I’m sick and tired of interviewing and getting rejected. Why is it so f***ing hard to land a job? I have a master’s degree and I’m a super performer on my team. This like the 10th on-site that I have failed. I learnt C++ and grinded Leetcode for about a year and read groking the system design. For more than a year, I stopped doing anything after work and on weekends besides studying and Leetcoding. No going out, no nothing. Only Leetcode and more Leetcode. Now after interviewing, I keep rejected. Sometimes I make a small mistake in an interview and that just seals the deal. Others, even when I pass all rounds, I get a “not a culture fit” bs. Like what the f*** does that mean? Why didn’t you tell me that before I spent all this time interviewing? I’m so dejected and depressed! Crying I don’t care about making more money. I just need enough money to pay bills and just be able to live. Why is that so much to ask? Why is this industry so cruel? TC: 🥜 YoE 8
The secret to getting a job is to genuinely not want the job during the interview
You only need to crack one. Please remember that. Platitudes aside, with 8 yoe, you could easily get interviewed for Sr. SDEs, especially at Amazon rn. Now, that does bring along a culture fit issue, cause senior SDEs do interact and lead multiple teams. For Amazon in particular, LPs are pretty important and you may want to prep separately for behavioural. I’d also suggest DDIA. Grokking’s all well and good for SDE2s but for Sr. SDEs, DDIA is pretty important.
Im not in software but i want to say interviewing sucks donkey balls everywhere. I just interviewed with a company where the process took 2 months. I had 4 one on ones and then a 7 hour on site where I gave a one-hour talk that took me a week to prep and had 5 individual interviews (one of which was some LC easies). A week later i got a one sentence email that im rejected. Its all a huge waste of time
I passed 10/10 interviews at all the top companies and fintechs (didn't do any startups). can give you a mock, feel free to PM
Can you put pointers here for others as well on how did you prepare exactly?
Can you share here or via dm?
I feel ya. On-site interviews (for data science) are quite unfair to some people like me. It usually takes a little longer for me to understand a question and then come up with an answer. Not too long but definitely longer than other people. My solution is always correct and I can tackle everything very well. But I think I’m just a little slow than others. That’s why I do excellent on take home. But onsites, idk if even enough practice can help me overcome the problem I have 🙈
Me too!! After I got rejected from G I was in office and literally went to bathroom and cried for 1 hr. I know the feeling
last oct that happened to me as well, will try this year again.
I can give you a few pointers . I was trained by one of the shady recruiting companies where they put fake experience on your resume and then train you on how crack the interview. They were very shady and I hated them. But the skills they gave me is indeed priceless. So here we go 1) elevator speech. It matters more than you think. The trick here is not just list your skills and technologies. no one wants to hear that. The goal here is to make it sound like you are having a conversation with your friend and tell him your journey of your career. Don’t be afraid to be frank but not too frank. 2) don’t try to answer the stuff you do not know. Always have back up statements when asked about something that you do not know or be honest and tell them that. Been an interviewer myself and the thing I hate most is when people try to BS tue question they do not know . Seems desperate and seems immature. You could say something like this. “You know it has been a while since I have used X So I do nit really remember the details but the over all summary is …..
I was from Cisco, maybe ppl don’t believe folks from cisco can work?
What? I didn’t say anything wrong.
Wanna do a mock? I interview for my company so i could give you pointers and what you might be doing wrong
Btw my company pays peanuts
Happy to offer a mock as well. I got multiple offers as of now. So pretty fresh with the process.