Rejected for Google (last two years)
Hi all, Thanks for reading this! I wanted to give somewhat of a background and hold an open form to help me figure out what exactly is going on and maybe there may be some people in the same boat that I am. Background: I moved from the mid west into San Jose and pretty quickly fell in love with Google. I am in the automotive industry with a bachelors degree in electrical engineering. My day to day job does not involve coding, but I was not going to let that stop me! I figured with my background in electrical engineering and genuine interest and passion in small electronic projects (often involving arduino or raspi), I would stick to C/C++ to learn programming so that I could start interviewing. I had some previous experience coding just to make things work in the past, but nothing ever serious. So, with my heart set on Google, I started preparing. I started by the Cherno C++ videos which was a great way to get started in C++. Then dove into "cracking the coding interview". Went though a bunch of examples in that book and felt SUPER lost. So then I read a few textbooks on C/C++ which was very helpful. So then I decided to apply! I applied through a referral, got the phone call and set up the interview. And I absolutely SUCKED the phone call coding question (so sad). Now, its been a about a year since then. And for my own progress, I have completed a bunch of Udemy courses, Computer Organization and Assembly Language Programming, Beginning C++ Programming - From Beginner to Beyond, Embedded Linux Step by Step using Beaglebone Black, Linux Mastery: Master the Linux Command Line, ARM Raspberry Pi Assembly Language From Ground Up, Operating Systems from scratch - Part 1, Bare Metal Embedded - C Programming (TM4C123), Build Your Own RealTime OS (RTOS) From Ground Up on ARM. I have felt more comfortable coding that I ever have! I participate in leetcode daily spending at least two hours per day. Since January (reset my session), I have completed 170 questions (mostly easy and medium), and have submitted over 500 times in the last year (constantly redoing problems to try to increase performance). I know I am ready and I am very excited to interview again. I have been applying every 4 months or so with referral since the initial interviewing incident. I maybe have applied close to 5-6 times now (3 jobs every application round). However now, I am unable to even get a phone call from a recruiter when I apply. I am getting rejected before even getting an opportunity to talk to someone. This is so heartbreaking because I have spend 100s if not 1000s of hours working towards this over the last 1-2 years, but I am not even able to get my foot into the door. Anyone, can you provide me with feedback on what you think might be the issue? Has anyone else dealt with a similar situation? I know I should apply to other companies, but it is SO heartbreaking that I am not even getting a opportunity to show my progress and get an evaluation of my progress. Google is a company that I absolutely love. Thanks everyone for reading the long post! -- If you don't have something nice or constructive to say, please do not comment. #interviewprep #leetcode #google
In my opinion, don't fall in LOVE with any company. They'll not think twice when laying you off. Focus more on what is good for your future. Dont join google because of the name, join only if it makes your future more stable, financially strong, and better. PS: NOT GOING TO GOOGLE ISN'T THE END OF THE WORLD.
Tbh Google has dropped a little among the FAANGs in terms of hiring bar and TC offered. I'd rather set my sights on FB or Netflix.
Lol you think FB has a higher hiring bar than google?
Yes I do
I think you made the mistake of applying so many times and so soon after getting rejected. They want to see that something has changed since the previous application. Did you get more experience? Learn new software? Changed roles? Personally I would change jobs and go to another company (another FAANG is best or another company if not) and get new experience. Keep up the coding chops but the recruiters can see how many times you have applied. Google may have a 6 month or 1 year cool off period, I don't know though.
Last time I interviewed with them was over a year ago. Would reapplying every 4 months reset the cool off period? Is my only option just to go and get a job somewhere else to show that I'm "good enough" for someone else?
Doesn't matter when you last interviewed, what matters is the last time you applied. The cool off period is based on when you last applied. Companies don't want you to apply for any other jobs at the company for 6 months - 1 year. Like I mentioned, they do that because there's no point in interviewing you again if nothing has changed. Go and work elsewhere, make improvements, and apply again a year from now. You are wasting your time by reapplying so often and the recruiters sees all of your history. It makes them not want to hire you and it also makes you look desperate. Basically you are purposefully sabatoging yourself right now.
I did a few small coding projects to boost my resume, and two interviewers from different companies mentioned they thought the projects were neat. You could also try to work as a software engineer at another company first to get experience. If the company has a good engineering reputation google recruiters will start messaging you on LI. have patience
Interesting, what kind of coding projects did you do in terms of function and technologies used, and how many did you have on your resume? How much time did you spend on them roughly too?
Referrals don’t get priority here. They go through the same queue of temp workers who try to match job description to resume. I once had a SWE referral working on Tupperware at Facebook (internal Kubernetes ish) rejected because they didn’t have experience with distributed systems. So take a look at the job you are applying for and make sure things match. Not the concepts but the words. Imagine someone non/technical is filtering your resume. They want OOP? Don’t put just C++, add OOP. They want AI, you write AI; not ML. Distributed systems? You get the idea. Until you get the phone screen, do whatever it takes. Once you reach the 45 minute phone screen, you’re dealing with your peers.
I agree with what others have stated - working at company X is a really shitty personal goal for a myriad of reasons. Google in particular has among the worst interview/hiring processes of any FAANG company (I’ve interviewed at all of them, twice at google). Expect virtually no communication or convenience as you go through the process. Also as others have said, they seem to be on the decline as of the past few years, in terms of their hiring bar and TC. The company is certainly changing and not necessarily for the better. I would look inwardly and ask yourself why you want to work there so badly. Why do you want to work there? Do you have a reason other than ego? You haven’t stated a reason other than that you “fell in love,” which for a lot of young people means they end up spending time doing exactly what you’re doing, with nothing to show for it. Think about it: if your goal is to work for company X - suppose you get hired. Then what? You’ve already fulfilled this huge goal you’ve been working towards for years. How will you feel fulfilled for many years thereafter? What is your purpose after your purpose has already been obtained?
You find another purpose... WTF!
I had a similar experience, interviewed with Google 2+ years ago and tried applying several times after that with no luck. Then one day out of the blue a Google recruiter reached back out and reestablished communication with me. By this time I was happily contracting at FB and was working on getting full time so I pushed the interview back by a year. I suggest you keep Leetcoding/Practicing System Designs until one day while you’re sipping coffee at your desk minding your own business and a Google recruiter reaches out to you. By that time your hopefully ready to go through the process and just kill it
do SWE contractors at FB actually get converted to full-time? how rare/difficult is it to do?
I took full advantage of the upsides of being a contractor like directly reaching out to recruiters and being able to interview for a couple of positions without any cool off period. But I still went through the interview loop like any other external candidate and took the risk of not landing a full time role before my contract expired. It’s pretty common but not guaranteed.
There are plenty of places that would be good workplaces depending on your preferences. One thing to keep in mind for anyone applying to Google is we keep your interview feedback forever. This means people should wait until they are reasonably prepared for an interview. If you get an extremely negative comment in your record it could deter a recruiter that doesn’t know if you’ve improved since then.
TLDR
You forgot to post the most important thing..
Hey Tim, what is that?
TC