Slashdot Mirror
How To Get a Job At a Mega-Corp
Barence writes "'With the economic hangover starting to wear off, the technology giants are once again recruiting in earnest. Apple, Google, and Microsoft all have vacancies on their websites, and now could be the perfect time to land a job at one of computing's biggest hitters.' PC Pro talked to people inside Microsoft, Apple, and Google to discover how to track down the best jobs, and what it takes to get through the arduous selection and interview processes." With lots of experience both within and without, what other words of wisdom can be offered to those wishing to break into a mega-corp?
don't do it.
I'd much rather be a freelance decker than work for a megacorps...
in the last year, when interviewing...has anyone else noticed the interviewers air of superiority? like they hold the keys and you had better get to ass-kissing. i can't be the only one to have noticed this.
and this article...like the mega-corp is gods blessing to YOU. like you aren't just trading time for dollars and they aren't the ones making the profit? oh, please sir, may i have some more?
That way, you can toil for years as you watch them destroy what you've worked on. Highly recommended.....
With the economic hangover starting to wear off...
Says who?
Disconnect your television. Do your own research. Draw your own conclusions. They're probably lying. Don't be a sheep.
Drift around in a small ship until you get assimilated.
With lots of experience both within and without, what other words of wisdom can be offered to those wishing to break into a mega-corp?
Black clothes, a ski mask and quiet footwear would probably help.
I only skimmed the first and second pages, I didn't want to wait for all five pages to load.
What I gleaned from those two pages though is that large companies have job postings on their web sites. What a breakthrough! Who would have guessed this?
I have an interview with one of them next week. My tips:
* Don't give up. Be persistent in contacting with recruiting managers.
* Create a network. Do you know people there? I know many people who work for all of them.
Pretty simple, IMO.
SMB all the way. Unless you enjoy either having your spine ripped out, or relentlessly climbing the corporate ladder. I guess they supposedly have great salaries, but what is your soul worth? I have yet to find a corp that can beat the perks of working for a successful SMB. We need another article called how to break free of the giants.
CS: It is all sink or swim...oh and did I mention there are sharks in that water?
Seriously, many of the "published positions" are reserved for H1-B and other candidates who will not need pensions, who will cost less in salary, and who will be less likely to question management. It was laid out very well in this famous old video: (http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=TCbFEgFajGU)
Others are simply fraudulent: I used to work at a 500 person company which listed positions in my department and others where the "listings" were used to bump up head count for stock pumping and advertising reasons, while deliberately ignoring the hundreds of advertisements in order to demonstrate our "growth" and encourage investment while not actually paying for employees. The same nonsensical behavior used for the H1-B craziness are used for just this sort of stock pumping: roughly a dozen positions were always listed as "open", even though they'd quietly bury all the resumes. Other tricks, not in the video, include deliberately requiring far too many qualifications, listing far more qualifications than the role requires, listing far *fewer* qualificiations. It's especially fun when an HR department bases its manpower on number of applications handled, rather than number of employees placed or speed of placement.
The first page says... to get a job, you need to find a vacancy.wow!
The second page says... to get a job, you need to pay attention to the job description.damn! this is awesome!
The third page says... to get a job, you need to submit your CV and wait.holy shit! it never occurred to me that I need to submit a CV!
The fourth page says... to get a job, you need to talk relevant things during the interview.oh noes! I always talk about movies during interviews!
The fifth page says... to get a job, smart casual is a safe choice.This tip is godlike! Most other applicants dress in bikini and that's why they didn't get a job!
After spending nearly 7 years in Apple Retail all I have to say is STAY FAR FAR AWAY.
Don't work for a big company. Find an awesome small local company. You'll be happier.
I've been at "megacorps" twice. Both times by acquisition.
With so few megas, and so many minis, why bother? Just look for a good job. Sooner or later the megacorps will acquire your employer. Then you can decide if you actually like the megacorp.
For all intensive purposes, "whom" is no longer a word. That begs the question, "who cares"?
I worked for two years in a megacorp, and it was a horrible experience. The worst part about it was how upper management treated their employees. Compensation was below market standards. We were compensated less than market standards, yet expected to work longer hours, and be more productive during that time, than other corporations. HR hid all important information behind several layers of red tape.
The actual work was somewhat interesting, but there was no advancement. Sure, there were lots of dog and pony shows, but managers were encouraged to keep their employees in the same position for years, and would give bad internal references to facilitate that. It was considered easier and cheaper to hire externally for one position than hire internally for one and then have to hire again to fill the new vacancy.
The only real benefit to working for a megacorp is the prestige that comes with the name. "I work for XYZ," usually got a few looks of admiration or envy from those who didn't know any better (like friends and family, but not colleagues).
With lots of experience both within and without, what other words of wisdom can be offered to those wishing to break into a mega-corp?
You'd better be young, idealistic, without a family, and willing to trade your life for your job. Some large trendy corporations might not be like that (yet) but the vast majority of corporate america is a slave labor camp. My advice is to stick up for yourself and don't let anyone take advantage of you, because they will if you allow it. Overtime is for emergencies, not business as usual. And emergencies had better not be business as usual. If you think working 50 or 60 hours a week and foregoing vacation is normal or "necessary in today's world" stop it. Just stop it. Life is not all about working.
Disconnect your television. Do your own research. Draw your own conclusions. They're probably lying. Don't be a sheep.
Provided you have the requisite skills, find a recruiter (aka Head Hunter) to get you a contract position at Microsoft (Volt, Comsys, et al.), Verizon, etc. You'll make more money, get a peek at the corporate culture (to see if you like it), and might have a better "inside track" at applying. You might even get paid for all the hours you work! (depending on the ethics of the corporation and your contract agency).
The down-side is that you will have to pay for your own benefits (generally) and may resent the fact that someone is taking home part of what the company pays without doing any work for it, and will have less job security.
How do you contact such a person, yo ask? Post your resume on Monster with the right keywords (provided, of course, that you have the skills!).
YMMV
Uhm, the three companies you mentioned have had job offers up the entire time of this 'economic hangover' has existed.
You get in the same way people have ALWAYS got in. A friend on the inside or dumb luck.
The friend on the inside helps you bypass retarded HR people, otherwise you have to rely on dumb luck to get past that particular part of the process. After that, you just need to actually have a clue and fill their needs for them.
I've never had to deal with retarded HR in my career, luckily. Every job I can think of having, I got because I knew someone that worked there. In fact, thinking of all the people I know closely, I don't know of anyone right now (with the exception of a google employee friend, which I don't think knew anyone before hand) who got their job without knowing anyone at the place.
Persistent Volume manager for Kubernetes - https://github.com/dwimsey/openshift-pvmanager
In my own personal experience, I've found that the smaller the company, the more enjoyable it is to work for. Every time a friend starts complaining about their large company employer, images from Office Space start to pop into my head. The most frequent occurrence is the "Do you know I have five different bosses?" thing. For real. And all I can do is snicker.
As with every rule, there are of course exceptions. Some people thrive in a very rigid, stratified environment, and can handily deal with the bureaucracy. To them, the extra money and benefits are worth it. I have not found this to be the case personally. To each his own.
I work for a very small company, and if I wasn't working for them I would be freelance again. Freelancing is probably the most enjoyable thing you can do as long as you have good business acumen. It is not for everyone.
I cannot personally imagine applying at a large company on purpose, unless I was desperate or the job position was exceptionally interesting and included a large degree of freedom.
MegaCorps suck the souls out of employees, as they wither away doing the same thing day after day while being accosted constantly by wasteful internal politics. The best of the MegaCorps, like Google, will even give you "20% time" so that they can own the rights to your own best ideas.
A slashdotter who didn't build his own computer is like a Jedi who didn't build his own lightsaber.
Another thing to point out, as many people here have pointed out, David almost always eventually becomes Goliath, or David eventually goes out of business. Just compare the US federal government today to the Empire it was trying to get away from during the American Revolution. Fortunately, it is easier to step away from a company that has been acquired should you so choose. And quite likely with a fist of stock payout in your pocket.
The other nice thing about working for small companies, is if you see the conditions drifting towards bad management or bad decisions, you can call them out on it, and it's not too late to change course. Big companies who have had too much success tend to get lazy. With Microsoft, you have a company that for too long had no real competition, so they got real sloppy, and real lazy, and have trouble keeping up with the latest trends. The cracks are starting to show at Google as well.
Why would anyone WANT a job at a megacorp? Ok, job security might be a perk, but hey, have you ever had a hard time getting a job if you're good?
I had my share at huge international corps and every single time it was a gig that I could not stomach for more than half a year. It beats being "between jobs", but that's about it. Are you a geek? If so, then why the heck would you want to deal with bureaucracy getting in the way of everything? How could you stomach following "procedures" that are deemed correct no matter if you're programming software or refilling toilet paper. One size fits all. And it was great 20 years ago so it just has to be good now!
How can you stomach living under the thumb of a quarter report filling over-his-own-network-cable-stumbling idiot calling himself manager? He will be the one making the decisions for your work and you will be expected to do it, despite knowing that what you do is just plainly wrong, but it has to be done that way because marketing and legal decided it's the way to go. For reference, see cramming IE so deeply into Windows that it can't be separated, in case someone yells antitrust.
How can you stomach being the n-th coder from the right and being measured by some metric that simply does not measure how much meaningful work you really do? How can you stomach being busy gaming that system to appear very productive instead of doing meaningful work because everyone does just that and the ones who really work are getting lectured because they don't fulfill the "plan"?
How can you stomach meeting after meeting after meeting where everything that gets accomplished is wasting time because nobody will actually address the problem because it might end up in the meeting protocol and the real progress is made during the coffee breaks when people finally dare to voice their real opinion? If that.
Why the heck would you want to put up with all that?
We used to have a Bill of Rights. Now, with the rights gone, all we have left is the bill.
Megacorps aside, the interview process has changed significantly in the past few years. We're a small nonprofit devoted to building complex educational designs. While we're keen on building a lithe workforce during out startup stage, and while we're compensating only at the stipend level, our interviews are meant to bring in the best individuals we can find.
What does that means? It means that in addition to the interview itself, we discuss cases and, in many cases, ask for a code sample and/or add a programming challenge. The process isn't meant to be dispiriting in the least; but it is meant to bring in the most compatible, most visionary young people we can find, and, in our case, to help them get a significant boost onward toward their dream (read: visionary) career.
So, the arduous selection process isn't just a part of big-megacorps; it's becoming a part of many smaller (but highly innovative) organizations as well.
--Dave
Wear a suit.
Unless your an exec I dont know why anyone would want to work for a public company. Less pay and more BS. Granted I never have to worry about it since im a high school dropout but the small to medium business sector shows me lots of love. I did consult a few public companies in San Diego mainly branch offices and I did not like how IT was treated.
You starve and die on the streets without it, and they have it.
"Laborers and holders of goods and services must sell today for labor and its products parish, decay, rot, get lost, take up space for storage, and invite destruction from a thousand different causes. But not gold silver, and paper money; they can be held virtually without cost. It is this privileged position of the moneyholder over everyone else (except landholders) in the marketplace that gives rise to interest (monetary). "
http://www.cooperativeindividualism.org/newland-terry_on-silvio-gesell.html
Deleted
WTF?? more like Acid is just starting to kick in.
If you want to work on large scale projects, you pretty much have to work for a megacorp (or contract there). Not many 10 person companies are doing rollouts of 10,000 different applications to a million desktop users. What about an application with thousands of individual requirements? Not many 10 person companies are building moon rockets or mars rovers, pieces yes, but putting it all together just takes lots of people, and that means large company. There are intellectual challenges to big, just like to small, and getting practical experience in scalability is pretty darn useful.
During my MBA recruitment prepping this was a story we were told....
Big mega corp asks interviewee, "How many baby diapers were sold last year?"
Interviewee: "Well, there are 300 million people in the US, 20% childbearing age, and of those roughly a third have babies. So that's 20 million babies. A baby needs at least 2 changes per day so that's 730 diapers per baby. Times 20 million that's 1,460 billion diapers each year."
She got the job even though she pulled every fucking number out of her ass - I checked later. Why? Because they wanted to know how she thought.
Now you know how big-corps get people that make moronic decisions for big bucks.
Me? I would have just googled the fucking number and come up with a number that was, oh, I don't know, ACCURATE?! Nope, wrong answer - they want to see how you "think".
You see, most of the interviewers get their techniques and questions from the an flight magazine or from the Management Guru du jour's book that's on the Wall Street Journal's web site. So, kids, look at the best seller list, read the fucking things, parrot what you read and you're in.
Big corps devolve into stupidity after a while.
The best fucking tech interview I ever had was by a manager that reminded me of Bernie Mack. He asked, "What would you do if you didn't know what we were doing in some areas?"
I replied, "Go to Borders that night, buy a book on it and start cramming."
Right answer! He left to become Mr. Mom - his wife was an MD.
I HATE corporate life but in this economy, there's not much of a choice.
A friend of mine recently interviewed at HP. I talked with him about it.
He said that they are starting to hire again, that they told him they needed to get their head count up because they really had not been hiring in the past 6 years.
The vast majority of people are over 40, with pretty stagnant skills. One guy started asking him about a linked list in Pascal, that's how out of date they are! A hardware engineer didn't know what software defined radio was. Now, this guy that interviewed is a pretty smart guy, the best electronics guy I know in town, yet was not able to land the job after seven technical interviews. He also runs his own small software consulting company. He said the most unusual thing during the interview was a big boss lady that asked: "How was your first day?" as he was being walked out the door after 5PM.
Our consensus was that the manager could not differentiate between an interview candidate in the department and a new hire.
Another guy said that they used to serve steaks and have beer busts back in the good old days. He said those days at HP are gone. Now the cubes are smaller, like 6' x 8' Sounds like the power factory in the Matrix to me. A prison for your mind. Personally, I'm glad my friend didn't get the position.
I'm actually a bit surprised at the almost-uniformly negative response to "mega corps." I've worked at two companies that could be described as "mega corps." The first, while not exactly soul-crushing, bore such a striking resemblance to Office Space that I was happy to leave. The other one has been an almost-uniformly pleasant experience, with a solid focus on tech and very little bureaucracy. What I've taken away from this is that you can't judge the quality of a job by the size of the company.
As far as the 60-hours-per-week thing goes, both jobs had me firmly in the 40-45 hours range. The lone, very rare exceptions (50-55 hour weeks) were solely due to my own fuckups, and my desire to not have my fuckups impact the rest of my team (as in, they're actual people who didn't deserve to look bad because of something I did). I've never been forced to work long hours.
On the topic of overtime, I've found that mentioning "quality of life" and "no mandatory overtime" in interviews will get you dropped like a hot-potato if the company in question actually does expect 60 hour weeks. I've made it a habit to ignore people telling me not to ask these things, and make sure to ask it in every interview. Tends to weed out the places I don't want to work.
I realize that my experiences may not be the norm, though.
The biggest challenge of the 21st century is technologies of abundance in the hands of those thinking in terms of scarcity.
Money is a collective fantasy about rationing; how can we move beyond it? As Iain Banks wrote, money is a sign of poverty. James P. Hogan in "Voyage From Yesteryear" also envisioned a post-scarcity society that had moved beyond it.
The last time an big company recruiter sent me an inquiry, I sent back this link: :-)
http://www.whywork.org/rethinking/whywork/abolition.html
The problem:
"The Mythology of Wealth"
http://www.conceptualguerilla.com/?q=node/47
"The Wrath of the Millionaire Wannabe's"
http://www.conceptualguerilla.com/?q=node/402
"School Daze links"
http://listcultures.org/pipermail/p2presearch_listcultures.org/2009-October/005379.html
"Rebutting Communiqué from an Absent Future"
http://listcultures.org/pipermail/p2presearch_listcultures.org/2009-November/006005.html
Some more links about moving beyond the need to work for pay:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Basic_income
http://www.basicincome.org/bien/aboutbasicincome.html
http://www.usbig.net/whatisbig.html
http://www.pdfernhout.net/basic-income-from-a-millionaires-perspective.html
http://educationanddemocracy.org/FSCfiles/C_CC2a_TripleRevolution.htm
http://www.marshallbrain.com/manna1.htm
http://www.thevenusproject.com/
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Gift_economy
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Subsistence_economy
From something I helped put together:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Jobless_recovery
"Dealing with a jobless recovery presents global society with some difficult choices about values and identity. A straightforward way to keep the current scarcity-based economic system going in the face of the "threat" of abundance (and limited demand) resulting in a related jobless recovery is to use things like endless low-level war, perpetual schooling, expanded prisons, increased competition, and excessive bureaucracy to provide any amount of make-work jobs to soak up the abundance from high-technology (as well as to take any amount of people off the streets in various ways). That seems to be the main path that the USA and other countries have been going down so far, perhaps unintentionally. Alternatively, there are a range of other options to chose from, whether moving towards a gift economy, a resource-based economy, a basic income economy, or strong local communitarian economies, and to some extent, the USA and other countries have also been pursuing these options as well, but in a less coherent way. Ultimately, the approaches taken to move beyond a jobless recovery (either by creating jobs or by learning to live happily without them) involves political choices that will reflect national and global values, priorities, identities, and aspirations."
A 21st century issue: the irony of technologies of abundance in the hands of those still thinking in terms of scarcity.
The truth is you either need to be outrageously awesome and do something that changes the way we use computers (very unlikely), have an intense amount of luck to make it in or be a complete slob. I can speak from experiences when i say some people simply dont deserv their positions, and you see this alot in large companies. Other then that the only true way into a good corporation is to buy the management drinks at a bar or know someone lol
With the current demographics (rise in longevity, rise in medical expenses to achieve said longevity, and drop in family size), retirement is no longer economically viable. Companies don't want to be responsible for something that will be really difficult to impossible to provide.
-- Support a free market in the field of government
I've learned so much and gained access to brilliant people that I never would have met elsewhere. Don't tell smart, young people to intentionally ignore the incredible opportunities that are available in such places. The better advice has nothing to do with mega-corps and is more about behavior: Avoid blind ladder-climbing strictly based on pay, otherwise you end up stuck in a high paying job that you hate, but cannot leave because your true calling in life cannot pay the bills that you've accumulated so far.
I am currently at megacorp and there are few reasons why
- 23 days vacations
- 12 holidays
- plenty of sick time
- working from home pretty much on your own schedule
- above implies working pretty much from anywhere (local or international)
- some deadlines but not too bad, workload 40-45 hours
- $$$ (salary) + $$$ (bonuses) + $$$ (benefits)
so reason I would conisder quit
- 5 managers to report to
- meaningless corporate training
- track your time in multiple tracking systems
- managers above any other employes
- politics
None of this talks about the actual work I do since lots of it depends on how I define it. Sometimes it is pretty interesting, sometimes can't stand it but it must be done.
Fresh out of college, bright-eyed young students almost always assume that the real world is all about who you know. Older, more experienced engineers know better--what you know is also important. It's age-old, the young nerds dream of politics while the old ones dream of interesting problems.
I got my job myself at a megacorp without knowing anyone (cold application to website).
Many employers are also looking for people who can be good team players. Communication skills and attitude (or lack of attitude) are also very important attributes. This guy hits the nail on the head. http://williamfink.blogspot.com
So these big companies get hundreds/thousands of CVs/Resumes per job yet they're still always asking for higher limits on H1-B visas because they can't find anyone.
Moving from Apple Retail to Apple products...
"You didn't get a job in Apple Retail expecting to move up to working on Apple products did you? If so that would be the saddest thing I've heard in a while"
Obviously, you aren't an Apple employee, and you haven't really used Google without declaring this.
If you are an Apple Retail employee already, ask your HR person about the "Apple Retail Corporate (ARC) Exchange program". I know at least seven people who are working in Core OS, or on products like "Numbers" or "Final Cut Pro", etc., who started out as Apple Retail employees, and those are just the people I know personally. If you are qualified, it's relatively easy to get what is effectively an internship, either coming from the store to corporate, or going from corporate to the store. If I recall correctly, in fact, an HR manager from corporate is now the manager of the "flagship" New York Apple Store.
-- Terry
This is actually a really good summary of work at Microsoft. I was going to clarify or expand on a few points, but honestly he pretty much nailed it.
Warning: Contents May Be Flammable. Keep Out Of Reach Of Children.
Method 1
Step 1: Pay the Berkeley, Stanford, MIT, Waterloo, Harvard, IIT, Beijing University,Oxford, or a similar school lots of money for a piece of paper (or get lucky and get financial aid)
Step 2: Pay the school even more money to get an "advanced degree"
Step 3: Put all kinds of keywords on your resume/CV, but highlight the school name in bold and make it a few font sizes larger then everything else
Method 2 ...
Step 1: Build successful company
Step 2: Get acquired
Profit?
I wanted a leading role at on of the top companies, and I got it after about a year of effort. I later had to hire people to my new team. Here is my $.05.
1. Know exactly what you want, and do your research. Who would your managers and colleges be? Become familiar with them.
2. A hiring manager usually have specific short term tasks to be solved. Know what they are, and make sure you are the solution to at least one of them. If you are not, it is probably not a good job to focus on anyway.
2. Get in multiple applications. One to HR, other people on the team you want to get into. Also find a friend already in the company, and have them forward a resume.
3. Go to conferences etc. Your future boss and colleagues might be keynote speakers etc. Listen to what is important to them, and talk to them.
4. Hone your skills, and become the right fit.
5. A team just wants to be successful in the organization, with little risk.
During interviews, make sure the team knows that you will contribute to the short term challenge at hand. Also document that it is little risk to hire you. By low risk I means mostly that you can and will deliver as expected with no incompetence, attitude, and personality problems. If you can't, it it probably not the right job to focus on anyway.
6. Know what you are worth to them, and ask for it, not more. That may include moving expenses etc.
Bottom line: Know what you want, and go for it, and be prepared and be honest to yourself and your future team. Honesty makes it easy for you to convince people that you are the right person.
don't cut it off www.mgmbill.org
As someone who's just gone through the process with both Microsoft (internal referral), and Google (just submitted my CV) and got offers from both, I can say that 12 years into my career the thing that seems to matter most is the reputation.
Of course it also helps if you don't botch your interview (which in itself is not a trivial thing to accomplish, given all the randomness inherent in the process), but having a few references (preferably ex-bosses) who will speak highly of you helps a lot with getting a good competitive compensation package, even now, in the middle of the "recession".
The point is, if you're not a noob in this industry, when doing your current job think of what people will say about you when you move on. And don't suck. That's all there is to it really.
I know several people who started in Retail at Apple, and are now working at Apple corporate. Among them are a very talented visual designer, a manager who leads a team that develops various apps for internal use, and a person who writes sales training materials that are used worldwide.
Besides those, I can also point out that since Apple retail is growing so quickly, that people who stay within the retail organization can move up quickly if they're willing to learn and work hard. I know three different people who went from sales, to assistant manager, to running a store within three years.
I don't know what problems you had when you worked there (assuming for the sake of argument that you're not making it up), but I know that many others have done quite well by joining Apple retail. I'm even aware of several people who didn't make the cut to get their own store at Apple, but were recruited to run stores for other companies.
-jcr
The only title of honor that a tyrant can grant is "Enemy of the State."
If you are going to break into a megacorp, do it after you get your masters. A masters doesn't necessarily mean you are a better programmer than one who only has a B.S. or even a A.S. degree (I've seen M.S. grads who can't code their ways out of a for loop.).
But it does help in establishing a career path into software leads, principal engineers or software/system architects. Of course, the onus is on you for being able to delivering the goods as well as being able to roll your sleeves and code and make things happen.
Also, when in universities, get a job at their labs or do research, or do interships. That is, accumulate work hours.
Now, if you are already out of school and not working on a mega-corp, then go back to school and finish a MS. Then apply. If you are good, you should be a hot catch (experience and post-grad education.)
That's my opinion now that I look back at my professional experience (having worked both in small and big corps.) They way I see it, if you want to work on a mega-corp, do it with the purpose of establishing a career path as a team lead or principal engineer. If it's just for the love of coding, I would stay with small companies (or work as a consultant and milk the OT.)
Take that with a grain of salt. My opinion is extremelly personal and after ruminating about what I like and I don't like about software work on small and big corps.
I worked there for three and a half years, so here's my advice:
1) Don't get discouraged if you don't get the first job you apply for. The contacts you make on the first round of interviews can help you the next time around. Try to make an impression on the recruiter, it will help if they remember you when you apply the next time. I would estimate that less than half of the people at Apple were hired for the first position they applied for. Typically, the job they did end up getting was a far better fit.
2) In interviews, if you don't know something, never try to bluff. Say you don't know it, and briefly describe how you'd go about finding it out.
3) Apply for a job you actually want, not one that just looks like a good way to get in the door. If the team you apply to join doesn't think you really want to be in their group, they have many other candidates who do.
4) Apple has the best in-house recruiters I've ever dealt with, bar none. When I joined Apple in '82, it was during a hiring freeze, and my offer had to be approved by senior management to get a waiver. My recruiter did an incredible job of arranging an interview with my hiring manager, two of his peers in other groups, every engineer on the team I was joining, and our group's VP, all in time for them to get an offer to me before Apple went on their December break (a window of about three days).
Hope this helps,
-jcr
The only title of honor that a tyrant can grant is "Enemy of the State."
I've worked for three large companies and three small companies. I like to work at a larger company to tackle more interesting problems. I like a small company to get breadth of experience. The one company I'd never work at again is Microsoft. What an HR nightmare and full of politics. I can see now how they put out junk in some areas.
And it's good Subgenius rant. But I have to point out something.
I've worked at large companies as well as small ones. There *is* slack to be had at larger companies as well. Think Wally from Dilbert. Sometimes you can land a position where your job is to warm a chair. I had a job like that for 3 1/2 years. I was a chair warmer. Sure they gave me work. And I did the work. But. None of it went anywhere. I knew that about 3 months in - a co-worker told me how 99% of the things they make get buried, and my project would definitely be one of them. At hire there were lots of big promises about the new product line and spearheading a new effort and taking the company in new directions and territories. But it became obvious that my job really was to justify the amount of management the company had. A sickly symbiotic relationship began.
And once I had learned that, I had some pretty serious slack.
I used to sneak out to the parking lot and nap in my van, or work on projects from home. I had a laptop pc. I'd run the AC in the big van and just hang out. I even soldered an electronics project in my van. Mostly to see if I could do it. Yes, I could.
Now I'm not saying that every corporate cube has that much ease. But. You shouldn't discount larger companies out of hand. Some of them are so large you simply "get lost" and people just leave you alone. When that happens you are on your own. Just show up at 8:30, make sure the boss sees you...then sneak out and go to the park or take a 3 hour lunch. When you're lost in a large company, it's almost fun to see how much you can get away with. Bring in a portable HD and play games with Portableapps DOSBox, or WinUAE (nothing that installs files on the work PC is the rule). I taught myself Java from downloaded PDF books. And snuck out to take the exam.
Yes, I've actually done all of those things. Not every day, not all the time...but I have had some absolutely excellent slack at big company jobs.
How did it end? I got bored and ran out of stuff to do, the economy turned around...so I found a real job. I actually do prefer to work and I do like what I do. But it was an excellent place to lay low and ride out the dotcom bubble. A lovely paid vacation, I like to think of it.
Weaselmancer
rediculous.
I've never experienced this. With one set of interviews from a huge aerospace/defense corporation, they interviewers were almost sucking up to me, I suppose because I seemed like a good candidate. When I asked them stuff, it sounded like they were trying to give answers that would please me. I ended up turning them down for a small company, but they even followed up with me to ask where I ended up.
Depending where you are in your career, it might be easier to just start out at the bottom. I don't currently work for a "Mega-Corp" but I did intern at one for a few years back in my university days. Often times it is much easier to get your foot in the door doing some menial job like data entry or QC and then slowly work your way up the ladder. However, from my experience I believe this will only work up to a point. Usually there is a dead zone in the corporate structure where the executives and upper management decide to not promote from within but to hire cronies, or the children of their cronies, from outside the organization. Just my limited observation.
No one cares what your captcha was
Houston TX, USA
I work for one of the original mega-corps as a consultant. My rate is top-notch (according to comments on another recent thread, I have "made it"). I work with top enterprise servers, and am trusted to plan things out from time to time. I am given the flexibility to work 40 hours or 60 hours in a week, depending on how much I want to make that week.
It's not all bad.. Sorry but lot of times Slashdot readers come off as a bunch of whiners. Maybe the ones that like to roll up their sleeves and make a living are too busy doing so to write a lot of comments.
Laws are rules for the court, but merely a bottom bar to hit for life. Think beyond laws in your actions always.
I'm from Brazil, in 2006 I was thinking about going to the US to learn english (which I still barely...) or even get a masters degree or something. So I got in the US as a student. Searching around the internet I've found a megacorp offering jobs for foreign students. 20 hours/week, which is the max hours a foreign student can work. At the time a had a very good TOEFL score and I didn't beleive I would have problems in a job interview. That lead me to the most awkward moments I had in my life....
The interviewer, which name I still don't have idea how to pronounce, was a Indian guy. I couldn't understand what that man was speaking to me, still, he sounded arrogant and he did talk about his graduation back in @#$@#6 (indian city?). I was justing selecting some keywords I did understand to interrupt him and talk about the experience I had.
Beleive or not, I finished a masters degree working there without understanding one word those indians said. Lotus notes really saved me there.
Still, after a while I realized why they were so arrogants to candidates there. They were both afraid of them and they were trying to pass the idea that the company only hired heroes. But the truth is, My boss wouldn't have his doctored without me teaching him how to properly define a GDT and LDT for intel 64 computers in C. I won u$ 100 from him on a bet: he beleived defining those things were impossible in C.
That man couldn't do anything without hundreds of java frameworks and books of 1000+ pages. He had every possible Java certification. Still, he didn't have a clue on how computers work or how to make software diferent from edit boxes and save buttons.
At the end, I realized that his college was, de facto, some kind of course with Sun curriculum for Java only.
I own a avionics company, I have 39 employees total. I work there as a software developer, not CEO (I'm a geek). The truth is, my /. friends. I want every single employee working as hard as they can. I want their souls - no kidding. I want them to work perfectly to exaustion and possible death. Because every night I go to bed praying to have money for paying their salaries and keep the company open. Every night I can't sleep because if I don't get one more client they will loose their jobs and I will loose everything. I'll never own a company again.
In addition to that, add the environmental aspect of trying to get a job, in this or in any economy. As a student, how many times have you received a graded exam and smacked yourself over "obvious" mistakes? In a tense, pressured environment, trivialities can blossom into blocks that can really screw someone up.
economy is coming back? what kool aid are you ingesting?
than join the Navy?
Ask Me About... The 80's!
Worked for SUN, which had amazingly open culture and very nice approach towards the engineers, with excellent pay and benefits - pity the company is no more. The interview was some talk to the future manager and a few technical guys, that seemed to be very nice. Rejected their offer twice until we finalized it. Then sometimes working 80 hours/week on really critical situations that threatened company to lose millions of dollars in penalties.
Then interviewed at Microsoft and despite the recession received job offers I declined, while they are getting back to me every half year to join them. The interview was fun and relaxing, ~8 hours long. They were extremely well prepared for the interview and very professional. When discussing their culture, it was clear they tend to value individual contributions a lot and like people with "coyones". My advice, don't be afraid to confront their ideas on interviews, they seem to like people that can come up with better ideas and sell them during the interview (I did that). The interview started with HR and recruiter, continued with some tech leads and ended up with the main boss of the unit.
Then interview at Google - ~7 hours; interview was brutal comparing to MS, from the start flood of puzzles, dynamic-programming-on-the-graphs like problems and tricky algorithms that nobody solved before on interview and you were expected to solve them in 20 minutes (I really liked it, resembled crazy time at the uni!). Some people were excellent (I spoke Japanese with the first one, both of us Europeans), some were not really nice at all ("I am the best" attitude, despite being proven wrong with a counter example). Looked they weren't interested in people with a brain that can threaten they superiority, e.g. despite solving a problem optimally nobody solved before during the interview (interviewer's words), the interviewer didn't seem to be very happy in the end. Had to sign NDA before interview. Interviewed only by engineers, no managers/HR involved. No job offer resulting from this. Anyway, I enjoyed the experience (Thanks Google)!
I ended up headhunted at NOKIA, no technical questions on interview at all, which made me think if this is the right choice during the interview (possible lack of challenges in the future?). Now working on an equivalent of Google Earth for different purposes. Mix of the latest technologies (HTML5, OpenGL 3.2, Qt4 etc.) as well as really outdated ones (Swing). Playing also with Android. Culture is more sales driven than engineering driven. Quite excited by the latest NOKIA announcements. 40 hours/week, excellent personal life balance (now got time for learning piano etc.).
Look also at Glassdoor.com, you might get ideas whether you want to join a particular company or not, including interview questions.
My suggestion is to have coding contests where the winner gets a priority spot in line for a job. Make the contest fun, challenging and something people would actually want to spend time on (look up some of Google's challenges as an example). Publish the contest, the perks of your job, salary, etc. as a big fat carrot and the winners will be people who know can do the job. Let the job suitors do the work for you in selecting the best and brightest.
Only if my grammar were so up to par, sheesh! Title should have been "Resumes Lie".
Maybe a little hard cash to motivate? Say top prize gets $500, the second place gets $200, etc. You could implement a time-based contest, so whoever gets all the answers in right the quickest wins.
Just to put a little background on this post, I've worked in New York City for most of the Fortune 100 finance companies, including Goldman Sachs, Deutsche Bank, Charles Schwab, JP Morgan Chase, Morgan Stanley, and Credit Suisse as a consultant or employee in my past 10-years as a Windows Server Administrator. I have known people who worked for the other top finance firms that I just happened to never work at such as Citibank, Lehman Brothers, and others so I would like to say that I am a little qualified to tell you how to get a job at one of these companies since I've been able to do so.
I started my professional computer career with work in my high school to help them at the computer lab, and I mentioned this on my resume, then I had a little after-hours computer job as a junior computer guy at a technical telephone company. After I dropped out of high school in the beginning of my junior year I got my GED diploma and decided to go into the job market right away since I knew that computers are where my future lies.
Computer City, Dot.com Bomb
My first real job was doing computer repair at Computer City (now out of business) and then I moved up to desktop support and junior Windows server administration at a tiny dot.com company with only 5-servers. But in this time I had gotten my CompTIA A+ hardware certification, a number of minor printer and desktop computer certs from Hewlett-Packard, and I was studying for my MCSE 4.0 at the dot.com company. After months of studying and hands-on practice at work and at home I was able to complete it by passing each test, one at a time slowly studying all the material for that test including extra information from TechNet and MSDN to get a good feel or what problems show up and how they are resolved. I did not attend college or any type of formal education training program but instead relied on study guides and hands-on practice to get my skills and I have been successful at doing this, even up to my third MCSE and now going for the forth, MCSE 2008.
In the early days of my career I also started taking the rest of the CompTIA certifications such as Network+, Server+, and Security+ to round-out my knowledge in those fields because frankly I didn't know much about anything but I realized that the study guides were written for novices like myself and they gave me a good overview of things. Since then I've used certification study guides to learn new things because I find that the guides are so generally written that they are a great starting point for learning, and later on as you get experience you get more in-depth with more difficult books. So if you are one of those people that scoff at certifications as useless or just empty papers, realize that while the title and test are not all that useful the study guides are actually great sources of general knowledge material to get start on.
Goldman Sachs
After the dot.com company went bust I signed up with job web sites such as Monster.com (not so good anymore), JobSeekers.com, and I believe Dice.com (the most important one for IT workers). A recruiter found my resume online with a good history of computer jobs and most importantly with the MCSE 4.0 certification an A+ that was in demand at the time by all the large firms. That first A+ certification and MCSE certification got the recruiter to look at my resume, then they looked at my short but upwards moving career in IT and offered to set me up with an interview at the firms. The recruiter submitted my resume for a consulting position paying $45 per hour back in the early 2000's, that was twice the rate of my previous job. After three weeks of waiting Goldman Sachs scheduled a phone interview screening for me where they asked basic and intermediate technical Windows questions and I did well enough to move me to the next stage.
They then scheduled the first of three in person interviews where I met the senior members of the team, one at a time who basically grilled me with technical questions and scenarios. I
So I have told them to stuff their jobs where the sun does not shine.
I got a new job now, with people that knew me.
I didn't even have to go through an interview.
Morale: don't burn your bridges, plan for bad times, so you can maintain your dignity even during times of hardship (I don't have much sympathy for the folks that frequently cite "putting bread on the table" for accepting being humiliated or doing unethical things in order to keep a job).
IANAL but write like a drunk one.
What you should ask is to implement a quick sort routine.
Then give them the necessary book explaining the algorithm, or a computer with internet access.
Rote memorization is not a skill I would want in a programmer as a main trait.
IANAL but write like a drunk one.
This Talibanized mentality about programming really has to stop.
People can arrive to the same knowledge by many different ways, it is simply stupid to expect people to arrive to a certain degree of competence by the same means as you did.
IANAL but write like a drunk one.
Just talk about programming.
It takes 5 minutes to know if the person in front of you is conversant with the field or not.
IANAL but write like a drunk one.
And still they get all the jobs.
Bloody sour grapes from you and the GPP if you ask me.
IANAL but write like a drunk one.
I have worked for companies with US HQs in the EU. Since they have to respect EU law I have never worked more than 40 hours a week.
But perhaps some people in the US should grow a spine and learn to say no (I worked in a couple of countries with shit labour laws, where other people were working regularly 50 or 60 hour a week, I still worked no more than 40 because I made perfectly clear I wasn't going to work for free).
IANAL but write like a drunk one.
Go to the company's website.
Find positions available.
Apply for a job.
I actually got a request to interview for Google, but they were asking me to relocate, so sadly I had to turn them down (googlechaps, next time you say you have a position in London look at the map: Dublin is not a London suburb!).
There is nothing particularly different to applying for a position anywhere else as far as I remember.
IANAL but write like a drunk one.
Agreed, you don't have to be a god to say no. All that is required is a modest fuck off fund and a little self respect. If the inteviewer wants a parrot then they should visit a pet store.
OTOH having interviewed ~50 programmers over the years I found most of them who get past HR are knowledgeable enough to do the job so you need to sort them by personality. One such personality sorting alogrithim I use is to ask esoteric questions until the prospective employee is forced to either start bullshitting or say the magic words "I don't know, I would have to look it up".
Since no two programmers have the exact same set of esoteric knowledge you can usually reach the crunch point in a few minutes and their response makes your choice obvious and defendable to others in the interview process.
And did you exchange a walk on part in the war for a lead role in a cage? - Pink Floyd.
"Explain quicksort? Seriously? That borders on cruel unless they're straight out of college." - by dgatwood (11270) on Friday January 15, @07:43PM (#30786246)
Damned straight, & they'd best have been STRAIGHT out of a DataStructures course (because that's where you get exposure to sorts & their relative merits vs. one another, & on what sizes of datasets, or integer data, etc. et al)... though, MOST students get THAT course by their 2nd to 3rd year in, not their last ones, typically.
AND, before I go "forward" in my wholeheartedly in agreement statements, which are in harmony with YOURS?
I'd like to say that it's "No small wonder" that you were up modded to +5 for your reply - it's DEAD ON ACCURATE is why (you are the voice of experience in other words)...
Plus? Well, I was actually interviewed by MS, & back as far as 2003 no less, see URL below (they came MY way, not I to they) & my reply was rated well here (+3 interesting iirc):
http://developers.slashdot.org/comments.pl?sid=155172&cid=13007974
The discussion surrounding it? THAT, was "HUGE" here (especially on midpoints of arrays & performing a swap using 2 variables only (this ONLY works on INTEGER DATA though, afaik), vs. the typical 3 vars used ala "Father, Son, & Holy Ghost" as I call that method)... you MAY find it, an "interesting" read.
----
"Those of you who have been out in the workplace more than ten years, raise your hand if you still remember how to write quicksort without looking it up. Heck, half the quicksort algorithms I see published in textbooks have an off-by-one error and don't even work. It's quite possibly the most frequently botched algorithm ever. And you want somebody to explain it cold? You are one sick [expletive deleted]. :-D" - by dgatwood (11270) on Friday January 15, @07:43PM (#30786246)
I actually do, believe it or not... & you're correct that some variations ONLY work on certain kinds of data OR are less efficient than others are for certain sizes of data etc. et al... NOW, I do KNOW that for instance, many languages/compiler IDE's + prebuilt controls DO use "quicksort" by default (e.g.-> A listbox load, & if its property for sorted vs. unsorted loads are set)... or variations thereof.
JAVA for instance, uses QUICKSORT in its arrays.sort() method. Borland Delphi, when you load a listbox with its SORTED PROPERTY SET, uses QuickSort to do so, by DEFAULT.
Why?
Because QUICKSORT iirc, typically is the F A S T E S T sort, overall, of them all (for the largest range of data sizes possible)...
HOWEVER - For relatively smaller sort sets (which odds are, is MOSTLY what you'll run into & work with)?
Personally??
I'd use INSERTION SORT (very easy to implement is why, especially to comparison to say, MERGE SORT or HEAP SORT... imo, @ least).
----
"Besides, there's no useful reason to know quicksort unless you're applying for a job writing sort algorithms. For 99% of the programming jobs, all that really matters is that when you ask them what sorting algorithm they would use to sort a list of 10,000 items, they had better not say bubble sort or suggest implementing their own algorithm (which will invariably end up looking an awful lot like bubble sort). There are plenty of libraries out there for heapsort, quicksort, etc. that are so trivial to use that it makes knowledge of the algorithms at any depth largely unnecessary." - by dgatwood (11270) on Friday January 15, @07:43PM (#30786246)
Right on, spot on, again... for 10,000 items? INSERTION SORT or QUICKSORT do the job, & fast, PLUS, the former is VERY EASY TO IMPLEMENT & UNDERSTAND... easily.
There's also as you say, prebuilt CODE SNIPPETS (heck with libraries for it, that means messaging overheads imo, avoid them IF
The discussion surrounding it? THAT, was "HUGE" here (especially on midpoints of arrays & performing a swap using 2 variables only (this ONLY works on INTEGER DATA though, afaik), vs. the typical 3 vars used ala "Father, Son, & Holy Ghost" as I call that method)... you MAY find it, an "interesting" read.
----
All data is integer data. Recall that we're working with a computer, here.
Well... except for FLOATING POINT data (After all, there IS that too you know, along with alphanumeric types as well/also & more like boolean etc. et al)...
HOWEVER: Try to do a swap of two variables, & using only 2 variables (instead of the TYPICAL 3 vars used, 1 being the "temp slot").
You'll run into what I did: That it only seems to work with INTEGER DATA (not other types). Still, the point is, you CAN do it, IF you are a bit "creative" is all... however, the REALLY "ODD PART" of that, is this: Even though you'd THINK it'd be faster to use 2 vars instead of 3?
Well - I've read that using 3 is SOMEHOW (don't understand how, but it's what I have read) that swapping 2 variables data is FASTER using 3 vars (somehow, & I don't CLAIM to understand how, compilers today are OPTIMIZED for 3 var swaps, even though instancing/dimming 2 vars takes up less memory etc. by minute amounts & SHOULD entail less processing but... there you are!)
Fact is?
Not everyone KNOWS about that one (or, the XOR swap, which is much the same).
E.G.-> I ran this by a professor, who is HEAVY on MATH & also has 40++ yrs. of teaching experience no less & HE wasn't aware of it, & said he would BET ME I could not do it... I did, on arrays, & as I was walking away from the blackboard, he said "Hey wait: Shake my hand - YOU DID IT!" & then he was like "We have a 'devious mind' in class with us students" to which I said "NO, I didn't 'invent it', I was 'turned onto it' by my seniors in programming on the job the past 16++ yrs. or so is all"...
(In any event, though I am going "off on a tangent" here? Well - I nominated him for "professor of the year" too, & he won... he is, TRULY, that good, because he MAKES DAMNED SURE the people in the class who have "the deer in the headlights look" on their faces, DO understand it, by making THEM answer the questions (even if they cannot get them right))
Later, @ the end of the semester (a JAVA based advanced course)? He told me, via email, that I was "an inspiration to the younger students & showed dedication + drive" well... to get an A, which I did, well... I really HAVE to be that way! Why? Well:
These young guys out there now? They are way, Way, WAY better than even the BEST I met when I began added academia training to improve myself...
Thus, imo @ least?
Well - I have to go mgt. & soon, or I will not be able to compete as well (on wages requested alone, the younger guys can "undercut my bid" everytime & they usually do, so they CO$T less etc. et al).
Last semester is upcoming for me, towards yet another degree, FINALLY (yes - going for more schooling here as I do periodically every so many years, as I HAVE to, because "those who self-teach have a FOOL for a master" per Benjamin Franklin's proverb on THAT account...)
To me? WELL - learning from experience is a GREAT teacher, & then doing it yourself, hands-on while doing so & afterwards? Shows you the NEXT BEST TEACHER - experience, & "hands-on, in the trenches"...
APK
P.S.=> And, because of arrays "bounds checking"? You run into other issues in various languages/compilers because of it, in my other part of that discussion (which was finding the midpoint of an array (useful for binary search & such for example), without knowing the TOTAL AMOUNT OF ELEMENTS present, first... doable, using two pointers vectoring thru an array, one ALWAYS being DOUBLE THE SIZE OF THE OTHER)...
(This can be done using Array indices too, by the by).
You can "get around" the "std. structured err handlers" though, easily enough too, vs. abends/errors on THAT account as well, by doing an OVERRIDE of them, via Try-Catch-Except/Finally type statements that various languages such as Borland Delphi &/or JAVA allow for (just a couple examples, other languages, like older VB has "On Error Resume Next" or "On Error Go To" stuff as analogs that I am aware of here on THIS account)... apk
You must be new to this internet thing: You're not supposed to respond to a revolutionary screed by bombarding it with analysis.
At the very best, you'll be ignored. Second to that, the person you've asked will just spam you with links to more "reading material" that is supposed to "open your eyes".
Actually, true computer nerds have always thought the way to score a big job is:
1. Locate desired megacorp
2. Fire up hex editor and stub out HR screening department with NOPs.
3. Locate hiring manager
4. Replace all references to phone numbers in hiring manager with references to nerd's own phone
5. Sit back and wait for the call
This last economic collapse is probably due to too many nerds forgetting to reverse their hacks after they get hired.
Google is a very fragmented company, with hundreds of departments working on independent projects that often NEVER come in direct contact with one another. They have also recently (last three years) overhired and are suffering from serious indigestion for it.
You say "this is a very good place to work" like you've worked for all those departments. I can say with complete confidence, without even knowing you, that you have not worked for more than a few, and are probably not even AWARE of many of them.
Those departments all promise the google "work environment" the same way that a collection of frat houses all promise the same "college experience". You can end up in the Tri-Delts or you can end up in the Mus, and it matters.
2) In interviews, if you don't know something, never try to bluff. Say you don't know it, and briefly describe how you'd go about finding it out.
You are absolutely 100% right. Candidates who come in here are not used to being interviewed by actual engineers, let alone a whole gauntlet of them, and the engineers have extremely high quality bullshit detectors. Any attempt to conceal technical weakness is taken as direct evidence of how they will behave when cooperating on a team:
Instead of admitting that the load they have been given is too heavy up front, and asking for help, or a different load, they will just jog along in silence until, ten miles down the road, when their work is vital, someone will confront them and discover that they have quietly pitched their backpack into a ditch nine miles ago. And now everyone's screwed.
Engineers hate that. HATE IT.
scholarship as undergrad and assistentships as grad
"now could be the perfect time to land a job at one of computing's biggest Hitlers." -am i the only one who read it like this?
Did I say anything at all to indicate that I believe what you accuse me of? Knuth is one place where the qsort algorithm can be found. I never said it was the only one.
-jcr
The only title of honor that a tyrant can grant is "Enemy of the State."
get job at Yahoo!: plenty of opportunities and a way better pay than at scroodgi Google with its privacy hating CEO :(
Take care, Cos