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All my career rejections

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Re: All my career rejections

#161

Post by anontechworker »

dijit wrote: post #126

Here’s a weird anecdote. I don’t think I’ve ever gotten a job I applied for (with the exception of my current job which I suspect was tailored for me and a colleague.) Nearly every job offer I ever got I was reached out to by a recruiter. It seems like, if I apply, I get blacklisted, but if I don’t apply a recruiter reaches out later and I often end up with an offer. This has happened with small and large companies.…

I’m in the same boat. I’ve never directly applied to the 3 jobs (including a FAANG) that I’ve taken in Silicon Valley. One found me on angel list and the others LinkedIn or direct email. Similar to you, the places I did apply to would never respond, even with referrals in some cases.

Re: All my career rejections

#162

Post by danjac »

simonebrunozzi wrote: post #151

Interesting blog post; a far more interesting aspect, for me and my personal career at least, is the companies and interviews where the company did a really poor job and essentially wasted my time and/or pissed me off. Without naming names, here's a couple of examples: 1) FAANG company: interviewed and received offers at two distinct times, which I rejected. Both offers where missing exactly what I had asked at the b…

Too many companies don't realize that interviewing is not just about filling a position: it's also marketing and PR, and you are representing your company to the public. And the thing about marketing and PR, if it's not well managed then you can seriously damage your company's reputation, no matter how well you execute on everything else. Of course Google or Amazon are too big to care, but if you're a small company doing basic shit like turning up for an interview or informing later-stage candidates of rejections rather than ghosting them is kind of important.

Re: All my career rejections

#163

Post by etripe »

rd07 wrote: post #136
lmm wrote: post #134

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Or your manager arbitrarily decides they don't like you (particularly in startup-like environments with limited process). It shouldn't happen, but it does.

My friend who has wider experiences changing jobs than me also said the same thing as your comment and its parent. Workplace politics is a real thing.

Not only is it a real thing, at some workplaces it's the main event.

Re: All my career rejections

#164

Post by alwayshasbeen »

the_only_law wrote: post #88
simmanian wrote: post #23

Earlier quoted context omitted.

>Needless to say, I feel horrible. Is there a reason you want to get into those companies so badly? I personally don't practice leetcode, because my ROI on those types of problems is not really great, and I'd rather do things that I find to be more interesting with the time. This does mean that, when I interview, sometimes interviewers treat me like a child for not being able to reach optimal solutions for problems t…

Not OP, but personally, the way I see it is the easiest way to break into “interesting” work (obviously that’s subjective as hell) because the sheer amount of work available and the biggest hurdle being leetcode, whereas at equivalent positions at non-faangs for certain type of roles the hurdle seems to be having multi decade experience in some domain / education/ etc.

Working in one of the companies OP mentioned. Don't assume that work at FAANG is automatically "interesting". You will do work others think is required for the company, "interesting" is never the key someone higher on the ladder is striving for.

If you want to work on interesting topics, start a side project and try to turn it into a company.

Re: All my career rejections

#165

Post by vorhemus »

What amazes me every time I read articles like this is that some companies are apparently so afraid of hiring the wrong people because that's costly - and at the same time they don't mind throwing abandoned projects that did cost millions of dollars on the graveyard every month.

Re: All my career rejections

#166

Post by mytailorisrich »

newswasboring wrote: post #145
PunchTornado wrote: post #137

Earlier quoted context omitted.

why do you expect to pass an interview without preparing for the interview?

I think you are genuinely curious. The point here is, people are confident that they can do the job, just can't pass the interview. The purpose of the interview is to select someone to do the job, not to pass the interview. "Preparing for the interview" is chasing the wrong KPI for both parties. Companies don't want someone who can pass the interview, they want someone who can do the job, they are not the same things…

However confident people are hat they can do the job the point of the interview is to convince the recruiters.

That's the game and the recruiting company sets the rules.

Re: All my career rejections

#167

Post by danjac »

Aeolun wrote: post #132
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…

You think that’s unbelievable? I’ve literally had a company recruiter tell me that I should probably spend a few hours on leetcode and hackerrank before the interview. That turned out to be predictive, because they rejected me mostly based on my inability to do well on those kinds of tests. I got a life people. Between taking care of my son, wife and work, where am I supposed to find ‘a few hours’ to spend on somethi…

I suspect with some startups is to do with the ecosystem. At first glance it makes no sense your tiny no-name startup adopts a FAANG interview process; it's like running a US Marine bootcamp for your local cub scouts. However the best realistic (non-unicorn) outcome for a VC-backed startup is a FAANG aquihire, and the acqusition process may depend on the pedigree of your engineers and their ability to pass a leetcode interview as part of some pre-acquisition technical audit. Things like being able to execute on good architecture and design and overall code quality - the mark of experienced developers as opposed to newly-minted CS grads - are of lesser importance, as the product itself will probably be quietly shelved in a year. In other words the FAANGs see the startup ecosystem as a cheap recruitment funnel, so it makes sense for founders to optimize their interviewing process around that.

Re: All my career rejections

#168

Post by joelbluminator »

danjac wrote: post #157
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…

Small startup doing FAANG style interviews is like a small startup adopting microservices for their 3-developer team. More red flags than a Soviet May Day parade.

Yeah I never got it. Don't they at least wanna make sure the candidate knows their current tech stack? many of them don't seem to care. The ones that care are usually very small companies where every hire is super critical. The bigger the team, the less important the hire is, the less they care about the actual work that needs to be done.

Re: All my career rejections

#169

Post by joelbluminator »

danjac wrote: post #167
Aeolun wrote: post #132

Earlier quoted context omitted.

You think that’s unbelievable? I’ve literally had a company recruiter tell me that I should probably spend a few hours on leetcode and hackerrank before the interview. That turned out to be predictive, because they rejected me mostly based on my inability to do well on those kinds of tests. I got a life people. Between taking care of my son, wife and work, where am I supposed to find ‘a few hours’ to spend on somethi…

I suspect with some startups is to do with the ecosystem. At first glance it makes no sense your tiny no-name startup adopts a FAANG interview process; it's like running a US Marine bootcamp for your local cub scouts. However the best realistic (non-unicorn) outcome for a VC-backed startup is a FAANG aquihire, and the acqusition process may depend on the pedigree of your engineers and their ability to pass a leetcode…

> the acqusition process may depend on the pedigree of your engineers

I doubt it. Investors care about sales, growth etc. If they really care about the technology itself they'd probably look at the CTO / tech leads and thats it. I don't see how some developer's interviewing skills matters to the bottom line.

Re: All my career rejections

#170

Post by joelbluminator »

p1esk wrote: post #139
Aeolun wrote: post #132

Earlier quoted context omitted.

You think that’s unbelievable? I’ve literally had a company recruiter tell me that I should probably spend a few hours on leetcode and hackerrank before the interview. That turned out to be predictive, because they rejected me mostly based on my inability to do well on those kinds of tests. I got a life people. Between taking care of my son, wife and work, where am I supposed to find ‘a few hours’ to spend on somethi…

You think that’s unbelievable? Google and Facebook recruiters told everyone at my university they expected people to spend 2-3 months of several hours a day leetcode type practice before applying. This was said in a panel type "how to get a job at FAANG" seminar for graduating seniors, with actual Google/FB SWEs present, and all nodding in agreement that this is the norm.

I think it's definitely worth it for some people, at least financially. But many many others will study for months just to find out they can't make it no matter how much they prepare. I mean they accept how many - 2% of applicants? If you can look at it as a learning experience that's fine as well.
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