How to Get into FAANG / Big Tech
A comprehensive guide on how to get over the first hurdle of actually "getting the interview" and all the related steps on how I got offers at: Google, Meta, Palantir, Bloomberg, Intuit + more.
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Overview
While there are multiple parts to the technical interview, which I go deeper in my free notion guide, one of the things that I consistently get asked is “how to get the interview”.
Before I begin, I will assume that the “resume” is already to an okay enough quality. For FAANGs, or other top companies, you don’t need excellent projects or anything, but you just need to get it to a good enough state to pass.
Articles covering if you still are at the resume / project stage:
This article will cover more of the “logistics”.
This is also an article mainly geared towards student hiring meaning intern and new grads.
Terminology
If you are unfamiliar with Leetcode / the structure of the interview process / terminologies, feel free to read this article first.
Why Leveraging being a Student is so Important
One common misconception I see among students is that they believe they need to wait until after graduation to apply to top tech companies like FAANG. This is a huge mistake!
There's a false belief that good grades equal a good college, which in turn leads to a good job. But this is simply not true. A college degree is just the minimum requirement for most jobs.
As a student, you should take the time to prepare for interviews and apply to these companies. Your response rate will be much higher than if you apply as a non-student without a referral. For every 10 top companies I apply to, I typically hear back from ~4, and the people I mentor have similar response rates. But if you apply to top tech companies without being at a top tech company or without a referral in industry, response rates can drop as low as 2-5%, according to anecdotal evidence.
Being a student puts you in a hiring funnel with fewer competitors and allows you to face other inexperienced students. But if you apply from industry without standing out in some way, you'll be competing against every other professional engineer. Recruiters will have less concentrated resources to find the best candidates.
So there's a huge opportunity cost to not applying to FAANG as a student. This isn't the only path to success, and it's possible to work your way into FAANG after graduation in 1-3 years. But if you're looking to save time and optimize your chances, applying as a student is a smart move. Everyone will make their own decision based on their own circumstances.
Git Gud.
The first thing you need to realize is that the game is all about converting what ever opportunities you do have into offers. So be great at interviewing. This is the most obvious advice, but the amount of people for example not even using a structured approach like my coding template already puts yourself at a disadvantage. Or even just not properly studying, and instead trying to grind through Blind75.
As I often try to tell people, studying 200 questions of Leetcode is like trying to learn calculus by doing 200 problems. Yes - it’s possible, but isn’t it more efficient to actually learn the patterns / techniques, and then do the corresponding practice problems?
Not saying it isn’t impossible to get an offer not following my approaches, I’m just saying blindly moving forward makes it harder to convert unless you are moving purposefully and understand what you are working towards.
I’ve seen so many people through the years, get an interview opportunity, from Microsoft, Apple, Meta, Google, but just unable to convert. This is ultimately the problem: you still need to have the skills to back it up. Let’s say it takes you 2 years to get 1-2 opportunities, do you have the confidence to make it happen?
What companies to Apply to?
A lot of people “avoid” FAANG, which by the way if this is you read my notion article. They think it is too “competitive” and that they should target smaller companies. But if you’ve been in the interview game for a year or two, you’ll find that targeting smaller companies can be extremely difficult.
The reality is that small companies can get flooded with hundreds, and if not even over a thousand applicants, trying to fill up maybe 1-3 spots.
Versus a larger company, FAANG, big tech, so-on, has way more logistical power to process resumes, interview candidates, and actually have a system in place. In addition, smaller companies tend to interview 1-3 months to summer, versus larger companies have a runway from September to March usually.
My general rule is that companies at least around Intuit, Adobe, Datadog, all the way to big tech companies are all great things to target. I don’t personally stress out about smaller companies. But that’s just me, I just find it isn’t worth my time.
Most companies will reject you - so be it - instead, target companies that have a relatively more consistent process and when you get an opportunity, be so prepared that you have a high chance to convert is all we can do.
Apply and Wait
Saying the above, I’d say majority of my success and mentees’ (20+ people) came from just applying to big tech companies and waiting. In some situations such as mass layoffs, global pandemic, there is obviously just a limitation of no matter what you do you just won’t hear back. But in normal times, you generally from these larger companies, I’d say 2/5 of them tend to respond back from my experience.
So while the rest my article talks more in depth about additional things you can do, some of it honestly is just applying, waiting, and seeing what pans out.
When to Apply
I talk about it more in depth, in my notion document, but the application cycle for students (interns / new grads) tends to start September 1st. I personally recommend the following timeline:
June to September 1st: Study
September 1st to October 15th (~30th): Apply to companies
October 15th to November: Will be OAs / Phone Interviews
November to December: Final RoundsNow not saying that this is perfect timeline by any means. I know plenty of people who end up doing interviews in January through March, and I also know people who apply late in November / December. I’m just telling you what I believe is optimal based on when the applications are released and when the rounds of interviews usually begin.
P.S the cycle I am assuming is applying for a SUMMER internship.
Modify if Necessary
Let’s say that you didn’t study in June / September, that is fine. Let’s say for example, you start studying on September 1st.
Well optimal time to apply is September 1st to October 15th. It takes anywhere between 2 weeks to 1 month to hear back for an OA; plus some wiggle room in deadlines so on. So you can apply maybe around September 20th to 30th, giving yourself 20 days + another 14 days to 30 days to hear back for an OA.
Then from there, if you end up passing and getting the phone interview or you just get a phone interview round first, you can always request a 4 weeks to 6 weeks push-back. 6 weeks is definitely pushing it, I find 4 you can usually get away with. But as uncomfortable as it may be, it is always better to have more time than less time.
Let’s say that it’s November / December, and you haven’t started studying, then apply immediately. Grind your butt off to get the OA and pass it, and push back the interview by 4-6 weeks if you end up getting it. Again, while not optimal timeline, it’s fine!
The season continues to interview usually even through January / February - once it hits March tends to trickle off. And then past that maybe some stranglers / smaller companies begin to start their hiring. Since larger companies tend to do it earlier due to sheer volume, and smaller companies don’t have the larger logistic to plan so far out, so they tend to hire closer to summer.
Why Not Apply Early?
There are instances of companies releasing the application in June / July / August, the reason why I recommend to not apply early is b/c often you can get rejected or dropped simply cause nothing is processing.
For example, twice I had applied to Meta in July with a referral, and both times my recruiters told me to reach back out in September with me not hearing back even as I try to email them back.
I’ve also had 2 mentees similarly apply in July, to never hear back, while mentees in September do hear back. And when the mentees reapply, they end up hearing back.
So thus, there can be situations where it is “too early”.
The other thing is let’s say you do hear back.
For example, Amazon released applications in June / July, and one my mentees who was really prepared applied for it, only to get the interview 2 weeks later, and get an offer for the following year summer.
While they were ready, I believe most people are not ready. So instead of having 3 months to prepare during the summer, where most people are hearing back anyways from Amazon between September to December, you just gave it up and now risk your opportunity to convert.
I personally find that most people need about 2-3 months to pass the OA, and 3 months+ to be able to pass the phone / final round.
Let’s say that you start studying in August.
Then from August - September you study, in mid-September you apply. You’ll probably hear back around mid-October, and even November, giving you about 1-2 months to study, and then finally a phone round or final round in late November / December / January.
If you have to, it is always better to ask for a 4-6 week extension before you interview if necessary. I know it seems risky, but me and previous mentees have done this, even if 6 weeks is a bit on the longer end, b/c it’s better to be prepared than to give up the opportunity to convert.
Don’t Freak out…:
Sometimes people freak out over something like, applying for Databrick / Roblox / Capital One and not getting in after doing well on the OA, or seeing other people progress but not themselves:
Let me just remind you of some of the logistics:
Some of these companies like Databricks and Roblox are still growing, and can sometimes be exceptionally picky b/c of that. For example, Databrick runs a relatively leaner company that are looking for exceptional talent and head-counts can fill up quick. Versus a larger company like FAANG, they naturally will have a whole lot more space.
So don’t freak out over small things like this.
It is not always the end all be all. Sometimes these companies roll things in batches. Processing one batch, then another batch.
Look to other companies honestly. There are tons of opportunities, and other companies that are processing more candidates and more consistent interview pipelines. So don’t let one company mess with your brain too much.
Some Specific Tips:
Code for Good by JPMC: If you are a US Citizen / Green Card, I recommend applying for Code for Good by JPMC. It’s a hackathon that they host every year, and 90% of people essentially convert to interns. When I worked at JPMC (I got in through the normal interview process - which is also easy if you can get it, which is the difficult part - I was shocked by the number of people from this hackathon). Following that experience, I recommended 6 people to do it, with all of them getting internship offers, with 3 of them actually taking it.
Here are some additional data points to consider, most years I have recommended mentees to apply around August 10th to August 15th. This year in July 2024 however, I see that CFG has come out with summer 2025. What I have heard from a couple of people is that they got an “OA” but didn’t pass. However, from my experience, is that the OA at JPMC is usually a “joke” to put lightly. I’m not sure they actually look at it from my horrendous first time not even knowing what leetcode was, and several mentees who were beginners. So I told them, even though it is out now, it could be worth applying again in August 10th to 15th range, where the applications are closer to the actual hackathon. You can also use my trick later on about “multiple application” to submit 1-2 applications or so to CFG, to maybe improve your chances.
Next, is where to choose where to do your hackathon. Personally, I’ve only known CFG to be virtual since the opportunities that I could recommend it to the first several times I begun to teach was during the pandemic. But now with the hackathon in person, I think just choose what is easiest for you. The hackathon location vs the offer location, is disconnected. With most people probably being given an offer to work at Plano, Texas, which is their largest tech branch (and where I interned).
Google:
Google is a bit weird. They sometimes do a small invite only or very small 1 week opening in June / July. This is rare though and I’ve only seen this twice in the last 5 years from anecdotal experience. In addition, I find they do tend to release an app sometime in August, to again quickly close it, and then another main application in September 15th to October 15th range which will then stay open for the rest of the year.
This “main application” in September 15th onwards, I find is they generally have always released internship process (though the amount of people who pass team matching depends on the economic year - for example, I know in 2023 to 2024 they dropped a large amount of people in team matching when there were a lot of layoffs). And the new grad application only comes out, if they are actually able to take on new hires. So the first year of covid / large tech layoffs in 2023 had no new grad applications.
Grace Hopper Convention:
This is a female software engineering convention, mainly geared towards students. If you can get sponsored to go, it generally is I found a good experience to be able to get interviews. Ex. I’ve known people to get Apple / Microsoft interviews and offers from it.
The only thing, is you need to also be ready to interview literally on the spot or the next day in person. I know someone who was given a FAANG interview basically a phone-screening in person, and they weren’t prepared and that opportunity was basically dropped.
I do not recommend Grace Hopper convention if it is virtual, and obviously keep track of upcoming news if it is worth it. For example during Covid, GHC was virtual and was a waste of people’s time I’ve heard. And the first year they went back in person, a couple big names dropped out (though it seemed still okay from what I heard).
Some notes on other companies:
Apple is a black box company. Meaning is hard to know how to actually get an interview there. I find that Grace Hopper Convention, if you can get sponsored to go in person is a great opportunity to get an Apple interview. They also hire based off of team hiring, meaning unlike most companies where the student process is heavily funneled into a single process and then distributed to team, Apple is a team-by-team thing. I do find for Apple Linkedin / Cold emailing / people getting reached out to are stories I’ve heard as successful.
Microsoft: Grace Hopper Convention, cold emailing recruiters, and just getting lucky. Microsoft is a bit hard to predict.
Google: Hard to predict, but if you get lucky enough to get the OA, you can generally get the final round if you pass the Google OA. The recruiters are split into different processes, so cold emailing recruiters don’t tend to help. But you could potentially be able to convince maybe the first point of contact recruiter someone gets after doing the OA, to give you the OA if you get that email somehow.
Meta: Tends to be easier to predict to get interviews. Cold emailing a responsive recruiter from Meta, I have found several mentees for the past several years to be successful in getting interviews. I myself, after getting my Google offer, cold emailed a Meta recruiter to get an interview within the next 2 weeks.
Amazon: Tends to mass send out OAs in October / November. When they do so if you can pass the OA, it tends to more consistently convert into a final round interview.
Maximizing Your Application Opportunities
Let’s say that you are going to school for 2024 to 2028 for your bachelors. You basically count “how many Septembers” do you have in order to know what to apply for. If you have one September left, then you are a new grad. If you have more than one September left you are an intern.
So why does this matter? B/c for most company’s the internship process is significantly easier than new grads. (The only one I am aware of that is the same for NGs and interns is Bloomberg who give 3 technical rounds + 1 hiring manager round). Usually interns only have one final round, versus new grads could have 3-5 rounds. Meaning that as an intern, you just have significantly better changes to get lucky, rather having to be super consistent and not getting unlucky.
For example, let’s say you start Fall of 2020 and graduate in May of 2024 then you have the following:
September 2020 - Freshmen Internship
September 2021 - Sophomore Internship
September 2022 - Junior Internship
September 2023 - Senior New gradWhat can you do then? Well, during your senior year of September 2023 to May 2024, you will write on your resume and applications that you PLAN to graduate in December of 2024. (This is assuming that you are following what is usually a standard graduation cycle of starting in Fall of XXXX year, and graduating 4 years later in May). You don’t actually need to “graduate” in December 2024. You had just planned to take a gap semester, (which didn’t happen), which let’s you qualify for internship role.
In addition, when you graduate, you have within 1 year to still qualify for new grad roles. So this is how I got my Meta, Google, Bloomberg, Palantir offers. B/c when I graduated it was Covid, making it impossible to interview with companies my senior year, but post-graduation I continued to interview with them, and talked to recruiters from every company and found out that they were very consistent telling me that within one year of graduation they still consider me new grad and not industry.
Okay, so what does this mean? Let’s look at our timeline again:
September 2020 - Freshmen Internship
September 2021 - Sophomore Internship
September 2022 - Junior Internship
September 2023 - Senior Internship
May 2024 - Graduated
September 2024 - Within 1 year of graduating applying for new grad roles.So we just took 4 potential opportunities, and made it 6 opportunities. Realistically, you won’t be applying your freshmen year, so let’s say you took 3 opportunities and made it 5.
Let’s say that you are going to masters. Then you just say you are “graduating” December 2024 again to be qualified for a bachelor internship, but you just end up doing masters. And you repeat the same process for masters. If you end up getting a senior year internship though and a return offer, I’m not sure why people still want to go to masters though. The conversion to full time is a great opportunity, especially if FAANG, and I’ve read posts for example of people thinking they could do it again, only for an economic downturn to happen and get unlucky. To be honest, after Covid + layoffs over the last several years, it is definitely a much higher consideration now that I’ve considered before.
September 2020 - Freshmen Internship
September 2021 - Sophomore Internship
September 2022 - Junior Internship
September 2023 - Senior Internship
**May 2024 - Graduated Bachelor**
September 2024 - First semester of M.S - Internship as a first year master
September 2025 - Second semester of M.S (say you are graduating December of 2026) - Internship as 2nd year Master
May 2026 - Graduate as Master
September 2026 - New Grad as a M.SIs this allowed?
I had a mentee who was applying for “intern at Google” who was about to graduate in May XXXX year. And the Google recruiter literally told her, “well do you PLAN to take a gap semester?”. Hinting through further words, that Google only cares about what you PLAN to do. And that post their internship, any return offers would still be valid.
To note, if you are given a return offer, you don’t need to wait till the summer of the following year to start. My new grad offers I got in December / January, and I was able to start immediately in February / March / April. As long as it’s after January, and all the background checks and stuff cleared, then I was good to go.
Notes:
Some parts of the strategy might be harder for people to implement if on a student visa. Such as within one year applying for new grad roles. Just take the knowledge, and adapt it best to your situation.
Online Assessments
Online assessments are interviews given to candidates (depends on the company), to filter out the applicants. HackerRank for example, is a popular platform that most companies use.
The first is targeting the score you need to get. If HackerRank is 4 questions, you generally need to pass 2 of the questions to pass the test cases by 100%, and maybe 50% of one of the remaining questions. Usually the first 2 questions are medium questions, with the last two being extremely difficult.
The other thing is that the time limit can be very tight, so if you can, looking at forums such as Leetcode Discussion Forums, and seeing if someone has shared the previous years, can help give you some ideas as to what to expect and give you some practice.
Your goal is to do what you need to do to pass.
Some things I recommend against though is, don’t use ChatGPT. ChatGPT I’ve seen many people use it, and in general, it basically is unable to handle the complexity of the OA questions. There is too much reading and variations, and copying and pasting is also disabled. So you are trying to quickly type into ChatGPT a question that it won’t ever be able to solve.
There are going to be people who say, hey I got a perfect score, and still didn’t get in. Personally, while I haven’t experienced this, could just be bad luck. Which is why I would say apply again (which I’ll talk about later) and try again. Or try to reach out to someone if you can.
Utilize Leetcode Discussion / Forums:
Reddit, Leetcode Discuss, there sometimes are forum posts of questions that people got from this year or previous year. NEVER EXPECT THE QUESTIONS TO BE THE SAME, but it’s great to do them for practice, to understand the level of reading if it’s heavy reading, so-on.
The idea is to prime yourself for what to expect.
Creating a New Identity to Apply
While I do not have a ton of datapoints, I’ve heard from more than a dozen people that the following works after I had recommended them to try.
Create a new email
Create a new phone number
This can be done through Google Voice, which links to your actual phone number, and is a valid phone number. This is also free.
You can use any VOIP services like Google Voice.
You can use a different address:
I have some data points from people saying this is not necessary, but if you have the option such as an apartment vs your hometown, could be worth doing. Or like sibling, brother, friends
Name - if you are an internationally student using your “preferred name” vs your international name, and later clarifying / fixing it works.
Again I don’t think this is really necessary, and I find just new email and new phone number is more than enough.
New Resume:
The main thing is don’t apply with the exact same resume. If the file hash comes out to be the same, then it is obviously the same resume.
Change up the email / phone numbers so on to make it consistent with your “new identity”.
Change up some wordings using ChatGPT if you have to
This I’ve heard from more than a few people that they were able to go from not hearing back, to hearing back for an OA. And I’ve even heard a couple of people not passing the final interview due to being unlucky, being able to get an OA again, and doing the final round again.
Why Cold Referrals Aren’t Worth it:
I have several things to state here, but let’s go through them.
Is referrals worth it for interns / new grads:
While YMMV, my experience is no. All 20+ of my mentees, with more than a dozen getting into FAANG got in without referrals, including myself. The years I had referrals were not helpful. In fact, Meta even got rid of referrals for interns / new grads for 2023+ onwards.
The reality is that referrals is only a stepping stone to get to a recruiter, so often cold emailing and finding a responsive recruiter is more worth the effort.
Should I buy referrals?
This occasionally comes up with platforms that “sell” referral, and this is honestly a waste of your time other than to reduce your anxiety. Working at JPMC / Amazon / Meta, we literally have a button(s) to say you are a “lead” versus a “referral”, and that we “didn’t personally work with you”, and so-on. To you it looks like a referral, but to the system, you might as well just be a normal applicant.
But why don’t referrals work?
The reality is for students / new grads you just don’t have any experience versus industry it stands out a lot more. Industry is helpful b/c of the level of expertise and work experience, versus interns / new grads, what are they really supposed to be vouching for?
Exceptions:
Bloomberg - if you can get an internship from Bloomberg, I found that they have their interns / new grads be able to refer other people and as an anecdotal personal experience, this is how I got the interview.
If you find other data points that is consistent feel free to go for it. But I think at least for FAANGs it hasn’t ever influenced anything consistently
Cold Emailing Recruiters
One of the big things that I’ve done in the past 3 years with my mentees is cold emailing recruiters - but not just any recruiters in the company, but what I call “first point of contact” recruiters who are responsive.
What do I mean by this?
Usually b/c my mentees have been in a group chat together, I make sure they actively are sharing emails and helping each other. (Which by the way, having a friend group or a small community to work with is great. Embrace a WIN-WIN attitude. Not doing so, and seeing each other as competitors, thinking it’s a zero-sum game, I’ve taught a couple of mentees like that and they really suffer relative to those who do share.)
The first time that someone hears back from a recruiter - that is a “first point of contact recruiter”, and I have them all use the cold emailing templates on my notion.
Sometimes they are not always responsive, but follow up and can try other recruiters too. By the way, this is never a guarantee, I find maybe 1 / 3 or 1/4 companies we try usually this works.
But for example, for the past 3 years, this has tended to pan out 80% (4/5 attempts) for Meta for my mentees. About 40% of the time for Bloomberg (2/5 attempts). And various others of varying degrees.
When to Cold Email?
Don’t go chasing after cold-emails so soon. Only cold email after let’s say a month has passed by applying, and maybe you begin to see companies begin to pick up hiring. Compare to CSCareers and see if companies have begun to process applicants, and if at a substantial enough data points, then that is a great indicator!
How to make your cold email stand out?
Some notes about cold emailing from my notion template that I think is important to emphasize.
Let’s look to one of the email examples I give:
Hi there,
My name is [Name], and I am a [insert year] student at [insert school], studying [insert major] with a focus on [insert specialization/skillset]. I am currently in the process of interviewing with several companies, including [insert company name].
I am wondering if there is a possibility to expedite my process or get an approximate timeline for when I can expect to hear back. I would greatly appreciate any assistance you can provide in helping me plan out my next steps.
Best regards,
[Name]The first, is I don’t give a specific date or say that I have a tight timeline *unless if for some reason you do*, sometimes companies will drop you saying that they cannot accommodate it. The idea of saying you are in the “process” though is that companies will generally try (or you are requesting them) to align your interviews so that they aren’t skewed months out from each other from a decision.
The second is that depending on your own ethical thoughts, you can name drop that you are in the process with other similarly level companies. You actually might or you might not. I’ve seen mentees both ways say they are just currently in the process of interviewing (not specifying), or mentees who say they are in the process with Google, even though all they did was “apply” thus being in the process. Or some even if they are not say they are in the “phone round” with X company.
The third is that while previously I did not find that having another big tech helped between 2017 to 2022, I found that onwards of 2023 - 2024 that saying you had Amazon for example, translated to more of my mentees who had that experience than those who didn’t actually hear back. My theory is that Meta for example, was targeting people who had prior experience at FAANG companies, and the recruiters wanted someone who was more likely to actually get through the process. This could be a reason why even if you don’t have a FAANG company on your resume, you say you are further along in the process with a couple of companies such as Bloomberg / Microsoft for example. You can correlate to see other companies using CSCareers what companies are actually hiring to make your story more believable. You can also say that “oh, even though you are in XXX round” your timeline is flexible. The main thing is you have a flexible timeline.
Exception:
I think an exception to the rule, is if you are smaller companies / startups. In this case, I would focus instead of “being in the process”, that you have a great portfolio / skills that are valuable to the company. Such as, I’ve used your product, I looked at your tech stack, I have experience in this tech stack, this is my top project, with a link to your other projects.
I won’t give a specific structure here to follow, but in general, the smaller the company, the more personal the touch can be. Just don’t make it overwhelming.
The idea of short, concise, sweet, is still applicable.
How to Follow Up:
Personally, I find that after cold emailing they either ignore you, or they actually give you the OA / Phone interview. But in the off-chance they tell you “you are too early”, or “to keep waiting”, you know they are responsive, and you can say “Thanks! Hopefully, I can follow up in a a month or so if that sounds great? I was also wondering, would you be the main point of contact, or would there be someone else I could also potentially check in with, such as a general recruiting email or a second student recruiter?”
You can decide how hard to push here, maybe just saying follow up in a month, but it might also be worth trying to fish for a second email, in case the first one goes dead.
Email Trackers:
This is already documented in my guide, but you should be using email trackers whenever you could email. Such as the chrome extension for Mailpanion is a great app.
Just don’t go opening up your own email on your phone and triggering your own email tracker.
Other Alternatives of Companies / Industries to apply to:
Sometimes it can still be hard to get a companies to respond to you, here are some other sectors that I have found to be more responsive to interns:
Hospitals (I’ve seen friends get internships at local hospitals / IT)
Defense Agencies: Lockheed Martin, so on.
Government: NASA so-on. I’m not sure about the NSA / other government jobs, but if you are a citizen you generally qualify for these. But I’ve seen a couple people get offers for NASA, and even myself.
Banking companies such as: Fidelity, Charles Schwab
T5 Consulting / Accounting Companies: Deloitte, McKinsey, so on, you’d be surprised at the number of interns they take on.
JPMC tends to be the easiest to get in, if you can get an interview. Their interview isn’t even leetcode based other than the OA. It’s mostly just behavioral and some talking like, “tell me about your project”, “your favorite project”, “how would you implement a hashmap”, so on.
Goldman Sachs, Capital One, so on, are much harder interview loops, but they also tend to hire a lot of people. Though Goldman Sachs, can be super slow with their interview loop.
How to Utilize Linkedin?
Personally, I am not a fan of reaching out to recruiters on Linkedin, though YMMV. I do find that this generally does not work. What I do find work is sometimes emailing alumnis of your school, saying:
Thanks for their time
You saw that they are an alumni for your school
You aren’t looking for a referral, but rather could they share the interview process of how they got in?
Was it just they applied and waited? Cold emailed? And how many rounds did they have? Was it all technical?
Is it possible, if they still have it, any recruiters that they interacted with back then? Even if they might have left the company, you would love to be able to have the opportunity to just follow up with whom they might have talked to
Okay, so what is the goal here? It’s one, to avoid awkwardly asking for a referral. Two, to get information about the process (even if you already have it confirmed elsewhere). Three, to get a recruiter email. This I find more helpful. Obviously, the closer someone started to your current date, the more likely that the information will be fresh.
If you got friend’s in industry:
If you have a friend in industry who is able to help you, let’s say you have a friend in Meta, or Google, or Amazon, it is hard for them to know who the student recruiter is. But if you do know who it is, they can search who they are in the org chart, and giving you corresponding people in the team who are able to help you.
Should You Get a Master or PHD?
If you are optimizing not on academics and knowledge, and just purely on money and practicality, obviously no. The reason why you would get a masters is let’s say you got nothing for your bachelors, and if your finances allows it, to get your masters give you another opportunity to apply as a “student”.
Also masters and PHDs don’t make you stand out more. For example, I have had multiple friends with masters of data science / ML, or even a PHD at MIT for ML, and it is still EXTREMELY difficult for them to find an industry role. The reality is that the number of roles in a specialized field versus software engineering is just so little.
If you are a PHD/Master for DS/ML:
Personally, I find these roles extremely difficult to shoot for. The amount of jobs relative to software engineering openings are extremely small.
I recommend, if you are willing to consider it, to shoot for a software engineer and then move to DS in the future.
You are also sometimes in a weird situation where as a PHD you have the option to only complete a master and not the full PHD, so where should you apply to?
Some thoughts on this is:
Create different accounts and applications for masters / phd, and also for SWE vs data science. Even if you might be set as a data scientist, you might as well have the opportunity for a SWE.
Network heavier. DS / ML is a much smaller industry, so this is actually the time I’d say that reaching out on Linkedin, recruiters, asking how other people got in, looking for referrals, would matter more. Personally, even with all this, I still find DS/MS lower opportunities
Utilizing Discord Servers
This could just be me, but being part of the Discord server for CSCareers, which is probably the most active one, which you can join on their website you are just in the loop about information faster.
What companies are people applying to, how did they apply, when did they apply, are there other consistent data points, and if people are nice enough sometimes they share that information.
If you make yourself useful, sometimes people are willing to give back too. Such as for example, I’ve helped a bunch of random people in the past, and when they get a recruiter or something, they are willing to help me.
Special Notes:
Microsoft: Microsoft has a special GHC link that is literally just open to the public every year. You can apply through this link.
GHC Portal: GHC every year, even if you don’t go to it, still let’s you upload your resume for companies to see (male or female). Personally, I think is a bit weird as a male to go to the convention, but the recruiting resume portal, I see it as a fair game personally. It’s just a generic resume portal that if companies choose to reach out to you may do so, versus actually going to the convention seems a bit to undermine the spirit of helping females in the tech industry by being the active-male who already dominates the industry. (But just my opinion).
the specific examples add a lot ngl
Appreciate the super helpful and insightful sharing!