In this video, I am going to tell you how to get a job working for Google, Microsoft,
or Facebook, or Amazon, or any of those big tech companies.
The big, the big five as they...
I'm John from simpleprogrammer.com, and on this channel and on Simple Programmer, what
I teach you is soft skills.
I teach you how to improve your career, how to market yourself as a developer, how to
learn things quickly, how to advance your career.
Make more money, get a higher salary, and just become a well adjusted software to a
better person, so that you can have a better and more fulfilled life as a software developer.
It doesn't mirror the real world.
If you want to work for Google ... In fact, don't say I want to work for one of the five
big tech companies.
Okay?
Let me tell you why.
The biggest reason why is because you can't just be going around to night club like, "I'll
just ... Any girl that will take me, I'll have any girl."
What are you going to look like?
You're going to look desperate, and no one's going to want ... Why would some girl want
to be with you if you don't care which girl you're with?
If you go to a Google interview and you're essentially thinking, "Yeah, I could work
at Amazon or Facebook or, I don't care, as long as it's Apple or one of the big five.
You're not going to be coming in with the right mindset.
They're not going to want to hire you.
You need to be discriminate in choosing what company you want to work for.
Okay?
And this is just good, general advice.
I know that you're going to apply for more than one job at different companies, and you
should.
But you should focus specifically, especially if you want to get into one of these big five,
on one of them, and gearing everything towards that.
It's almost like a full time job, to try and get a job at Google.
Now, I know some people get out of college and they go into an internship program, or
they get recruited out of college by Google.
And I know that some people that are experienced software developers just apply for Google
and they get a job at Google.
And there's some geniuses that, whatever.
But for the average developer who's trying to make it into one of these big five companies,
you don't want to rely on luck.
You want to have a 90% chance to get in.
What I'm telling you now is going to give you a 90% chance of getting in.
The way that you want to approach this, let's say that you want to get a job at Google.
Just pick out Google for now, and research everything there is to know about the job
interview process and getting a job at Google.
There's even books, alright?
There's a book like The Google Interview, right?
I'm pretty sure, I can't remember it.
I'm pretty sure I've seen that browsing Amazon.
There's courses out there on passing the Google interview.
In fact, I've got a course that will help you for one of my friends, who has a company
called Interview Cake.
And they basically specialize in helping you get a job at one of these companies.
While something like that course might help you, you need to specifically be researching
the one thing, right?
If it's Google, if it's Amazon, if it's Yahoo.
You want to get a job at Yahoo?
I want to get a job at Yahoo.
Whatever it is, alright, you need to go and look specifically for that company.
You need to study, what do they ask on interviews?
Okay, now let me tell you from personal experiences, I'll tell you a story.
It's a sad story.
I went to my first Microsoft interview when I was a youngin', okay.
Way back when, this was when I was first starting out my software development career.
And do you think I researched what a Microsoft interview was like?
Do you think I researched any of the questions they would ask me?
No.
I was just like, "Oh, Microsoft called me.
They want me to come in for a job interview.
Ha ha ha.
Looks like I'm going to get a job at Microsoft," and I'm bragging, and I'm showing off and
I'm like, "Oh, I'm so special.
They're flying me out.
Of course they won't fly me out, unless they want to give me the job.
This is just a formality."
I didn't prepare.
I wasn't ready for that.
I was so confident that I flew out there without pants.
I literally was unpacking my clothes, and the night before the interview, and I look
into my suitcase and I'm like, "Oh fuck, there's no pants in there."
I have no pants.
Anyway, I go to the first interview.
The guy's like, he's got a whiteboard, right?
And he was like, "Oh, can you write some MFC code to blah, blah, blah, do this."
Or, "What's this type in in WIN 32 API?"
And I'm like ... I'm just standing there.
In my head I'm like, "What the fuck?"
I don't know.
I can't even, I can't even come up with a bullshit answer, right?
I'm a pretty good bullshitter, but I can't even, I don't even, I can't even.
So I'm just sitting there sweating, trying to write on the board and I like, I write
some C code and he's like, "Oh, let me give you help, let me give you a hint here."
He's giving me hints and I'm still ... All right?
That was a painful interview, okay?
And then, that's not it.
I'm not done.
I go to the next interview and it's more of the same shit.
They asked me a couple of questions that I could kind of answer, and didn't go straight
to the white board.
But then I'm on the whiteboard again, and they're asking me questions.
And there were some questions I answered, some generic C++ and C stuff, okay.
I didn't totally, totally bomb it.
I got sent home.
Okay?
I flew from Florida to fucking Washington, all right?
And I got sent home.
On the first, on the half day of interviews.
What was the mistake?
Was I a pretty good developer?
Yeah, I was good, I was making good money.
I was qualified.
I knew how to write C++ code.
But it doesn't matter how good of a developer you are.
You want to work for one of these companies, you have to know ... You have to study for
the ... It's like the SAT.
Some people take the SAT and they score really well on it.
But do you know who aces the SAT?
It's not a genius, it's the person who takes the SAT prep course.
That's it.
Because they study for the tests.
So all of you guys are complaining about whiteboard interviews.
I know, I know.
I've got videos on whiteboard interviews, okay.
You can find articles on Simple Programmer.
If I would've prepared ahead of time, if I would have talked to people that had already
done Microsoft interviews, which again ... Can you find people on the internet that have
already done a Google interview, or Microsoft interview?
Yes.
Will they gladly jump on a call with you if you pay them 100 bucks?
Yes, most of them would.
If you give me a brain dump of everything that, your whole interview process, right?
Imagine, if you're willing to invest the time, if you're willing to buy some specific courses
on the interviews, especially on learning coding interviews.
Now, I'm taking this from a totally different approach, okay.
If I'm just telling you what to do in general to prep for one of these interviews, I'm going
to tell you get cracking, the coding interview.
I'm going to tell you grabbed my Pluralsight course on interview prep, on coding interviews.
I'm going to tell you all this kind of stuff.
Why am I not telling you that in this video?
Because I want to highlight on the most important thing, which is if you really want to get
a job at a big five company, pick one of the companies and study.
Study exactly the questions, study exactly what the interview process is, go through
mock interviews.
And you'll know when you get in there what to expect, and you'll be prepared for that.
That's the best way.
You have the information out there, regardless of how smart you are, how good of a developer
you are.
That's not what they're doing.
That's not what they're testing.
The 1% of people that are qualified are going to get in, right?
But maybe 90% of the people that specifically study for the test, specifically studied for
the interview, that do that research, they could get in because they know what to study
for.
Leave a comment, let me know what do you think about it.
And go check us out on simpleprogrammer.com take care, man.