I’m from a tier-3 college and have less than 60% in 12th. I’ve been trying hard to get into full-stack development by learning MERN stack, building projects, preparing DSA basics, and applying off-campus.

Recently I started getting interviews, but many startup interviews feel very unpredictable. Sometimes they ask technical questions, sometimes product-thinking or communication-heavy questions that I wasn’t expecting.

Honestly, it’s becoming mentally exhausting and I’m starting to doubt myself a lot. I wanted to ask people who were in similar situations:

• How long did it take you to get your first job?
• How did you improve interview conversion?
• Did low academics affect you a lot off-campus?
• What helped you most in finally getting selected?

Would really appreciate honest advice from people who went through this phase.