How I got a job at google
I present to you an interesting story about how Rick Viscomi, after several unsuccessful attempts, nevertheless achieved his goal and got to work at Google. Currently, Rick continues to work on YouTube as a frontend developer.
Initially, this post appeared as an answer to a question on Quora.com. The question is pretty standard and it goes like this: “How do you manage your six months to get enough skills to be hired on Facebook or Google?” Rick answered the question quite thoroughly, which earned about three thousand votes in favor. In my opinion, his story is remarkable for the tremendous perseverance and will he showed in achieving his dream. I think that everyone who cherishes the hope of achieving such a goal should be noted. I already took :) Actually, Rick's answer under the cut.
I fully understand how you feel. I got a BS in Computer Science (roughly, a bachelor of computer science) about three years ago, and the only thing I wanted was a job at Google. Before I graduated from university, I went through a telephone interview and was invited to an on-site interview on YouTube for a software engineer position. I passed the interview; I left him feeling great from the process and, after a rather short time, I received a sad message of refusal. It took a lot of time and a lot of thinking to understand what went wrong.
This was my first technical on-site interview. At that time, all my experience in this was literally zero. Remembering, now I understand that I was doing everything astonishingly wrong.
')
Interviewing is a skill and you do not want to hone this skill while it is the most important. The more interviews you pass, the more comfortable you will feel. Everything else will follow when you just relax and clearly express your thoughts.
Think about how you will answer the general question “tell something about yourself”. After many, many interviews, I finally realized that this question was more about the interviewer than about me. Build your answer around what he expects to see in you (hint: brevity and attitude to work). Advertise it and sell.
A year later, with extensive experience in interviewing, I again sent my resume to the same position in another office. And again, I was good at a telephone interview and again received an invitation to an on-site.
I spent the next two weeks with a marker board and books, trying to strengthen my skills. All night long I was working on algorithms and data structures, trying not to repeat the same mistakes.
I came to the interview and went all out. I was proud of myself in answering difficult questions. But again I received a refusal.
This is one of the most important things I learned on my way to Google.
What did I do wrong? I interviewed the wrong job. Like you, I am very passionate about web development. I thought that with my degree in CS, software development would be my natural career path. I forced myself to become a developer who would program in C ++ or Java every day, while my interests, in fact, lay in the area of ​​frontend technologies, such HTML / CSS / JavaScript.
I took it as a sign that I need to turn my attention to web development and manage my career path there. I read professional books, bought books, attended meetings; did everything to learn more and become better as a web developer.
A year later, I sent a resume to the same office as last time, but to the position of the developer of user interfaces (UI Engineer). Again, I had a good phone interview and again I received an invitation to an on-site. My recruiter said that he didn’t see almost anyone who returned after the third attempt to pass the on-site interview.
Again I studied the material for weeks, I was interviewed; I felt that I had knocked them out of the park (comment of the translator: knocking out of the park means hitting the ball so that it flew out of the field, in other words, to make a home run, a baseball term) and at the end of the day my interviewer returned and held out me a google mug “For completing my third on-site interview” as a trophy. Well, the circle turned out to be a bigger consolation prize because I was rejected again, the third one.
At that moment several events occurred. I wanted to give up. I wanted to change my career. Instead, I stopped focusing on one job at one company and focused on self-development. I will never know for sure what went wrong in my interviews or where I could answer better. It does not matter anymore. I need to make the best of what I have.
I made two career-critical decisions: I started working on open source projects in areas that are interesting to me, and I also tried to study all the possible material about web application performance optimization. Through meetings that I attended at the time, I decided to support the New York Web Performance Meetup Group. I changed jobs to another where I focused on web performance; I got the opportunity to speak at the meetings of the NY Meetup Group and, as a result, I was offered the opportunity to speak at the mother of all web performance conferences - Velocity. Everything was great.
Like a bolt from the blue - I received a letter from my first recruiter from YouTube. It was about the position of a web developer, under which I was well suited, in her opinion. I did not miss the opportunity, went through a telephone interview and advanced to an on-site round.
I returned to California and went through a familiar system of difficult questions. As in the three previous attempts, there was one interview out of five that I really would like to go through better. As on the re-run, I saw it all a few times before and so I started to get worried.
Contrary to my anxiety and the failure pattern that had been formed, I actually got a job.
So, for those who pursue their dream job:
Initially, this post appeared as an answer to a question on Quora.com. The question is pretty standard and it goes like this: “How do you manage your six months to get enough skills to be hired on Facebook or Google?” Rick answered the question quite thoroughly, which earned about three thousand votes in favor. In my opinion, his story is remarkable for the tremendous perseverance and will he showed in achieving his dream. I think that everyone who cherishes the hope of achieving such a goal should be noted. I already took :) Actually, Rick's answer under the cut.
Rick's answer
I fully understand how you feel. I got a BS in Computer Science (roughly, a bachelor of computer science) about three years ago, and the only thing I wanted was a job at Google. Before I graduated from university, I went through a telephone interview and was invited to an on-site interview on YouTube for a software engineer position. I passed the interview; I left him feeling great from the process and, after a rather short time, I received a sad message of refusal. It took a lot of time and a lot of thinking to understand what went wrong.
This was my first technical on-site interview. At that time, all my experience in this was literally zero. Remembering, now I understand that I was doing everything astonishingly wrong.
')
Get a solid interview experience
Interviewing is a skill and you do not want to hone this skill while it is the most important. The more interviews you pass, the more comfortable you will feel. Everything else will follow when you just relax and clearly express your thoughts.
Think about how you will answer the general question “tell something about yourself”. After many, many interviews, I finally realized that this question was more about the interviewer than about me. Build your answer around what he expects to see in you (hint: brevity and attitude to work). Advertise it and sell.
A year later, with extensive experience in interviewing, I again sent my resume to the same position in another office. And again, I was good at a telephone interview and again received an invitation to an on-site.
I spent the next two weeks with a marker board and books, trying to strengthen my skills. All night long I was working on algorithms and data structures, trying not to repeat the same mistakes.
I came to the interview and went all out. I was proud of myself in answering difficult questions. But again I received a refusal.
Make hobbies your strengths
This is one of the most important things I learned on my way to Google.
What did I do wrong? I interviewed the wrong job. Like you, I am very passionate about web development. I thought that with my degree in CS, software development would be my natural career path. I forced myself to become a developer who would program in C ++ or Java every day, while my interests, in fact, lay in the area of ​​frontend technologies, such HTML / CSS / JavaScript.
I took it as a sign that I need to turn my attention to web development and manage my career path there. I read professional books, bought books, attended meetings; did everything to learn more and become better as a web developer.
A year later, I sent a resume to the same office as last time, but to the position of the developer of user interfaces (UI Engineer). Again, I had a good phone interview and again I received an invitation to an on-site. My recruiter said that he didn’t see almost anyone who returned after the third attempt to pass the on-site interview.
Again I studied the material for weeks, I was interviewed; I felt that I had knocked them out of the park (comment of the translator: knocking out of the park means hitting the ball so that it flew out of the field, in other words, to make a home run, a baseball term) and at the end of the day my interviewer returned and held out me a google mug “For completing my third on-site interview” as a trophy. Well, the circle turned out to be a bigger consolation prize because I was rejected again, the third one.
At that moment several events occurred. I wanted to give up. I wanted to change my career. Instead, I stopped focusing on one job at one company and focused on self-development. I will never know for sure what went wrong in my interviews or where I could answer better. It does not matter anymore. I need to make the best of what I have.
I made two career-critical decisions: I started working on open source projects in areas that are interesting to me, and I also tried to study all the possible material about web application performance optimization. Through meetings that I attended at the time, I decided to support the New York Web Performance Meetup Group. I changed jobs to another where I focused on web performance; I got the opportunity to speak at the meetings of the NY Meetup Group and, as a result, I was offered the opportunity to speak at the mother of all web performance conferences - Velocity. Everything was great.
Maintain a significant level of positive attitude.
Like a bolt from the blue - I received a letter from my first recruiter from YouTube. It was about the position of a web developer, under which I was well suited, in her opinion. I did not miss the opportunity, went through a telephone interview and advanced to an on-site round.
I returned to California and went through a familiar system of difficult questions. As in the three previous attempts, there was one interview out of five that I really would like to go through better. As on the re-run, I saw it all a few times before and so I started to get worried.
Contrary to my anxiety and the failure pattern that had been formed, I actually got a job.
So, for those who pursue their dream job:
- Do not chase her. Take a hundred interviews with those you don’t even think of getting to, in order to prepare yourself for the place where you are actually going. Learn to sell yourself first before selling your technical skills.
- Find your niche. Determine what you can give the company. Hone your technical skills and do everything you can to continue to learn and push your career forward.
- Do not give up. Put yourself on a trajectory that leads you to success and move on it.
Source: https://habr.com/ru/post/229323/
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