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Fog Creek's Intern Hiring Process

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Re: Fog Creek's Intern Hiring Process

#71

Post by sadfnjksdf »

LukeWalsh wrote: post #64

> If you don’t know where to begin here’s a good rule: only target colleges that admit less than 30% of applicants. That will give you a head start on being selective, especially if you have limited spots available in your program. I personally think this is silly. If you want to be selective just focus on applicants who actually build things. If you look at collegiate hackathons at places like university of michigan…

I never thought of Fog Creek that way before. In fact, I've always gotten the impression they were down-to-earth. But, that one shot of a spreadsheet in this post listing Brown, Rutgers, Princeton, Yale, etc. changed my mind.

The other turnoff in this was the weeding out of candidates based on resumes. We hired an excellent employee out of a batch of horrid resumes- what a great hire, though.

Re: Fog Creek's Intern Hiring Process

#72

Post by dodger »

LukeWalsh wrote: post #64

> If you don’t know where to begin here’s a good rule: only target colleges that admit less than 30% of applicants. That will give you a head start on being selective, especially if you have limited spots available in your program. I personally think this is silly. If you want to be selective just focus on applicants who actually build things. If you look at collegiate hackathons at places like university of michigan…

Fog Creek dev, here - we, too, have had absolutely great hires from less-selective colleges and with not-so-great resumes. But if you're pressed for time and resources and you have to use a heuristic for where to put recruiting efforts, this can be a good one.

Re: Fog Creek's Intern Hiring Process

#73

Post by gecko »

bcaine wrote: post #18

This sounds like a great program, I just wish it was offered year-round. Even though I think Northeastern University and Waterloo are the only schools with a completely integrated, well defined Co-op program, it seems like its a growing trend. I'd assume having year round interns and a continuous recruitment process would be less disruptive to the team's work velocity and give you a bit bigger reach for students too.…

Fog Creek has frequently had co-ops; they just don't advertise it very much, for two reasons: they can't offer the same outings/bonding experience, and they can't take as many students at the same time. That said, if you're interested, apply. They've had some amazing co-ops over the years, and I promise they'll take your application seriously.

Re: Fog Creek's Intern Hiring Process

#74

Post by cc439 »

hamidpalo wrote: post #58
dominotw wrote: post #24

Can't they atleast hire one person that didn't luck out by being born in a rich/middle class american family to go to ivy league universities. What is such complicated product that Fog Creek makes that it needs graduates from top 10 universities? Serious question.

I'm a Fog Creek employee who is also an immigrant and did not go to an Ivy League school. I also do a fair bit of interviewing at Fog Creek and we don't really care about which school you went to. We look for smart people who get things done. It's as simple as that.

"If you don’t know where to begin here’s a good rule: only target colleges that admit less than 30% of applicants. That will give you a head start on being selective, especially if you have limited spots available in your program."

That doesn't really jive with the not caring "about which school you went to" bit. If that's the criteria it eliminates all but 2 of the top 25 public universities which is flat out ridiculous.

Re: Fog Creek's Intern Hiring Process

#75

Post by gecko »

Igglyboo wrote: post #10
mh_yam wrote: post #7

Earlier quoted context omitted.

(Manhattan prices) A good studio apartment will be $2000-2500 a month. A one bedroom would be $3000+.

Wow, yea now I see why they get payed so much. A solid 2 bedroom around me is like 500-800.

Please do note that Fog Creek provides an apartment to interns for exactly that reason. You would not being paying New York rent as a student.

Re: Fog Creek's Intern Hiring Process

#76

Post by gecko »

LukeWalsh wrote: post #64

> If you don’t know where to begin here’s a good rule: only target colleges that admit less than 30% of applicants. That will give you a head start on being selective, especially if you have limited spots available in your program. I personally think this is silly. If you want to be selective just focus on applicants who actually build things. If you look at collegiate hackathons at places like university of michigan…

    I personally think this is silly.
I agree! Thankfully, that's not actually what Fog Creek does. Let's separate two aspects of this process, because they deserve different treatment:

  1. *Going to recruiting sessions.*  Going to recruiting sessions
     is expensive and time-consuming, as Liz noted.  To go to
     recruiting sessions, therefore, you have to optimize your bang
     for the buck, and *that's* where the selective schools show up:
     Fog Creek simply did get a better pool of applications when
     going to selective institutions.  There are other things that Fog
     Creek can do to optimize for candidates who actually build things,
     and it turns out they do those things, too (sponsoring intern events,
     sponsoring OUTC, and so on).  But career fairs at selective schools
     can be enormously effective, and are a bit easier to come by.
  2. *Evaluating applicants.*  When Fog Creek does résumé screening, a
     whopping *one out of seven points* is awarded for going to a
     selective institution.  Everything else--having a portfolio, having
     passion, demonstrating follow-through, etc.--has absolutely nothing
     to do with where you went to school.  And that's *only* used for the
     résumé screening.  Once you get your foot in the door and talk to
     a human, it never comes up ever again, in any context.  (When I joined,
     Fog Creek even did double-blind interviews to enforce that!)
So yes, only recruiting students at selective schools is stupid. But that's not what Fog Creek does.

Re: Fog Creek's Intern Hiring Process

#77

Post by scrumper »

asafira wrote: post #43
scrumper wrote: post #39

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> MOST ANNOYING THING A weekend is plenty . You're an intern: there are many, many more of you to choose from. As you pointed out, nobody wants to waste time. The person that offered you the placement wants someone who wants to be there, not someone looking for an backup offer.

I am going to respectfully disagree. Just because the company can do it doesn't mean a weekend is plenty . You are given a weekend to decide where you might spend months of your life, potentially in a place you've never been. On top of that, who knows if that weekend was going to be extremely busy for you? Just because you take one week to decide on an offer doesn't mean you don't want to be there. It's also not at a…

Thank you for the respectful disagreement (vs. 'smug'.) You make good points and I have some sympathy too - I understand that it's not easy being forced to make a quick and major decision. That being said, you don't always get to set the pace, and being confident in making decisions on the basis of imperfect or incomplete information is a valuable life skill. I can think of no better time to make a low-risk, snap decision about where to spend a few months than in the middle of college.

With regards to the decision around where you might spend months of your life, it's not like the location of the internship was a secret before crazypyro interviewed. The question about whether the company will treat the intern well is more nuanced, and you'd have to go with your gut.

Given the competitive nature of the market for CS interns and the quick decisions needed, the Secretary Problem might offer a good solution for crazypyro and others in that situation.

Re: Fog Creek's Intern Hiring Process

#78

Post by covi »

nickbarnwell wrote: post #59
1a2a3a4a wrote: post #27

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It's not that far off the top tier pay for tech companies. Glassdoor compiled their list for 2014, and it's not too inaccurate [1]. Speaking from personal experience, the numbers for SWE undergrads for some of the companies on the list this year: Palantir - 7,500 - 1,200 for housing if you choose Facebook - 6,200 + free housing Salesforce - Varies per year, 34.50/hr for rising junior, housing. Cisco - 22/hr Quora and…

Jane St and a few other finance firms are paying interns ~100k/y annualised. That's the highest I've heard barring grad students with sweetheart deals. As covi mentioned, Palantir, Quora, Dropbox all pay about roughly the same but are very willing to negotiate and pay more if necessary.

Yes, that figure is about right for the few finance technology films.

Re: Fog Creek's Intern Hiring Process

#79

Post by gsk22 »

dominotw wrote: post #24

Can't they atleast hire one person that didn't luck out by being born in a rich/middle class american family to go to ivy league universities. What is such complicated product that Fog Creek makes that it needs graduates from top 10 universities? Serious question.

Although Fog Creek definitely skews towards Ivy League hires, as a former FC intern from a tiny Midwest school I can say it's not a requirement.

Re: Fog Creek's Intern Hiring Process

#80

Post by tylerkahn »

Igglyboo wrote: post #5
covi wrote: post #2

I have to say the pay is by no way "spoiling". It is no where near the top tier pay (for interns) seen in the industry.

How's the cost of living in new york? I'm an intern in michigan and I'm getting way less than 6k a month but I definitely feel spoiled.

NYU has a program where college students doing internships in NYC can live in an NYU dorm for ~$360/week.

I didn't find the groceries/food to be all that expensive.

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