I Got Offers From Google, Facebook, and Microsoft — Here’s Why I Turned Them All Down.

Disclaimer: These are my own thoughts and lessons. This article is not to brag but to share my honest reflections and advice in the hopes that this will help other students and young adults.

I was fortunate enough to have been offered Summer 2020 internships from Google, Facebook, and Microsoft, but in the end, I turned them all down.

First, I’ll give you a bit of background about me at the time of these offers. I was just starting my sophomore year at Brown where I study Computer Science, Applied Math, and Economics. I had never coded before college and was very intimidated by CS when I first started out; I actually nearly dropped my first CS course a couple of weeks in. Luckily, I stuck with it and improved with practice, and the courses I took in my freshman year that helped me prepare for recruiting in my sophomore year were Object-Oriented Programming (Java) and Algorithms & Data Structures (Python & Java).

I didn’t have an internship for the summer after my freshman year, partially because of my age — I started college at 16, but that’s a different story — and partially because I wanted to go home and see my family that summer.

The Resume That Got My Foot In The Door

Without any internship experience, my resume was still able to get through screening from Google, Facebook, and Microsoft, as well as other competitive companies like Salesforce, Bloomberg, and Two Sigma to name a few. For those interested in tech careers, I can tell you what recruiters said made my resume stand out despite no industry experience.

• If you are looking for a technical role, put your coding languages at the top. Why? There are thousands if not tens of thousands of resumes to screen in the first round of recruiting, and the people who do that first screen are usually in HR. They are trying to see whether you fit the job description they posted, which means, at a minimum you need to know the language(s) the position requires. Putting your languages at the top makes it super clear, quick, and easy for the screeners.
• If you don’t have a lot of relevant experience, get involved on campus and/or do side projects. Why? The fact is that companies want experience, which creates this catch-22 when you are trying to get your first position. To overcome this, you have to have experience in some other form. I put down my involvement with clubs on campus as well as personal projects and meaningful school projects. It doesn’t have to be anything to fancy.
• Really important: Quantify your impact. This is a big one. An Amazon executive told me that my resume was better than some of their peers because I clearly quantified my impact. For example, if you are on the executive board of a campus org, instead of saying something like “I grew club membership”, say “I increased membership signups by 20% from the previous term”. Numbers catch the eye and make your impact super clear.

A good resume can only get you through the first round, which is still huge. The percentage of candidates making it through is slim, so you’ve already done great by getting that Hackerrank/phone screen. Then, it’s up to you to perform on your coding challenge(s) and in your interview(s).

How I Prepared For Interviews

I’ve seen some articles stating that you need to do hundreds of Leetcode problems to prepare for technical interviews, which, in the end, will probably help you perform well. But, there are other less time-consuming strategies that will help you get to the next round or even get an offer.

• Algorithms and Data Structures: I’d highly recommend taking an Algorithms and Data Structures course at your school before interviewing. If you study CS at a university, this is probably a requirement anyway, and it will really help with interviews. If you aren’t in university but are interested in technical positions, taking a course online or doing projects that help build your algorithms and data structures knowledge will be really helpful. Interviews are all about algorithms and data structures!
• Interview Videos: I recommend watching a few interview videos to familiarize yourself with the types of problems that will be posed, the common approaches to solving these problems, and how to think out loud and explain your rationale. Some people will tell you that you don’t need to solve the problem and that the interviewer only cares about how you think. In my experience, this isn’t true and you do need to actually solve the problem. However, solving the problem does not guarantee moving forward unless you clearly explain how you got to the answer. Why did you choose this certain data structure? How did you come up with the program? What’s the runtime and space usage? Watching interview videos from channels like CSDojo will show you how to answer these questions.
• Practice In Your Interviews: There are going to be some companies you will interview with that you just aren’t as excited about as other places. Just do the interview for practice! This will help you build your experience and confidence in real-life interviews.

I prepared mainly using these strategies and supplemented with a few Leetcode problems (<30 problems total).

Why Did I Turn All The Offers Down?

If you are in tech, you’ve definitely heard of imposter syndrome. Even before making my first strides into Computer Science, as far back as elementary and middle school, I’ve had imposter syndrome. No matter how big the award or milestone, I’ll only be happy with my work for a short moment only for the thought that I haven’t done enough to sink in soon after. The only “cure” to this feeling was/is external validation, which is exhausting and wholly unreliable to depend on.

I turned down these companies in an attempt to conquer my own imposter syndrome. I knew that the positions at Google and Facebook weren’t for me (though I would probably work at these companies in different capacities). Despite that, I still considered accepting them, for the sole reason of having a “big” name on my LinkedIn. It’s a good thing that both of those companies gave me semi-strict deadlines, so I ended up going with my gut and saying no.

The hardest decision for me was turning down Microsoft. I was in the airport ready to fly home for winter break, and I had about 30 minutes to make my decision between Salesforce and Microsoft.

As you can see, name recognition is the first attribute I thought about. *sigh*

I made this entire scorecard while sitting in the gate, and you can see that the winner is Salesforce. But just because of the bigger name, I still considered going with Microsoft. Before typing up a rejection email to my Salesforce recruiter, I realized that if I don’t start living for myself now, I may never will. I initially felt sick after I sent the rejection email to my Microsoft recruiter and wanted to followup saying that I emailed the wrong person. But after a couple of weeks, I understood that I made the right decision for me.

I still have a lot of work to do on my imposter syndrome, but this was a big first step for me.

I’d love to hear your responses!