in the fields of self-expression, wording, communication, and even marketing.

By the end of this book, we will take our tremendous iOS development knowledge and learn how to use it to develop a new skill: the ability to pass an iOS interview.

So, how do we start?

Lau Tzu (a Chinese philosopher) said:

The journey of a thousand miles begins with one step.

But the question is, what is the first step?

Is answering a Swift question or scribbling a design for an architecture problem the first step? Well, our first step is to understand what we want from our workplace, where we want to be, and to get ready to conquer it with confidence.

Understanding all this may sound like an easy task. We just send our resume (that we wrote in two minutes) to all the tech companies we know and expect that something will pop up. Unfortunately, it doesn’t work like that. We must research the market and adjust our resume according to our needs. Even more important, before we look at the market, we must look inside and understand who we are and what will be good for us.

In this chapter, we will learn how to reach our first interview with a company that suits us in the best condition possible. We will build a company profile together and learn about the different types of companies out there. We will also learn what a good (or bad) resume is and write a resume that fits us and our target workplace. Then, we will learn how to be prepared for our first interview in all matters.

To that end, we will cover the following topics in this chapter:

Performing company researchBuilding our resumePreparing for the interview

Performing company research

Many candidates may find the next sentence strange, but some fail in iOS interviews, because they lack knowledge about the company they’re interviewing for. Do you believe that? The truth is that mastering UIKit or SwiftUI is essential, and being a Swift expert is crucial, but the workplace profile is just as important.

Think of working in a company as a long-term relationship and the interview process as the blind-date meeting where it all started. Remember the excitement, the research we did with our friends, or the questions each of you asked during the session. Well, the job interview is your first date. Dress nicely!

A job interview is a bidirectional process. During the interview, we examine the workplace just as much as the workplace examines us.

The primary reason for learning about the company we’re interviewing for is apparent: we want to ensure our next workplace fits us like a glove. But there’s another reason. It will be constructive during the interview process if we are familiar with the company, its product, and the market.

Before starting the interview process, we should build a company Profile where we can learn everything about its culture, size, working environment, and more. There’s official and unofficial information that we can retrieve, and both are essential to our readiness.

Why? Let’s find out!

Knowing where you’re going is part of the interview

Here’s a secret you can find only in this book: many interviewers check our knowledge, not only in iOS development but also regarding the workplace itself. Sometimes, it can make a difference when comparing candidates with similar coding skills!

Interviewers look for enthusiastic, self-confident candidates who are familiar with the product, the market, and the industry.

The preceding knowledge leads to another side of our personality that we want to show: that we are mature, serious, and conducted comprehensive research before we came to the interview. This side of us tremendously boosts our chances of succeeding in our role, and that’s something interviewers look for.

Company profiles affect our answers

Believe it or not, some company characteristics may influence our answers, especially regarding design and architecture questions. And that’s something we will learn in the book. In many cases, interviewers want to see gray colors in our personality, not just black and white.

I mean that we always need to balance our answers and understand that there are pros and cons to almost any question. Answering a question with the mindset of the company we are interviewing for can really make a difference in how it looks to the person’s eye who is interviewing us at the time.

Learning the company characteristics

What are the things we need to look for when doing our research? What builds our company profile?

Generally, the company profile is divided into three parts: product and industry, company details, and working environment. I think that all of them are important in one way or another to start understanding where we are interviewing and if and how the workplace fits our needs.

Let’s see how we build each part.

Product and industry

In a job interview, I can’t begin to describe what it means to be familiar with the company’s product or industry. Let’s talk about what it does to us as interviewees.

First, it increases our self-confidence. We feel in control when we understand the broad ecosystem around our interview process. When the interviewer talks about the company and its product, we can quickly understand what he is talking about. But moreover, knowing the product will point our answers in the right direction and context. There’s a big difference between answering an architecture question when interviewing for a social app company and an advertising company building an SDK. In an iOS development world, these are two different creatures. We will go over that in Chapter 12.

And second, asking the interviewer intelligent questions about the company shows that we did our homework and know what we’re talking about. In most places, that counts for a lot.

Retrieving company details

Company details are our company profile’s most accessible and shortest section. There are a couple of questions we should ask ourselves before and during the interview process. These questions can give us a clue about whether this company is suitable for our needs.

The questions that we should ask are essential and intertwined:

What is the company size?Where is the company currently in its life cycle?Is the company public or private?

You may not find these questions necessary, but as a matter of fact, they have a tremendous impact on your career as an iOS developer and even beyond that.

Let’s discuss each one in detail and start with the first one – company size.

Considering company size

There are three company sizes: small, medium, and large.

In the USA, a small tech company is considered to have fewer than 100 employees, a medium tech company employs under 1,000 employees, and a company with over 1,000 employees is considered to be large.

Even though these definitions are not identical in different countries and industries, in our discussion, it doesn’t matter much. What matters is what it means to us as employees.

Small companies allow us to produce a more significant impact on the company and its product. It usually means working in small teams; sometimes teams that are one person only(!). And because these companies are small, they also give us an intimate feeling, which comes with a good work/life balance. Another pro for small companies is the pace – it’s much faster. The fast pace is mainly because small teams have simplified working flows. Small companies also have downsides. They are mostly less stable than bigger companies and have less room to growyour career.

Large companies are the opposite. Even though they are much more stable, the employee has a much smaller impact on the company product and its path. To gain more influence in large companies, we need to move up in the hierarchy, which, unlike small companies, is much easier. Also, the pace of development is much slower due to more dependencies between teams and company regulations.

In a way, medium companies are like a mix of large and small. They still provide an intimate family environment while being more stable than small companies. Therefore, it is not surprising that medium companies are the preferable firms by most tech workers. The combination of stability, a warm environment, and fast development pace fulfill the preferences of most people in the industry.

But looking at company size as the only indication of suitability is perhaps too superficial. As stated earlier in this section, there are more factors you need to take into consideration, for example, where the company is in its life cycle.

Analyzing a company’s life cycle

Companies have a life cycle like humans and any other living creature. You might ask yourself now, “A living creature?”

Yes! Like humans, companies have an age, DNA, innovations, ideas, and many other characteristics.

The following diagram shows a start-up company’s life cycle:

Figure 1.1 – A start-up company’s life cycle

Companies are born, and they grow, mature, and sometimes even decline and die. And just like a human, each stage of their life cycle has its own excitement and risks. As a result, when searching for a company, one thing to look at is the stage in its life.

The company’s stage may point to the working atmosphere we might experience. It can tell us the opportunities and whether the company is at a stage where everything is ticking, or if we need to set up workflows from the ground up.

Another deeper aspect we need to look at is the life cycle of the mobile team itself. The company can be mature, but the mobile team was just born. Regardless of the different opportunities a new team may have, there can also be differences in the technology it uses, and that’s also a critical issue in our interviews.

In many cases, interviewers tend to ask questions about the technology they use or want to use in their projects. For example, if we’re talking about a mature mobile team, its developers probably use UIKit and might even use Objective-C (God forbid!). In this case, expect questions about UIViews or Objective-C categories and blocks.

Also, in mature teams (and mature products), the project might contain legacy code, which can be painful to deal with and sometimes requires refactoring.

When we perform our company’s research, we must ask the right questions about the company’s stage, the team, and the project. The answers we’ll get can give us an overview of what we might expect in our interview and the workplace.

Now, notice that the question, “In what stage is the company right now?” is not always a straightforward question, and not all interviewers can answer that easily. You need to dig in a little bit deeper when asking questions and conclude yourself. One of the things we need to consider when analyzing the company’s state is whether it is public or private.

Deliberating between public and private

The difference between a public and a private company is pretty simple: its ownership. A private company is owned by one or a few individuals, while a public company is owned by shareholders who have bought stock.

It is difficult to say which type of company is “better” to work for, as this will depend on an individual’s personal preferences and career goals. Some developers may prefer the stability and potential for growth that a large public company can offer. In contrast, others may prefer a smaller private company’s flexibility and entrepreneurial spirit.

If you are confused between the “public versus private” and the “large versus small” argument, it is not a coincidence. Public companies are generally more prominent. They are more structured, while private companies are considered to be smaller.

But there’s much more than just size. The ownership difference has an impact on the company culture. For example, in public companies, the decision-making process is more complex due to the need to consider the interests of the shareholders. That’s not the case with a private company with a more agile and faster process.

But I want to clarify this point: we can still find a “start-up” atmosphere in a public company and corporate vibes in a start-up company. Therefore, it is essential to sense the working environment and consider the results.

Let’s see what factors we need to look at.

Sensing the working environment

Believe it or not, coding is not everything in life (but I agree it’s a lot)!

The product can be excellent, and the team can be super strong. But, if you want to develop not only iOS apps but also your career, you need to work in a supportive environment that can make this happen.

There are several questions we can try to discover about a company’s working environment:

What is the company’s hierarchy? Is it flat or hierarchical?How are the research and development (R&D) department and the mobile team built?What is the average working day like? Do we have daily or weekly meetings?Are there any code review sessions? Who can do code reviews?How is the work/life balance procedure?Is there an option for an iOS developer to write backend code and be a full-stack developer?Is there shared knowledge between the iOS team and the Android team?What is the involvement of the iOS team with other aspects of the company, such as the product?

The primary issue with these questions is the fact that it is hard to get reliable answers from the interviewer. I’m not saying he is a liar! But remember, one of the interviewer’s goals is to market the company and the iOS team. However, one of your goals is to get the most authentic answers, and these two goals do not always fit in.

Always take what the interviewer says with a grain of salt and reach for the truth yourself.

So, next, let’s talk about obtaining some helpful information and see how we build an unofficial profile.

Building the unofficial company profile

We learned how to perform a basic company profile using basic questions in the Learning the company characteristics section.

Now that we made sure the company’s “dry details” fit what we need and require, it’s time to dive deeper and collect some unofficial information about the company. There are three ways of doing that: research, research, and… research!

Analyzing job postings

You can learn a lot from analyzing the job description. Moreover, it doesn’t have to be the iOS developer job description, but any other roles in the company. By reading the job description, we can reveal how the company prioritizes its values even though the company probably didn’t mean to share that prioritization with us.

For example, if, on the one hand, the job description emphasizes how it’s essential to meet deadlines, it shows happy hour events and talks about loyalty. Still, on the other hand, they say nothing about flexibility, it may be a good indication of how the company feels about work-life balance. If the job description describes the atmosphere as dynamic and young but doesn't mention professional and strong, it may be a good indication of what code reviews will look like.

Remember, nothing is set in stone, but collecting puzzle pieces is vital to see the whole picture.

Looking at social network profiles

Just like job postings, looking at the company’s social networks such as LinkedIn, Facebook, Twitter, and Instagram can give us a sense of the company’s ambience. For instance, we can see how many beach days the company holds versus professional events such as meetups and lectures.

We can open the company page on LinkedIn and see interesting stuff such as diversity, leadership, and more.

Social networks can provide us with interesting inside information about companies that we won’t get in interviews or the company’s website.

Another interesting thing is what employees, customers, or partners share. Do you feel that they are pleased or unhappy? Do people stay long in this company, or does it look like a revolving door? Do some spy work! It’s perfectly legit and helpful.

Browsing the company website

The company website is another excellent place to find additional details about your dream workplace. Besides products, you can discover interesting information, such as company values, leadership, and more.

But you can find even more fascinating information, such as the company blog and events. Many companies hold professional blogs where employees can post articles related to their work.

A professional blog maintained by employees can indicate that the company puts developer branding on top of their minds. If that’s important to you, a blog can add some points to the equation.

Talking with employees

This is probably the best way to understand what it feels like working in the company you are thinking of applying to.

Today, the world is more connected and linked than ever, and it’s effortless to approach almost anyone you want.

LinkedIn’s company page is probably the simplest way to connect to iOS (or even Android) developers that currently work or worked in this company. Tell them you are considering applying and want to consult with them.

Before the talk, write questions about the information that is much more difficult to receive in other channels. This inside information is precious, so prepare seriously for that talk.

Here are some examples for questions:

What are your working hours? Do you work from home as well?What technologies or design patterns have been added to the project since you started working there?Are you doing tech design for features? If so, who’s writing them?

We should always take what people say with some doubts, so asking direct questions can be tricky. Every person we talk to is different, and each has a different history and experience with their working place. What we do need to do is to listen to what’s not being said and try to notice any subtext in the conversation.

For example, we can ask them, “What do you like about the company?” Obviously, they will list things, such as company events and perhaps the people they work with. If they won’t state something such as “high standards,” it doesn’t mean they do not exist, but if several workers don’t mention that, it could be a good indication that they’re not something the company is focusing on.

Being a good detective or investigator can sometimes pay off!

Glassdoor

Glassdoor is a website that allows employees to review their workplace anonymously. Isn’t it what we tried to achieve a minute earlier? Good for us!

Moreover, Glassdoor provides additional benefits, such as the ability to see not only workers’ reviews, but also candidates’ personal experiences from the process while describing the interview, the office, and even interview questions and coding tasks. Sites like Glassdoor are a treasure for candidates who want to perform advanced company research and can prepare us for the interview day.

Come to the office early

This is one of the lesser-known tips in company research, yet it is still very effective. When you are invited to the first on-site interview, early always looks good. It shows that we are serious and mature, and there’s no worry that it can cause negative effects.

But coming early has an additional benefit. It’s an excellent method to experience how a day looks in the office. We can sit in the office, make a coffee while waiting, and listen to what employees say.

Do they talk about work? A specific problem? Are they working in different teams (so we can tell the collaboration level)?

If it’s morning, how many workers do we see in the office? This can be an indication of working hours or work-life balance.

Remember, we won’t always hear the complete truth during the interview process regarding different information about the workplace, so seeing things through your own eyes is immeasurably valuable.

To summarize, knowing where we go can make us more ready for the interview process, and it helps us understand if the company we are interviewing for fits our requirements.

As I said earlier, interviews go both ways. We examine the workplace just as much as it examines us. And since it is going to be our next “home,” we should invest effort in it as much as we can.

Now that we have done our company research, we need to move forward and apply to those companies. The most popular way to do that is by building our resume.

Building our resume

We now see that performing company research is not a difficult task at all. But there’s another side of the equation, and that’s us: how do we get an interview with the company we desire?

Being noticeable among dozens or hundreds of other candidates is not easy. Making our resume shine when there are many other great candidates sounds like an impossible mission. It’s not a coincidence that some recruiters claim that writing a good CV is not science but an art. Sure, there are guidelines on how to do that, but to stand out, we need an artistic touch.

And speaking about art, let’s see how looking at our profile as a movie or a book can benefit us.

A resume is like a book or a movie

OK... what?

Imagine you enter a bookstore. You want to pick one or two books, but there are thousands of books in the store. What do you do? You choose a book with an interesting title, turn it over, and go over the back cover text. After a few seconds, you have already decided about the book even though you haven’t opened it or finished reading the back cover. The reason for that is apparent. You don’t have time to review so many books, and you decide to invest your time in those with a catchy title and an interesting back cover opening.

The experience I just described is precisely what happens in workplaces that receive many job applications. In big companies, an average resume scanning by a recruiter takes between six to 10 seconds. This is a short time to impress someone, isn’t it? Well, that’s why I said it’s like an art more than science.

Now, if we pass that stage, the recruiter decides to read the rest of the resume. Assuming our profile fits the company, we need to impress the hiring manager, which is not an easy hurdle at all.

Oh, didn’t I tell you? That’s the difference from a book. We need several people to read our resume and like it!

Let’s see how we nail that challenge together.

Structuring the resume outline

A basic resume outline is based on content importance. We start with our name as the title, contact information, a summary of ourselves, expertise, and then skills, education, and our projects and achievements.

There are indeed different resume outline variants out in the field. For instance, some say adding personal insights, such as hobbies or volunteering activities is also a good idea. Some even add a photo portrait.

But in my perceptive, I think less is more, regarding resumes. We should keep it simple, clear, and straight to the point.

Working on design and layout

Well, what about the design and the layout?

There are tons of resume design templates we can download easily from the web. Even though some of them look beautiful, we should remember that the document’s purpose is sending a clear message about who we are and why we are the best option to invite for an interview.

Since we have only six to ten seconds to catch the recruiter’s attention, we should plan our CV (Curriculum Vitae -> “course of life”) according to that assumption. One of the most famous methods of that is to use something called the F-Pattern.

What is the F-Pattern?

Scanning a document quickly sounds straightforward at first. We probably imagine the recruiter starting to read your document and just stopping after a while. The basic assumption, that the recruiter is reading our document rather than scanning it, is just wrong.

The Nielsen Norman Group (NNGroup) had exciting research in 2006. Their researchers gave thousands of documents to more than 200 students and asked them to review them while analyzing the eye-tracking movement quickly.

The findings concluded that users have a constant pattern of “scanning” the documents – they move their eyes in a pattern that looks like the letter F:

First, they read the first two rows, from left to right.Then, they move down a little bit, skip some lines, maybe, and read another row, but this time they won’t go all the way to the end.Finally, they scan the document from top to bottom and on the left side.

Right-to-left languages

For right-to-left languages such as Arabic or Hebrew, the F-Pattern is flipped.

Have a look at the following image from NNGroup’s website (https://www.nngroup.com/articles/f-shaped-pattern-reading-web-content-discovered/):

Figure 1.2 – NNGroup Document Scanning Experiment results

So, why do users do that?

Well, readers have a goal. They want their scanning to be as effective as possible. They aim to grab maximum information from the document with minimal effort and time.

We now understand where the recruiter’s eyes go when scanning your resume, but how can we ensure the reader doesn’t miss our primary objectives?

Okay, now we are battling for the user’s attention, but it doesn’t mean we are losing. Here are some tips on how to handle the situation:

Because of the F-Pattern research, we know that the user invests heavily in our document’s top part. We should put our most meaningful message to the user in this place. In other words, this is where our “money should be spent.”The same goes for each section of our document. We always need to start with the message. When we describe a project that we were involved with, we should start with our contribution to the project rather than describing the project’s history.We need to make it easier for the reader to understand what’s important and what’s not by using typography. For example, marking primary words in bold can help us emphasize the document’s essential takes (as I did here).Add space between sections and use big, clear headings. That can help the reader understand the document outline and avoid getting lost in the scanning task.Use short bullets instead of long, tedious paragraphs. Short bullets take a load of information and display it in a structured list, helping the user to scan and understand what we wanted to say quickly.

Using typography is a great way to help the user understand how to read our resume while taking advantage of the F-Pattern and overcoming its flaws.

Let’s break our resume into different pieces. We’ll start with your personal information.

What is the personal information part?

Remember, we already said our resume content should be ordered by priority. So, what’s more important than us?

Returning to the bookstore analogy, the reader first scans the book title. In the CV world, our name is the book’s title, and the profession is its subtitle. We can also add certificates and awards to the pile to make the subtitle a bit catchier.

The most important thing about putting our personal information on top is double-checking that all the provided information is accurate. We don’t want to be in a position where it is difficult for the reviewer to reach us just because we haven’t paid enough attention.

One tricky piece of information is our address.

Personal address

A few words about the personal address, because it’s a little bit of a sensitive subject.

Traditionally, resume documents used to contain a personal address. A personal address was a primary part of reaching a candidate and a massive consideration of whether their location suited a company. Even though things have changed, and we live in a different era, many recruiters still expect resumes to include an address.

However, there are a couple of reasons why we don’t want to put our full address in the resume document:

It’s sensitive information. For privacy and security reasons, it is perfectly understood why some candidates prefer not to have their address details flowing around.Some places can find long-distance locations a problem and may reject us. There are countries where discriminating by location is illegal, and still, we don’t want to put ourselves in a problematic situation.

If we still decide to put an address in our resume, here are some tips:

We don’t have to put our full address. A city or a region is good enough for most reviewers.If we know that our location can become an issue for many companies, we can state our willingness to relocate (if that’s accurate, of course).Emphasize throughout our resume our ability and experience in working remotely (again, be accurate on this). Working remotely for iOS developers is perfectly legit today, especially since COVID-19.

Now, let’s continue to our main dish and formulate our personal summary section.

Formulating the personal summary section

The summary section is probably the most crucial part of our resume and plays a significant role in the reviewer’s decision to move forward with our application.

Now, even though we call it a “summary," it doesn’t summarize our resume, and we’ll understand why in a minute.

The first thing we need to do when approaching to write our summary section is to flip sides and think like an employer. What kind of iOS developer are we looking for? What can help our team or our company? What kind of a person can fit into our squad?

Now that we have changed our point of view, we have a good starting point. Now, let’s roll up our sleeves and build our summary according to the following tips.

Working according to a structure

Let me start by reminding you of the 6 to 10 seconds it takes for a reviewer to scan our CV and decide.

6 to 10 seconds. This is all we have.

So, we need to write our summary section according to that assumption. Short, simple, and to the point, while keeping it to 3 to 5 sentences and no more than 50 words.

But what exactly do we need to write?

Let’s start with how it is built. The basic structure is built upon three things: who we are, what we offer, and our goals.

Since we are all iOS developers, let me try to describe it as a formatted string: