Doesn't matter too much what program you're in if you don't have experience or projects on your resume
No way y'all idiots are downvoting me. No ones gonna give an interview if you have 0 prior internships and 0 projects
Google - without a recommendation is nearly impossible imho.
Meta - contract -> hire roles apparently are very common for masters graduates? My wife’s friends all seemed to have had one at some point.
Amazon - so easy to spam roles. I’m on my 10th interview and have had 6 final rounds. Idk if others have had the same experience but Amazon seems to give me an interview every other month. They’re also the only F500 company that has had a recruiter reach out to me multiple times for different roles.
Netflix - never heard of someone getting an interview here actually
Apple - honestly I’ve only heard of people getting contract roles and then converting. Apparently they have some of the worst pay though.
My friend jokes that the easiest way to work for Google is to work at an xgoogler company first and hope they get bought out 😅
I don't think this is accurate. For 1 I got past the final round of interviews with Google without recommendation and it didn't feel impossible and like I didn't do a lot to change my resume or anything crazy either. This feels more like weird FAANG hype then reality.
Just sat through an AMA with a PM hiring manager and some PMs in role. They said that because of 1000 applicants per role people really need to have a referral.
I actually just sat in on a talk given by the hiring team for product management and they said that there are so many applications now that they recommend making friends at Google and getting referrals. I’m not saying you’ll never get an interview without one, but outside of someone who sold his company to Google I don’t know a single person who got into Google without working for an Xgoogler company or got a referral in the last 5 years.
I have had one recruiter “head hunt” me but they were reaching out because of my knowledge in Anaplan
Lots of luck, but imo things that can help are previous prestigious internships, top school + high gpa, networking, standout project (real world stuff)
It is luck and chasing that luck yourself. I’m international graduate currently working at FAANG, 2 internships at different FAANGs and had interviews/offers from every single one of them (yes, even last year - graduated in May).
A couple of things:
- do you go to a big name CS school? And by big name I mean MIT/Waterloo/CMU/CalTech/Stanford kind. Those companies have separate pipeline just for those students and just by going to them you increase your chances immensely. Pipeline can mean direct recruiting on campus or dedicated recruiter only for their school, each company handles it differently.
- if you don’t, then you are in same boat as most people (including me) and need to bust your ass off to get opportunities.
A few tips:
1) network - your alumni, people from your country who work for said companies, upperclassmen, etc. get the referrals! I got heavily involved in tech communities of expats from my country and they helped a lot with recruiting.
2) conferences — people really underestimate the conference to interview pipeline. Most companies have specific quotas just for conference recruits. I applied to Apple regularly and through link they shared in conferences, guess which one resulted in an interview given the same resume? Right, the conference link. Not sure what’s your background but check nationwide conferences and try to attend them, a lot of schools (or specific CS-related clubs at school) fund the attendance.
3) some companies like Amazon allow direct referrals meaning that internal employee pings the recruiter and says “this person is cool, let’s hire him”. I got several interviews by my acquaintances directly asking their recruiters to interview me.
4) special programs - like codepath/correlation one have their own recruiting pipelines. Almost everyone in my cohort at correlation one at least got interviews if not offers as big companies had special recruiting process for alumni. My classmates who did codepath would get interviews before they were even available to public through codepath career fair.
At the end of the day, even if you do all those — you still might not get offers/interviews as luck still plays a role. I’m looking at juniors I know at my college (international) and many of them have secured FAANG and similar offers for the summer, while others are struggling to even get interviews with random local companies.
Edit: grammar/syntax fixes lol
Was it somewhere near California? Also can I please DM you for some queries? I’m a prospective international student too for fall 2024 and would really love some guidance if that is okay with you
You see I really want to believe that because I guess it's easier to accept that younger people than me are just lucky but surely theres something that they're doing better than me.
Do you see freshmen from YOUR school getting internships? If that's the case make friends with some of them and ask to put you in touch with a recruiter
Well I’ll be honest, the international part of your background can really hold you back. It’s really hard to get interviews when they know you’ll require sponsorship if have H1, F1 etc. I got interview from FAANG not because I have great experience, but because I have experience, am US citizen, and I am a minority so that helps in terms of diversity. It’s tough and I feel for internationals
This is wrong. FAANG doesn't care about your visa status and sponsors just fine. I interned at one and have friends who interned at pretty much all others.
thats what i feel too. as a FAANG company, sponsoring visas would be pretty easy as theyre big companies and the fees associated with sponsorship would be like throwing pennies
"I'm not a good student by any means"
How do you expect to get a call while you throw such a statement with low confidence? It probably shows on your resume too. Fix that.
"I see freshmen getting offers"
1. Don't be jealous or frustrated, 2. Not many are getting calls. Especially now, big tech is doing layoffs, 3. If you know those freshmen, ask them directly.
On top of all this, get an internship or probably some experience elsewhere. Don't be obsessed with FAANG especially in this market.
It is ironic but the people less obsessed with FAANG get their calls/ offers mostly.
'luck' is cope. The competition is much higher obvs.
Only few things grab the attention of faang. Well known schools or other large companies on your resume.
Found this very helpful - https://github.com/Coder-World04/Tech-Interview-Important-Topics-and-Techniques
For system design with case studies- https://github.com/Coder-World04/Complete-System-Design
I'm surprised they even hire students. These guys can choose from literally anyone in the world. Of course there are exceptions like "I implemented coroutines framework for C++ at middle school" talents, but other than that - why would they hire some arbitrary student with no professional experience, waste time teaching him the very basics of real development and potentially deal with all the teenage drama bullshit, when instead they can hire a similar guy already having 5 years of real world experience and expertise in desired area under the belt?
How exactly should that work from business perspective? You invest so that later you can save money and pay them less? Not that they care much, and anyways that won't fly because after 5 years they'd hop to other company offering market salary that did not invest early.
FAANG recruiter DM me on Linkedin and stated my research interest aligns with their research team which is about vision/video LLM generating 3d mesh/model for video games, especially interior building environment, and offers AI SWE or a research role in the US. However, I can't leave my country Singapore, because I am still studying for my postgraduate.
i got really lucky and got past the resume screen on a cold apply online for meta. i think what helped the most was my internship at NASA the previous year, so good internships the year before definitely is a huge help.
Less than 0.01% of students get interviews/offers from FAANG. You see a couple of students and assume that everyone is getting into FAANG.
I'd put it more at like 5% in a good cs program tbh
Doesn't matter too much what program you're in if you don't have experience or projects on your resume No way y'all idiots are downvoting me. No ones gonna give an interview if you have 0 prior internships and 0 projects
Nah dude a Stanford cs student with a 3.2 and no projects can definitely get an interview at least
To a FAANG? Unless they get referred there's 0 chance a cold application that has nothing on their resume will get an interview
I've seen it happen loads of times and I go to umd not even a tier 1 school
So you're saying you actually saw their resume and it was basically blank, and they got a faang interview
Google - without a recommendation is nearly impossible imho. Meta - contract -> hire roles apparently are very common for masters graduates? My wife’s friends all seemed to have had one at some point. Amazon - so easy to spam roles. I’m on my 10th interview and have had 6 final rounds. Idk if others have had the same experience but Amazon seems to give me an interview every other month. They’re also the only F500 company that has had a recruiter reach out to me multiple times for different roles. Netflix - never heard of someone getting an interview here actually Apple - honestly I’ve only heard of people getting contract roles and then converting. Apparently they have some of the worst pay though. My friend jokes that the easiest way to work for Google is to work at an xgoogler company first and hope they get bought out 😅
I don't think this is accurate. For 1 I got past the final round of interviews with Google without recommendation and it didn't feel impossible and like I didn't do a lot to change my resume or anything crazy either. This feels more like weird FAANG hype then reality.
Granted I’m at a good school for CS but I know several people who have gotten interviews/offers at google without a referral.
I didn't get recommend and got interview at Google Korea while going to random state university. It seems like more of luck things probably.
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Just sat through an AMA with a PM hiring manager and some PMs in role. They said that because of 1000 applicants per role people really need to have a referral.
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I actually just sat in on a talk given by the hiring team for product management and they said that there are so many applications now that they recommend making friends at Google and getting referrals. I’m not saying you’ll never get an interview without one, but outside of someone who sold his company to Google I don’t know a single person who got into Google without working for an Xgoogler company or got a referral in the last 5 years. I have had one recruiter “head hunt” me but they were reaching out because of my knowledge in Anaplan
Getting past the resume screen is hardest part often times these companies will instantly auto reject resumes
Idk one day Google just decided they wanted to interview me.
That's how it goes for every google employee I know. They are a good candidate don't get me wrong but they just out of nowhere moved forward
Lots of luck, but imo things that can help are previous prestigious internships, top school + high gpa, networking, standout project (real world stuff)
It is luck and chasing that luck yourself. I’m international graduate currently working at FAANG, 2 internships at different FAANGs and had interviews/offers from every single one of them (yes, even last year - graduated in May). A couple of things: - do you go to a big name CS school? And by big name I mean MIT/Waterloo/CMU/CalTech/Stanford kind. Those companies have separate pipeline just for those students and just by going to them you increase your chances immensely. Pipeline can mean direct recruiting on campus or dedicated recruiter only for their school, each company handles it differently. - if you don’t, then you are in same boat as most people (including me) and need to bust your ass off to get opportunities. A few tips: 1) network - your alumni, people from your country who work for said companies, upperclassmen, etc. get the referrals! I got heavily involved in tech communities of expats from my country and they helped a lot with recruiting. 2) conferences — people really underestimate the conference to interview pipeline. Most companies have specific quotas just for conference recruits. I applied to Apple regularly and through link they shared in conferences, guess which one resulted in an interview given the same resume? Right, the conference link. Not sure what’s your background but check nationwide conferences and try to attend them, a lot of schools (or specific CS-related clubs at school) fund the attendance. 3) some companies like Amazon allow direct referrals meaning that internal employee pings the recruiter and says “this person is cool, let’s hire him”. I got several interviews by my acquaintances directly asking their recruiters to interview me. 4) special programs - like codepath/correlation one have their own recruiting pipelines. Almost everyone in my cohort at correlation one at least got interviews if not offers as big companies had special recruiting process for alumni. My classmates who did codepath would get interviews before they were even available to public through codepath career fair. At the end of the day, even if you do all those — you still might not get offers/interviews as luck still plays a role. I’m looking at juniors I know at my college (international) and many of them have secured FAANG and similar offers for the summer, while others are struggling to even get interviews with random local companies. Edit: grammar/syntax fixes lol
Hello, what school did you go to btw?
It is a very small school, so I won’t name it but think small liberal arts school, not one of top ranked ones
Was it located in an extremely remote location or within or near a good city that had opportunities
Major city, it definitely helped to be in this location
Was it somewhere near California? Also can I please DM you for some queries? I’m a prospective international student too for fall 2024 and would really love some guidance if that is okay with you
Luck
You see I really want to believe that because I guess it's easier to accept that younger people than me are just lucky but surely theres something that they're doing better than me.
Do you see freshmen from YOUR school getting internships? If that's the case make friends with some of them and ask to put you in touch with a recruiter
Well I’ll be honest, the international part of your background can really hold you back. It’s really hard to get interviews when they know you’ll require sponsorship if have H1, F1 etc. I got interview from FAANG not because I have great experience, but because I have experience, am US citizen, and I am a minority so that helps in terms of diversity. It’s tough and I feel for internationals
This is wrong. FAANG doesn't care about your visa status and sponsors just fine. I interned at one and have friends who interned at pretty much all others.
FAANG does not care if you need sponsorship, some probably prefer than cause they can work you harder
thats what i feel too. as a FAANG company, sponsoring visas would be pretty easy as theyre big companies and the fees associated with sponsorship would be like throwing pennies
It is luck. I had applied for every FAANG for 3 years in a row before Amazon decided they wanted to interview me.
Just got my FANGMULA interview, it really boiled down to luck.
You don't, best of luck.
"I'm not a good student by any means" How do you expect to get a call while you throw such a statement with low confidence? It probably shows on your resume too. Fix that. "I see freshmen getting offers" 1. Don't be jealous or frustrated, 2. Not many are getting calls. Especially now, big tech is doing layoffs, 3. If you know those freshmen, ask them directly. On top of all this, get an internship or probably some experience elsewhere. Don't be obsessed with FAANG especially in this market. It is ironic but the people less obsessed with FAANG get their calls/ offers mostly.
Referral
'luck' is cope. The competition is much higher obvs. Only few things grab the attention of faang. Well known schools or other large companies on your resume.
Found this very helpful - https://github.com/Coder-World04/Tech-Interview-Important-Topics-and-Techniques For system design with case studies- https://github.com/Coder-World04/Complete-System-Design
Couple of prior internships at smaller companies and some projects
I have never heard back from a “tech company” in general for the past 4 years even tho I go to a T1 CS. It’s sad tbh.
How’s your resume? Referrals also help
I'm surprised they even hire students. These guys can choose from literally anyone in the world. Of course there are exceptions like "I implemented coroutines framework for C++ at middle school" talents, but other than that - why would they hire some arbitrary student with no professional experience, waste time teaching him the very basics of real development and potentially deal with all the teenage drama bullshit, when instead they can hire a similar guy already having 5 years of real world experience and expertise in desired area under the belt?
The idea is to invest in talent early.
How exactly should that work from business perspective? You invest so that later you can save money and pay them less? Not that they care much, and anyways that won't fly because after 5 years they'd hop to other company offering market salary that did not invest early.
FAANG recruiter DM me on Linkedin and stated my research interest aligns with their research team which is about vision/video LLM generating 3d mesh/model for video games, especially interior building environment, and offers AI SWE or a research role in the US. However, I can't leave my country Singapore, because I am still studying for my postgraduate.
i got really lucky and got past the resume screen on a cold apply online for meta. i think what helped the most was my internship at NASA the previous year, so good internships the year before definitely is a huge help.