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If everything goes well, I'll be graduating with my CS degree next year. I know it's time to start seriously preparing for the job hunt - I've ordered the Cracking the Coding Interview and the Algorithm Design Manual books, I'm putting together a github for my lovely Euler projects and a basic RESTful webapp, etc. The OP has been super helpful in this regard! My (mostly-anonymized) resume is what's bothering me right now. I applied for ~20 summer internships from December of last year through January of this year and all I got were a few automated rejections. So, I'm trying to figure out what's making readers balk at my resume. Does my school have a reputation for terrible graduates? Do I sound like I have no idea what I'm talking about? Is the length a dealbreaker? Any feedback is appreciated.
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Jul 3, 2014 01:06
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Thanks for the feedback! I've got a mock whiteboard interview scheduled with a senior dev at JPL (yay networking???) in like 15 minutes so I can't make any changes right now but I can address some concerns raised. I got nothing done the first three years of university due to a combination of being a Linguistics major who thought of CS classes as just fun electives and working 39-hour weeks for Janky Retail Company on top of full courseloads. I switched majors at the beginning of the last academic year and have since started going to meetup groups, tutoring people, working on projects in my spare time, and so on. I'm wrangling my personal projects into a presentable state, and they'll be on my github when it goes up. No experience with dotalikes, sorry. What if I was game master of a tabletop RPG group?
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Jul 3, 2014 02:30
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Alright, I went ahead and modified my resume based on all your feedback. It looks better to me, and the work experience section is now more technically correct, I think. Adding projects really helped, even though now I have to reimplement the sudoku solver because the flash drive I put it on years ago is nowhere to be found. Thanks, y'all!
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Jul 3, 2014 04:35
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October's almost over, which means it's time for me to start applying for summer 2015 internships. One of my friends gets to circumvent that because they just accepted a job offer from Google and will be joining the Youtube team, yay! Anyway, I've revised my resume a bunch since the last time I asked this thread for advice, so here it is again for savaging if anybody feels up to it. I'm shooting for a resume to phone screen conversion rate greater than zero this time around.
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Oct 23, 2014 06:54
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sarehu posted:I'm confused and annoyed by the projects section. The first project is lame, it's a class project, but you're applying for an internship position, so maybe that's OK. The second project makes no sense. It is not under the Big Defense Company job section? First project is lame, yes, but it was a ~team effort~ using ~software development practices~ and thus was worth including? I don't know why I'm concerned about coming off as a lone wolf hax0r type seeing as I'm just a lovely student coder but that was my rationale. I'll work on explicating the second project more clearly. For some context, I developed it for an engineer I briefly worked with while doing my internship, but it wasn't actually supervised or paid for by the company. They were just like "Hey I remember you from X, can you do this thing for me?" and I said yes and did it. I did think it would look/flow better if I put it under the internship heading, but I felt like that would be falsifying my work history or something. Joe Law posted:Any advice appreciated. Instead of B.A, write out Bachelor of Arts. Make your periods consistent - some lines end with them but others don't. Use concurrent instead of co-current. Actually I feel like that line should be rewritten, because it sounds like you're saying the stress testing itself was the factor that improved load times. You might be getting rejected by resume screeners because they don't see a skills section stocked with the languages asked for in the job posting. (preemptive edit: concur with above post)
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Oct 23, 2014 16:32
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I know a phone screen is nothing to be excited about, but... I just got an email informing me of my first phone screen ever! With Google! I didn't think I could be this excited! And in a week or two, I know I'll be similarly impressed by the depth of cavern of despair I'm going to fall into when they reject me. Still, thanks for existing, thread! You all rock.
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Oct 23, 2014 23:02
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Good luck to you too Google phone interview buddy! They chose to interview you for the position so they think you're qualified in one way or another. re: advice - thanks! I'm practicing writing Python in Google Docs right now and have some willing victims lined up for practice tomorrow and the day after. If there's one thing I've learned how to do in university it's how to study for a test 
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Oct 24, 2014 05:05
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Phone interview for Google internship report: First and third interviews went amazingly, judging by the feedback I got from the interviewers. They both said that they liked me and that I performed really well, which was a nice surprise! The second interview was bad, though, and I'm sure you need a full 3-for-3 for the callback so I know I'm not getting the position. I got through a easy bit-twiddling question plus runtime optimization in about 10 minutes. He then asked how I would design firmware for a <big but fairly simple mechanical thing>. I tried asking clarification questions throughout the interview as "design firmware" seemed deliberately underspecified, but he answered every question by basically saying "it's just a <thing>". I ended up fumbling my way into a sketch of an producer-consumer multiprocess model using a semaphore-protected priority queue. After I explained my design he asked me to code it, which I was not able to do in the 15 minutes remaining. At the end, he basically said "You're not approaching this the right way and I don't think you can actually code what you proposed", which would have been nice to hear at practically any other time during our conversation. Rant aside, he was a wonderful, smart fellow and I had a nice chat with him about his current projects. I would like to ask him what he was looking for as an answer to that question, though. Overall, great practice for interviews for other places I can actually get into. Highly recommend all students at least apply for a Google internship. They take freshmen and sophomores as part of a special program, too!
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Nov 21, 2014 01:43
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I accepted an internship offer from Google yesterday! I'm surprised but also super excited. Is it rude to keep interviewing with other companies now? I'd like the interviewing experience, seeing as I've only ever had one interview. On the other hand I feel like it'd be rude for a company to interview me for a job they'd already filled? Either way I'm still looking for spring positions, so I'll get more opportunities regardless.sailboat posted:Is this the appropriate place to post a resume? I need some brutally honest feedback. Just anonymize it before you post. Or don't, if you like getting mysterious packages in the mail.
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Nov 26, 2014 22:32
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Wow, that's a lot more discussion about interviewing ethics than I thought there'd be, thanks. I ended up informing the other companies that I had accepted another offer and as such would no longer be seeking a summer position, but I appreciated their interest and would be open to pursuing a spring internship if they were so inclined. It's a nice mix of honest and self-serving, so hey. @sailboat: I only have trivial criticisms, sorry: Single line spacing in the experience section contrasts badly with the >1 line spacing in the skills section; I think consistent spacing would be better. I feel like your sentences should be terminated with full stops. If you have non-proprietary code you can share, a github link in with your other contact information probably couldn't hurt. In other news, did something happen with #cobol or am I just poo poo at irc?
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Nov 29, 2014 10:58
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You can infer the quality of the company's management with some degree of accuracy from their interview process, but the best way to find out if they have bad policies is probably to just ask relevant questions in your interviews. If you've come this far and still want the job, it's worth it to take the final step in the process imo. internship question: I've heard stories of people that took SDET internships being shunned from "regular" roles. Is working under a Site Reliability Engineer the sort of thing that can pigeonhole your career like that? The SRE guy is neat and has a technically interesting (if not terribly glamorous) project on offer, but I'd like to avoid tying myself to a specific role before I even get my first actual job.
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Dec 16, 2014 18:03
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LookingGodIntheEye posted:At my college I hear of a lot of internships for STEM types, like JPL, but not much on the side of comparable CS internships. It's a community college and I'm in my first year but I want to do some kind of major project or internship over the summer for transfer applications. I've tried to probe my professors but they don't seem to know of much, although I'm probably not probing them hard enough. I really want to push myself and what I know. I'm learning C++ and I'm familiar with C and HTML and basic data structures like linked lists, hash tables, and tries, but like I said I'm still only in my first year. I'm assuming you're in the general LA area? If not some of the following words won't apply but who cares. You'd be surprised at the variety of organizations that offer CS internships. I'm actually in an internship at JPL right now, doing internal web development for rover people. My classmates are interning at places like Western Digital, Raytheon, and some LA county department (the job admittedly sounds pretty boring, but it's still Software Engineering Intern type work). There are regular tech companies too -- Google has an office nearby, and they offer Engineering Practicum internships specifically for freshmen and sophomore students. That said, most big names have already finished recruiting for summer 2015. There are still plenty of companies looking for interns, but I'd advise that you start looking for summer 2016 internships in the fall of this year. Professors are probably unlikely to have many industry contacts, but they might be able to set you up with some code-monkey type work for their research. If your CC profs don't have labs, you might consider reaching out to faculty at a research university if you have one nearby. Finally, if you actually comprehend even just basic data structures, you're well ahead of most freshmen. Don't sell yourself short!
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Feb 19, 2015 03:19
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LookingGodIntheEye posted:You're awesome, thank you! How does web development relate to rovers? What are you doing exactly, if you don't mind me asking? Happy to help! Like most people, I love talking about myself. Without naming the specific product, I can say I'm making a website that lets people perform queries on a database of Mars rover telemetry and do some simple map visualisations. It's just a pretty wrapper for an existing project, as the database, server, routing schemes etc. are all provided. Other projects I was offered (weeks after I had already accepted the above, meh) include: Building Python tools for training rover terrain recognition/assessment bots. Simulating 3d fluid waves for some science thing I don't recall understanding. Other misc info: pay is relatively low (used to be $10 per hour until very recently). The interviews were all extremely chill, no technical questions at all. Some actual-engineer interns I spoke to said their interviews were hard as balls, though, so ymmv.
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Feb 19, 2015 08:53
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shodanjr_gr posted:So they hire you (effectively, based on the work you are doing/have been offered to do) as a software engineer intern and then pay you a tad more than minimum wage? I get that it's a research lab but jeez...SE interns in the valley make 3x to 5x as much per hour...(going by the original $10 hourly you stated). Oh yeah, it's a 1.5 hour commute each way and the pay is negligible. I do it because it looks decent on a resume and it's fun. Oh, and I'm ~helping people put stuff on Mars~ (not really but oh well). I'll literally earn more in my first paycheck at Google this summer than the entire JPL internship pays 
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Feb 19, 2015 22:50
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perfectfire posted:I know I saw somewhere a huge list of good questions to ask interviewers. Does anybody have that link? This one? http://jvns.ca/blog/2013/12/30/questions-im-asking-in-interviews/
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Mar 8, 2015 22:33
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JuanGoat posted:Did you mean academic background? None of those determine whether or not you're any good at being a software engineer, and shouldn't influence compensation negotiation after an offer has been extended. Keep in mind that the worst they can say is "uh no thanks, we're sticking with our initial offer." If they balk and retract their offer when you try to negotiate, in my opinion that's a sign of really terrible management and you wouldn't want to work there anyway.
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Mar 11, 2015 05:22
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null gallagher posted:Can I get some resume criticism? I'm a CS student procrastinating on studying for finals rather than a real developer, so take the following with a grain of salt.
Overall pretty good; the lack of other feedback is probably a decent sign that there's not much wrong with it.
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May 12, 2015 00:59
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Illusive gently caress Man posted:I have a phone screen with google tomorrow. The guy said it'll only take like 15 minutes so I'm assuming this is not a coding interview. Is he just gonna ask me poo poo about my resume / basic knowledge or something? I graduated two years ago, I hope I haven't forgotten all the really basic poo poo I'm supposed to know. If 'the guy' is your recruiter, then it's just a conversation about who you are, what the job is, what's going to happen next, etc. It's not a screening unless you go out of your way to disqualify yourself. The technical phone screens will happen later, and you will want to study your fundamentals (specifically the topics from the slides you'll get from your recruiter) for those.
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Jul 10, 2015 03:05
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fence hopper posted:My question is, is a program that is obviously used for pirating books ok to showcase on a resume or talk about in an interview, do interviewers care about that? I guess if I did talk about it I could use Project Gutenburg books as an use case. Or does something like that only work when talking about downloading linux iso's on an internet comedy forum. fence hopper posted:Also is not having an internship going to hurt me? I worked full time through college and every internship around here would have been a taking pay cut that I couldn't afford at the time. That said, any work experience is good. If it's entirely irrelevant, like retail or food service, it demonstrates that you are not a complete fuckup by virtue of being able to hold down a job for 4+ years. If it's at all relevant - any sort of technical work - then that's even better, as you can talk about your domain expertise and whatnot. Since your work paid more than CS internships, which generally compensate very well, it's probably at least slightly relevant. fence hopper posted:Last question. Does anyone have any advice for getting a job on the west coast while living on the east coast? The unversity I went to is not big at all and has no name recognition.
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Sep 2, 2015 20:18
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I just got a job at Google, yay! I'd like to thank  now.That said, I'm obliged to tell you that by virtue of more money == better than, I'm now highly qualified to be a pedantic rear end in a top hat telling students and job seekers what they're doing wrong. Also I've come to the conclusion that taxes are literally Satan's work, stop the Congress created dust bowl.
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Sep 17, 2015 20:00
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sailormoon posted:Welcome to the cult, fellow Goongler. Will you be in Mountain View? For better or worse, yes. I interned in NYC, but Mountain View is closer to family and all that jazz. What's wrong with interview training? 
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Sep 18, 2015 18:47
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RICHUNCLEPENNYBAGS posted:Yeah, but there are limits. If you come out and say "OK, actually I want you to treble that" it's not going to go over well and might sink your negotiation altogether. I'm trying to get a sense of where a reasonable starting point is. From what I've read, 15-25% is a reasonable baseline for everyday circumstances and won't make anybody think 'hm maybe this person we wanted to hire is actually a clueless moron.' That said don't listen to me, I just got firmly shot down after asking for essentially 10% in my negotiations. Check the 'How do I negotiate a job offer?' thread, or whatever it's called, in BFC for more negotiation discussion.
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Sep 26, 2015 10:14
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Kuule hain nussivan posted:Just out of curiousity, can someone give me a quick overview of what a CompSci graduate in the US would know? Just trying to figure out how comparable the degree is to what we have over here. So far, I've done one year of a three year bachelors degree, and we've covered most basic stuff; Java programming, UML and general agile design, algorithms and data structures (recursion, different sorts, graph and tree algoritms, we implemented all of these ourselves), SQL and relational database design etc. The next 2 years are mostly going deeper into theoretical stuff like computation as well as developing larger software projects. Here are the core CS course topics from my university: Object-oriented languages (Visual Basic  )Technical Writing Ethics Programming Languages & Translation (parsers & compilers) Database Systems Algorithms Operating Systems Software Engineering Computer Architecture Computer Communications Artificial Intelligence (Sudoku Solving 400) Your program seems to cover the same broad strokes. I'd be more concerned about your university's name recognition than program quality, and I'm not very concerned about name recognition. So yes, apply with confidence. That said, remember that experience is key and lots of students get through school without absorbing what they were taught (let alone the concepts they weren't taught but which are necessary for success as a SWE). To have a fruitful job search, your best bet is to get experience prior to graduation via personal projects, open source contributions, or internships.
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Sep 29, 2015 20:38
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RICHUNCLEPENNYBAGS posted:Anyone ever accepted contingent offers? The idea isn't totally crazy but I have to be honest about being a bit wary of the risks. Contingent on what, exactly? An internship of mine was contingent on passing a background check, and I think my current job offer is contingent on graduating when I said I would. Those are quite reasonable, but an offer that was contingent on something like Q3 company revenue would not be.
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Oct 10, 2015 05:08
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RICHUNCLEPENNYBAGS posted:Sorry. Contingent on contacting current employers for a refernce. In my experience, that's legit. Unless you seriously burned bridges at a past employer you'll pass the check.
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Oct 10, 2015 05:52
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RICHUNCLEPENNYBAGS posted:Fair enough. How do people usually handle this? Like, I imagine you should say something to your boss rather than allowing them to be blindsided, right? Oh yeah, that sounds awkward. I have no experience with that in particular - hopefully others might have more to say? All I can offer is this relevant-sounding article.
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Oct 10, 2015 06:47
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This might not be exactly in this thread’s purview, but I’m in the team selection process now and could use some advice on evaluating teams. Or, just in case, if anybody in this thread is a Google employee that is familiar with teams in the Search product area and wants to be incredibly helpful by There are 3 teams in question: 1 – it’s growing fast, doubling headcount this year. The team used to be a startup until they were acquihired a year ago. Their CTO-turned-manager is young and ambitious and tries to keep the team feeling like a startup. 2 – a small but well-established and highly collaborative team adding 2 new positions this year. Lots of individual projects to own, but a significant percentage of them ‘fail’ and don’t ever launch. Manager is experienced and encourages cooperation over competition. 3 – a core team with lots of room for growth, a.k.a. it has executive attention and features in the company-wide OKRs. As a Principal Engineer this manager is the highest ranking of the three and oversees multiple teams. The managers described what their teams were doing at a high level but were frustratingly vague as to my actual responsibilities. I guess that’s to be expected as a fresh grad? Anyway, I was hoping to be able to make a decision based on the their projects and vision, but all three were interesting, well-scoped, and challenging. I don’t know what qualities I should be looking for in a team, but my gut feeling is to go for team 3 as a middle ground between the startup insanity of team 1 and the low-risk, low-reward team 2. Thoughts?
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Oct 29, 2015 01:38
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If it operates like Hired does, then it's probably relatively unfriendly to newbies. In my experience, Hired doesn't approve candidates it deems unlikely to be successfully placed (i.e. fresh grads with little-to-no experience). That said, I know a guy who got a job through Hired with just one internship under his belt, so ymmv.
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Nov 28, 2015 05:56
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