Not only do interviews open doors to new opportunities, they also help you sharpen your skills with new learnings. Interviews keep your career moving forward and I will share some learnings from experience.

Learn about what you know

When you answer questions during the interview, be aware to what level you understand the topics being discussed. Speaking out loud about what you know helps you articulate those past career learnings and experiences. With each interview, the more you can improve your confidence in talking about what you know.

Learn about what you do not know yet

You may not have an answer to some questions during the interview and that is totally fine - this will be an opportunity to learn something new! Ask the interviewer for the answers to those questions. Now whether or not you decide to continue with the interview rounds, you have now learnt something new that you can take to your existing job or you take to your next interview. With each interview, you are building up your knowledge base.

Learn to negotiate

When you get to the offer stage of the interviews, you have the opportunity to practice negotiation, a very handy skill to have at any level in your career. With each interview, sharpen your negotiation skills and pick up experience in handling those situations.

A great book on this topic is The Coding Career Handbook - a chapter is dedicated to salary negotiation where you’ll learn that you have an upper hand simply because the best alternative is staying at the job you already have.

Each experience will be unique

Each person will have their own learning experience. With each interview, practice a useful skill for your career, such as building your confidence, expanding your knowledge and salary negotiating.