Going through a job search and have been rejected about 5 times and feeling pretty down about it. Would be interested in hearing others’ experiences to remind myself that I’m not a total loser.
Why leaving Square?
Just wanting to broaden my horizons. Been there a while.
I failed 6 interviews before landing 4 consecutive offers. Joining a FANG now. Keep at it. Getting a job is as much about luck as it is about skill.
How/when do you start attributing your passes/fails as luck vs skill? What do u think changed from 6 straight fails vs 4 straight offers
2 rejections out of 4. 10 YOE, had zero experience with algorithms before
I mean Leetcode stuff
How did you prepare and get the motivation? I am in same shoe with 14yoe and not getting enough energy to go towards to Algo to crack FANG.
People who successfully moved will comment here. In reality, there are equal or more number of people who couldn’t pass any and stuck at the current job. Software engineering requires extreme attention to details. This makes them act very picky as an interviewer as well. You will find that PMs tend to give pass more easily. Whether it be the coding or behavioral, it is the same - software engineers will give a pass to less than 30% of the candidates. If you add that there are multiple interviewers, it is extremely hard to pass the interview. Besides, new grads are from the likes of MIT etc as they increased the number of enrollees recently. It means getting a job is harder than before and the candidates are better prepared. These candidates are now interviewing for senior positions. It will keep getting tougher. Good luck!
:( same case in India. Went to a tier 2 college feeling the heat around. Startups are the only ones hiring.
Do u attribute it to lack of preparedness or just bad luck?
Hard to know. Some coding questions I know I could have done better so those rejections are understandable. Some interviews I thought I did pretty good on so 🤷♂️. Got two feedbacks that interviewer “didn’t get a strong leadership vibe” even though I crushed the coding problems.
My only advice is drop the ego and truly identify where you’re lacking. It requires a hard look at yourself and the humility and willingness to be better. We must treat rejections as data and adjust accordingly. Easier said than done, but it really is the only way.
Same here, even worse: I’ve been rejected at EU FANG branches for more than 10 times at different stages - from phone screen to onsite. Also didn’t count how many times they simply ignored me at the very beginning. This road is for mental warriors! Eventually you’ll get there if you’re consistent enough.
Thank you. I needed this.
I think this begs the question: those who have made it to highly competitive companies, how consistent are you? If you’re at G, would you be confident you could pass thru again if u had to re enter the interview loop to keep your job? Another way of thinking about it: those who have made it to any FAANG do you think you could make it to any other letter in FAANG consistently? Put yet another way: do you think you’re only at FAANG because you were asked the right question at the right time, practically the ones that you had practiced verbatim the night before? Sorry I guess I’m just jaded.
Excellent question. The answer is no. Most of them if put in interview loop directly without preparation will not be able to meet hiring bar. I’d say 2 weeks of prep is needed.
I’d say I’m pretty consistent. Interviewed at Google as new grad, got offer (went to FB, also got offers from Apple/LinkedIn/MSFT/Amazon). Interviewed again 4 years later for one level up, got an offer. But I would say it’s non transitive. I do better at puzzley interviews so I consistently do well at Google and similar companies, and worse at others which are “lower tier” and focus more on practical engineering. I wouldn’t put it up to luck and prep bc I don’t tend to prep... this is no slight to those who do — many who are far better actual engineers than me are worse at algo puzzles.
Just 1
1 out of 2, both FAANG.
So far 2 . Tomorrow might be 3rd .. good luck to you buddy!!