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All my career rejections

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Re: All my career rejections

#111

Post by kazamaloo »

throwaway892398 wrote: post #108

I've been accepted to most of the positions I've applied mainly because I avoided FAANG companies for fear of rejection. I was getting regular emails from their recruiters but just kept deleting them. One day I just decided to reply to the Google recruiter. I stupidly set up the interview ASAP at a time when I was out of the country with no computer or internet. So I went into the interview with zero prep. It was a d…

fwiw, there is substantial randomness in the process (worked at two of FAANG myself). Try to do mock interviews with your friends if it helps. You may be showing patterns that you think is correct, but actually quite the opposite (this is what happened with me).

Re: All my career rejections

#112

Post by nanidin »

davio wrote: post #5

One of the artists that revitalized part of Kansas City had all of his museum and gallery rejection letters as the wallpaper in his restaurant

Which artist / which restaurant? I’ve got a few hunches, I live in the Crossroads.

Re: All my career rejections

#114

Post by ruste »

decafninja wrote: post #87
throwawaypqr123 wrote: post #85

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Oh agreed it's super frustrating. A lot of times you won't even get any feedback with the rejection, which is incredibly demotivating and tbqh, infuriating. > you can theoretically interview at each of the letters in FAANG every year One of those letters will let you interview many times in a single year ;) (but not for the same role on the same team) If I had any final advice for those intent on going through the in…

Would that that be F & N? :) I know you can interview at multiple roles at FB provided 1.) you pass the initial phone screen and 2.) the onsite loop is different - say, frontend vs. product/backend. Doesn't work for me this year since I likely failed the phonescreen... I've heard in theory you can apply to multiple jobs at N too.

I interviewed multiple times for different positions at G two years ago. Two on-sites in six months.

Re: All my career rejections

#115

Post by benja123 »

foobarian wrote: post #43
codezero wrote: post #9

Interesting to see the differences in people. I've had a long career with very few rejections, but it has a lot to do with the fact that I don't apply to places unless I am really confident I am definitely going to be the best candidate, and that's generally been true. That said, I encourage folks on my team to interview regularly just to know how to value themselves and to see that there are other opportunities, and…

It looks like it's pretty common to go interview just to "keep the skills sharp." What do folks think of this practice? I feel like I would have a hard time doing it while hiding my true motives. And what if they make an offer?

So I will give you my perspective as a hiring manager and as someone who has interviewed quite a few times in my career.

I personally encourage friends, especially those that have been at their job for 5+ years to go to interviews for roles they might find interesting, even if they have no plan of leaving their current role. I have been in the industry long enough to see companies cut ties with employees that have been with them for many years. If they are lucky it is not during a mass firing round, but if they are unlucky it is the result of a large firing round or worse yet a recession of some type. Job hunting and interviewing are at the end of the day a type of competition and if you want to be good at it you need to make sure you have practiced. The benefit of this, is if you make a point of going to interviews where you are still curious about the role, you may actually find your an unexpectedly amazing job and you also are more likely to get a much better offer than you ever would when you are actively looking.

Now when I am a hiring manager, I have zero issue if someone comes with the intent of it being a practice interview. Why? Well, my job as a hiring manager is to win over the candidate to the role I am hiring for. It starts with the one on one, to the exercise I give and to the overall process being a nice experience. If I do those things correctly and the candidate is good, then it usually doesn’t matter what their original motive was for interviewing, they walk out of the process saying I want to work with that person and I want that job. I think a lot of companies don’t understand that the candidates are choosing you as much as you are choosing them. At least that is the way it should be.

Re: All my career rejections

#116

Post by echelon »

120bits wrote: post #109

I did something similar last year after getting rejected by FAANGs and few more other tech companies. - Google rejected 3 times. - Facebook 2 times. - Amazon(AWS) 1 times. - Adobe 1 Times. - Twitter, Github, stripe and others won't even consider me good enough for an interview. - Dozens others companies, who do FAANG style interviewing. I fear rejections, no matter how much I "try" to act normal. I was looking forwar…

Not a critique, just an observation. I could be totally wrong.

> I would encourage XXX to use some coding challenge practice websites to become comfortable with producing quick working code segments

contrasts with

> I have realized that maybe I'm not a rockstar coder that can come up with high performance code.

What's your analytical process like? Do you take a moment to sit back and just think? Don't dive directly into the code.

My most successful candidates spend five to ten minutes thinking about my problem and talking themselves through it before writing any real code. They'll sometimes take notes with class diagrams or ASCII diagrams.

You don't have to have an optimal solution first.

Re: All my career rejections

#117

Post by 120bits »

echelon wrote: post #116
120bits wrote: post #109

I did something similar last year after getting rejected by FAANGs and few more other tech companies. - Google rejected 3 times. - Facebook 2 times. - Amazon(AWS) 1 times. - Adobe 1 Times. - Twitter, Github, stripe and others won't even consider me good enough for an interview. - Dozens others companies, who do FAANG style interviewing. I fear rejections, no matter how much I "try" to act normal. I was looking forwar…

Not a critique, just an observation. I could be totally wrong. > I would encourage XXX to use some coding challenge practice websites to become comfortable with producing quick working code segments contrasts with > I have realized that maybe I'm not a rockstar coder that can come up with high performance code. What's your analytical process like? Do you take a moment to sit back and just think? Don't dive directly i…

Good question. It seems I lack speed implementing an optimal solution. During my initial FAANG interviews, I have had gone totally blank on my thought process and code. After few interviews, I don't actually dive in coding. I spend at least 10minutes about the problem and explain how it can be solved. I have realized that the interviewer is not looking an optimal solution at first. However, they're not satisfied with till the optimal code solution actually works.

Re: All my career rejections

#118

Post by perl4ever »

nyanpasu64 wrote: post #106
rramadass wrote: post #101

I wouldn't do this and keep it around. We have all had rejections, particularly in these highly competitive times but the trick is to forget about them after doing a quick postmortem and learning any lessons. The reason is that psychologically we are wired to focus on the negatives and ruminate endlessly on it leading to self-doubt and a sapping of self-confidence. This is absolutely not good for long-term psychologi…

Am I supposed to forget that the vast majority of companies find me unhireable?

If 99% of the people in the world despise you, that leaves over 70 million that don't.

Re: All my career rejections

#119

Post by imhoguy »

chrisseaton wrote: post #66
esel2k wrote: post #53

Earlier quoted context omitted.

If you only applied to positions you knew where the best candidate - how did you not feel that the job would not offer you new challenges or the position is too low? I tend to keep interviewing or lets call it networking. The position I did fit a 100% I ended up declining as they were mostly position I thought I would go downwards in my career and pay, even if it sounded interesting. Glad you found that place of cont…

> I tend to keep interviewing or lets call it networking. Do you not find interviewing is super expensive in terms of time? My last interview was a four-day trip and about 40 hours of prep time before that. If I interviewed more than once or twice a year it'd be an enormous time sink. Maybe it pays off for you because you think the networking benefits are so high?

I don’t think about it as kind of waste, it is training to be mentally fit and ready when I find a better role or simply when bad times hit.

Although 4 day trip interview is extreme, I would rather not go for unless they pay me. But things are even easier now, as most of recruitment is done remotely.

Re: All my career rejections

#120

Post by redisman »

throwaway892398 wrote: post #108

I've been accepted to most of the positions I've applied mainly because I avoided FAANG companies for fear of rejection. I was getting regular emails from their recruiters but just kept deleting them. One day I just decided to reply to the Google recruiter. I stupidly set up the interview ASAP at a time when I was out of the country with no computer or internet. So I went into the interview with zero prep. It was a d…

The FAANG interview is hard dude. I feel like I could maybe get in if I took a 6 month study break for it which is totally unrealistic. I tried a few times at the top 10 companies (except ones I consider immoral) and even got pretty far at some (onsites that went decently) but I'm pretty happy at medium sized later stage startups doing my 9-5. It's not like working for the highest market cap company in the US is going to give your life any more meaning.
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