hi mr entj, how is it possible to land a FAANG job despite being at a low tier school? (for reference, my expected grad date is 2023.) more specifically, how does your resume get screened and pass screening if it doesn't belong to a target school? (for the interview, I'll be starting practicing leetcode/ctci/etc. along w/ your other advice.) I'm looking at freelancing, and I'm wondering if that'll do anything at all to increase my chances. is the strategy here just do other internships that build up to FAANG? thank you so much
*** If anyone else reading this wants a concrete example of why networking is important, I’m about to show you ***
Today’s your lucky day. I’m a senior mentor for the University Recruitment Program for the G in FAANG (Google), my brother is/was a software engineer hiring manager for the 2 As in FAANG (Apple and Amazon), and my sister-in-law is/was a software engineer hiring manager for the F and A in FAANG (Facebook and Apple). The only letter in FAANG our family doesn’t have is the N (Netflix) but they rarely hire new grad engineers anyway.
how is it possible to land a FAANG job despite being at a low tier school? more specifically, how does your resume get screened and pass screening if it doesn't belong to a target school?
Get strong internship and programming experience displaying products you’ve led, coded, and launched (See my ‘internship’ tag for more)
Create a GitHub with examples of your code so hiring managers can review prior to an interview, this is mandatory, not optional
Create a crisp and clear resume outlining (in this order): education (show your GPA), technical skills in order of proficiency (programming languages), work experience (internships, research, etc.), and leadership activities (campus clubs, hackathons, sports, etc.) with a link to your GitHub at the top (See my ‘resume’ tag for more)
For education, emphasize data structure and algorithms if you’ve already taken these classes
For experience, this is the formula to use for your resume: “Accomplished [X] measured by [Y] by doing [Z].” Always quantify impact (user numbers, money, %, etc.) where possible
Apply by the application deadlines for new grad positions, if not, you’ll need to take another job elsewhere and try for FAANG after 1+ year of experience
Practice leetcode - this is mandatory, not optional
For Google, go to google.com/students. Other FAANGs have their own student career pages-- use them
For software engineering, your school tier matters less because engineering is a hard science major with interview processes that will screen your technical skills. You either can or can’t pass the technical exams which determine if you move to the final round. For that reason, there are software engineers in FAANG with no college degree at all but they have amazing coding talent.
At Google, all software engineering resumes are screened and reviewed by a human recruiter regardless whether they come from a target school or not. The resumes that move forward to a phone interview generally have strong programming experience (internships, projects, GitHub), strong academic performance (high GPA), and extensive leadership activities (campus involvement, clubs, hackathons).
I'm looking at freelancing, and I'm wondering if that'll do anything at all to increase my chances. is the strategy here just do other internships that build up to FAANG?
Internships at peer companies > internships at small companies > freelancing. If it’s a choice between an internship or freelancing, do the internship. If it’s a choice between freelancing or nothing, do freelancing. The goal is to accumulate experience but also to show that you’ve passed other company hiring bars, use your judgment to accomplish that as effectively as possible.
