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I landed a software engineering job in Ireland with visa sponsorship. After applying to more than 100 companies over approximately six months, I wanted to record my experience in the hope that it might be useful to someone.
In this article, I would like to share some of the interviews that went well and led to job offers.
Large IT Company A: I Received an Offer after Just Two Interviews
This company is a large, long-established IT company. They approached me via LinkedIn, so I applied. It was a full-stack position, but as most of my experience was in front-end development, I did not have particularly high expectations.
Most companies explain their interview process at the beginning, but this company did not. I was initially told that the first interview would involve explaining my technical experience and what I had done in the past. Since it was such a large company, I assumed I would not stand a chance in a technical interview and went into it feeling rather pessimistic.
There were two interviewers in the first interview, and almost all the questions were technical. They asked things such as, “Have you used JIRA before?”, “What is the difference between a Story and an Epic?”, and “What do you put in the Acceptance Criteria?” In other words, they asked about tools used in day-to-day work.
After that, they asked me some JavaScript questions, such as the difference between == and ===, and how I would write something in React.
The questions were fairly basic, so I finished without making any major mistakes. However, I did not receive any response for around three weeks. When I followed up, they told me that the interview had gone very well.
They did, however, ask me to wait a little before moving on to the next interview. The reason was that I had not yet completed my registration to stay legally in Ireland as a foreign national—the registration for my IRP card. I had tried to make an appointment with immigration shortly after entering the country, but I was told that I would have to wait three months. Incidentally, you cannot work at all until this registration has been completed.
With a Working Holiday visa, the letter sent by the embassy can be used instead of an IRP card. However, I could not get them to understand this. I thought that perhaps the company was particularly strict about these matters because it was such a large organisation. If you are job-hunting and have not yet completed this registration, it might be better to keep it to yourself until later in the interview process. I had accidentally mentioned it while explaining my visa situation.
I thought, “The role will be filled by the time three months have passed…” The HR representative told me to contact them again once I had obtained my IRP card, so I trusted them and got back in touch after completing my registration three months later. To be honest, I was not expecting much.
However, I was invited to a second interview. This time, there was one interviewer. From what I heard, the role from three months earlier had already been filled, but a new position had become available, so I was interviewing for that one instead.
The interview consisted of a large number of technical questions, much like the first one. There were also quite a few questions that had already been asked in the first interview, probably because the interviewers had not coordinated properly.
To be honest, I did not think I had performed particularly well. The questions were mostly basic, but my fundamental knowledge of React was lacking. I mean, I can write the code when asked to do so, but explaining it is difficult. I learned that I needed to prepare for that aspect as well.
After the second interview, I thought I had probably failed. However, the questions I had been asked were all very useful. I put them together in an Excel spreadsheet and reviewed them so that I would be able to answer them if I was asked again.
Then, a few days later, I received an offer letter from the company. I was surprised!
However, as I continued reading the contract, I found one sentence stating that the company would not sponsor my visa. In other words, I understood that I would have to sponsor myself. Self-sponsorship was not impossible. After all, the cost was only €1,000.
There was just one thing that worried me. I had heard that switching from a Working Holiday visa to a CSEP required you to leave the country. Would the company support me during that period? If the company sponsored me, I assumed they would take care of this as part of the process. But if I sponsored myself, could that become a problem?
I asked HR about this. They replied, “Oh, really? I didn’t know that, but surely that can’t be the case. I’ll check!” A few days later, they got back to me. Apparently, the rumour was true, and if that was the situation, the company could not support me during that period because of tax-related issues. They apologised.
My goal was to continue working for a long time after my Working Holiday visa ended. Since I would not be able to achieve that, I decided that it probably was not going to work and declined the offer.
Thoughts
I had assumed that this fairly large company would sponsor my visa, but it turned out that they did not. It was difficult to get in touch with HR, and even when I asked whether they provided visa sponsorship, I did not receive a response. As a result, the interviews continued without me knowing whether visa sponsorship was available.
I suspect that the company probably provides sponsorship for some roles but not for others.
The interview process consisted of only two interviews, and there was no coding interview. This was the only company I interviewed with that did not include one. Overall, I got the impression that they needed someone quickly and wanted to fill the position as soon as possible.
Company B: I Accepted the Offer
Company B is what you would call a large company. I applied for a mid-level front-end position, and visa sponsorship was available.
Later, HR contacted me by phone. As we discussed the role, they asked me to apply for a senior position rather than a mid-level one. I felt unable to refuse, so I continued with the senior-level process. Based on my previous interview experiences, I thought the senior level might be too difficult, so I would have preferred to decline.
The company explained the process as follows:
- Technical interview: 1.5 hours.
- Behavioural interview.
- Final interview.
The first interview mainly involved an explanation of what the company did. The interviewer was very friendly, which gave me a good impression, and I was invited to proceed to the next stage. I was told that the next interview would be technical, but they did not tell me whether it would focus on JavaScript or React. I was, however, advised to explain my thinking out loud as much as possible.
The second interview was a 1.5-hour technical interview. This interviewer was also extremely kind and had looked at my GitHub in advance. Incidentally, although I interviewed with many companies, this was the only interviewer who had looked at my GitHub and mentioned it directly. That made an even better impression on me.
The interview involved pair-programming a mini-game in React. Surprisingly, we started with setting up the development environment. The game was nowhere near complete, and I did not think my performance was particularly good. However, as it was a pair-programming interview, I asked the interviewer for their opinion frequently and progressed together with them.
After the interview, I thought I had probably failed and tried to move on. However, two weeks later, I received confirmation that I had passed.
The third and fourth interviews were with people at management level. They mainly asked about what I had done in the past and similar topics. Both interviewers were very kind as well. Everyone was genuinely friendly, and my impression of the company improved dramatically.
Many interviewers at other companies had been rather cold or did not smile much, so this company felt different.
I received an offer two or three days later. My biggest concern was the visa, so I asked HR to formally investigate whether they would sponsor me. Once I received a definite answer that they would provide visa sponsorship, I accepted the offer. Incidentally, the position was not actually senior-level; it was a mid-level role.
Thoughts
I did not perform particularly well in the technical interview, but I focused on communication and somehow managed to pass. Perhaps I was just lucky.
The deciding factor for me was the people. Everyone was kind, and I was particularly impressed by the interviewer who had looked at my GitHub projects.
Company C: Three Interviewers and Me Towards the End of My Job Search
This was a company I interviewed with towards the end of my job search. I had become more accustomed to interviews by then, and I felt that I had handled almost every interview perfectly. It was a B2B company based in Europe, and visa sponsorship was available.
The company explained the process as follows:
- Take-home technical test.
- Final interview.
- Technical interview: 1 hour.
- Behavioural interview: 1 hour.
The take-home technical test involved solving algorithm and React problems. The difficulty was roughly Easy to Medium.
I then received confirmation that I had passed and was told that the next stage would be the final interview. However, by that point, I had already received an offer from Company B and was in the process of confirming the visa sponsorship. Perhaps because I felt more secure, I was able to approach Company C’s final interview in a relaxed state of mind.
Company C had three interviewers interviewing me—the most I had ever faced at once. The technical interview involved extracting, processing and returning data. I worked through it while explaining my thought process out loud. I thought I had done quite well. It felt like the culmination of six months of job-hunting.
In the behavioural interview, all three interviewers asked me questions. To be honest, it was tiring. However, the questions were all within the range I had expected, so the interview proceeded smoothly.
Around three days later, I was contacted about an offer. However, by that point I had received formal confirmation from Company B that visa sponsorship was available, so I declined Company C’s offer.
Thoughts
This interview went really smoothly. I think I was able to approach it calmly because I already had an offer from Company B, and I had also become more accustomed to interviews by then.
The interviewers at Company C were all kind, and I had a good impression of the company. I declined the offer because of the timing, but if Company B had not been an option, I think I would have accepted Company C’s offer.
Company D: I Withdrew Partway Through
Company D is a major company in the games industry. I was not particularly interested in games and did not have any strong desire to work there, but I applied for a senior-level position because I thought it would be useful interview experience. Visa sponsorship was available.
The process was as follows:
- Behavioural interview.
- Take-home technical test.
- Technical interview.
- Final interview: technical and behavioural.
This was also towards the end of my job search, when I had become more familiar with interviews. I passed each stage one after another.
Although it was a large company, I remember the second-stage take-home technical test being fairly easy. It involved solving a problem using JavaScript’s map method. We were given a five-hour time limit, but I finished it in around 45 minutes.
The third-stage technical interview involved discussing the test I had completed in the second stage. There were also a few simple technical questions, and I had to explain some of my previous projects. I could not answer some fairly easy questions, so I thought I might have failed, but I later received confirmation that I had passed.
However, by that point I had already accepted Company B’s offer. I also felt that I was not at senior level and probably would not be able to pass the remaining stages, so I contacted the company to withdraw from the interview process. I also simply wanted to finish my job search as soon as possible.
Thoughts
There is a chance I might have failed at the final interview, so I am not sure whether I should introduce this as an interview that went well. But, for now, I will include it.
Conclusion
I have introduced the interviews that led to job offers or otherwise went well. You can surprisingly move on to the next stage even if you do not score 100 per cent in every interview.
Before I started interviewing, I was worried that I would have to score 100 per cent in technical interviews to pass. However, that was not necessarily the case. So, if you are feeling anxious, I hope this reassures you. Of course, I imagine that the criteria differ from company to company.
You also become more accustomed to interviews after taking part in them repeatedly, so I hope you will keep trying, learn from your failures and continue challenging yourself. You should be able to land a job eventually.
I hope this experience proves useful to someone.
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