How to get an opportunity to work at Google, Facebook, or Microsoft
“Where there’s a will there’s a way”
Now, this may sound a bit corny, but it’s been my dream to work at a top 5 tech company since I was an 8th grader. I’m lucky enough to have an uncle who works at Facebook. At the time, I was amazed by the free food, arcade room, and campus at Facebook. The office doesn’t even look like an office but rather a park where people get to change the world. My objective was clear, to work at a company like Facebook after college.
I’m currently a sophomore at Virginia Tech and have offers from Microsoft, Facebook, and Bloomberg to intern in 2020. It took me a year of effort and preparation to get these offers and I wanted to handoff the tips I learned throughout this process. I’m going to break down the process into 3 steps: Getting the Interview, The Interview, and The Offer.
Getting the Interview
At first glance, I thought that getting an interview at top companies wouldn’t be difficult and rather easy. I was wrong. Getting an interview at a top tech company is not easy. In fact, I still have not gotten an interview from Google even though I know people who work at Google and have even received a referral. So what did I do get an interview from the top 5 companies? I made connections. Networking it the single best way to get an interview at a top 5 company. The best way to network is by going to an event held by companies and to talk to the presenters of the events. While most students will have questions for the presenters, it’s important to go the extra mile to make these connections. Ask for a way to connect these presenters afterward to ask questions and ask for advice. One thing I did was ask presenters to get coffee when I was interested in the role a presenter had. One example was when I asked an employee from Google to get coffee to learn about the Technical Program Manager Position.
Besides connections, having a strong resume is crucial. Recruiters love to see if a student is working on personal projects or is part of clubs. What’s important when stating these extracurriculars is to state impact. Using numbers and objectives allows recruiters to better understand resumes and allows for a resume to look stronger. Overall, recruiters are simply looking for a passionate student who will put their all into a company to make an impact. Resumes are how you can show your passion. I personally spent countless hours editing my resume and the polishing usually never stops.
Preparing for the Interview and the Interview itself
Congrats! You got the interview. While this section is after getting an interview, I’d personally recommend to start prepping for interviews before you even get one. Bloomberg offered me an interview for the next day at 10pm. So if I wasn’t already preparing for interviews I could have been caught off guard. Before discussing how to prepare for an interview, I want to discuss what an interview at a tech company looks like. Usually, the interviewer will talk to you about your resume and help you ease into the environment. After a small discussion, they will usually ask a technical question to see how competent your problem solving and coding skills are. Much of the evaluation in an interview comes down to two aspects, how far you got regarding the question and how well you explain your solution to the problem. When I first heard about this it felt a bit overwhelming and knew that I would have to prepare as much as possible to pass the interviews.
While preparing, I had two main ways of preparing. First, I spend countless hours on LeetCode completing many problems that are similar to interview questions. LeetCode is a fantastic way for you to practice technical questions and see what type of questions companies ask at interviews. Try to practice as many different data structures as possible! At my Microsoft interview, one of the questions was directly from LeetCode. Many of the other interview questions were similar to questions from LeetCode or used skills I learned when doing questions on the website. I’d highly recommend everyone who is interested in doing well on technical interviews to practice on LeetCode or a similar website.
Even after preparing for hours on LeetCode, you may get a question that you’ve never seen before. This is where my second part of preparing plays a key role. Mock Interviews. Besides being able to answer technical questions properly, the method of explaining the solution is critical to passing an interview. Talking to the interviewer can help you figure out how to solve a question you haven’t seen before and help you thoroughly understand how to solve the technical question given. Mock interviews are a fantastic way to learn what an interview can look like and help you become more comfortable during an actual interview.
The Offer!
Congrats! You’ve gotten an offer at a tech company. To make you feel better, understand that at top companies the acceptance rate is close to 2%! Go spend some time celebrating on the achievement! If you are interviewing with other companies let the other companies know about the deadline for the offer. This allows other companies to expedite your interview process to get you a decision before any deadline. Hopefully, you will have multiple offers to decide between. When making a decision, I did three things. One, talk to other people who have previously interned at the company. Two, research deeply into the intern program online and tried finding youtube videos from students who previously interned at the company. Last but not least, I asked my own gut about which company I’d like to work in. Understand that all companies are fantastic places to work and there is no “wrong” decision.
I hope this guide helps you get the offer for your dream company! Just know that if your top company says no it’s not the end of the world. You will always get another chance to interview with your dream company. I learned the most from the interviews I failed and will never forget each interview I failed. Keep your head up and everything will work out. Good luck!
