Mayuko Inoue: Hey everyone, how's it going? My name is Mayuko and welcome back to my channel.
So when I was getting my very first software engineering job, I had no idea how the recruiting process works.
Like I was just trying to get that first job.
And the whole process seemed like a black box that I couldn't see through whatsoever.
Once I entered the industry. However, I started helping out with the recruiting stuff,
like going to events and sitting on interview panels and stuff like that.
And it started just to make a lot more sense to me like how all of it worked.
And honestly, after I was able to see how things worked from the inside, I feel like ultimately, for every job after that I was just a much better candidate because I knew how things worked.
So I kind of figured it would be really useful for a lot of y'all who are trying to get that first job as software engineers,
to learn about how the recruiting process works.
So I invited my friend Sarah, who's lead negotiator at level.fyi,
and who also worked as a recruiter for multiple FAANG companies to my show Muko's Corner to talk about the recruiting process.
I've had her on the show before and we've talked about salary negotiation, but just her experiences are so valuable because
she really knows the ins and outs of recruiting and the do's and don'ts of getting that first job.
So in today's video, I'm going to share with you highlights from that show all about how the recruiting process works.
Everything from when the recruiting season starts to where companies decide to recruit candidates from and more.
So let's get started.
What does a typical process look like for a new grad, to get a job out of college into the tech industry?
Sarah: In terms of like from a candidate perspective is going to be pretty similar to an industry recruiting,
where you're going to go through the process of talking to your recruiter, and then the first technical phone
interview. And then the final round. So usually, for some company, they like to kind of shrink it and only
have you talk to maybe two to three software engineers, and then some company would want you to talk to three
to five engineers. Now these interviewers are usually those that just volunteer to be an interviewer. So
these interviewers that you talk to from a new grad perspective or intern, they may not be the people that
you will be working with. In terms of like the process, it tend to be a little bit more volume driven. So for
industry recruiting, usually what we look for is something very specific, like we need a backend
engineer who have experience with cloud computing, for example, versus for intern or new grad, we usually just
call them as like fungible engineer, let's just hire them through and then we'll figure out a team for them
after. So a lot of it is usually by cohort too. So a lot of it, it's almost like I mean, the best way to
describe it is like batch hiring.
Mayuko Inoue: When does like recruiting start for new grads? I guess. So if someone was to graduate in 2022,
let's say what's the earliest that companies are going to start looking to hire new grads?
Sarah: Yeah, good question. So for new grad an intern, the process start a lot sooner than when like they
actually open up the job. So usually for Amazon, we do operational planning. So we do operational planning one
and then operational planning two. So there's going to be like two times when we will reveal like headcount
and things like that. And budget, what does that look like, and only certain team choose to participate in,
okay, we want to have an intern and some teams can say, Hey, we don't have that capacity right now and
therefore, we're not going to participate. And so for new grads, usually the hiring process already start in
January of the year and the headcount, they usually get headcount from August of the previous years already,
the process, the headcount planning, all of that happens a lot sooner than you expected. And so usually
around this time, and it sucks for a lot of folks who graduate in December, when they start applying, and
they don't see anything, and they just start to wonder, like, Is there something wrong with my resume? What do
I need to do to kind of optimize my chance and sometimes too like, the headcount doesn't open until
March or June, and then the interview process will happen about like one to two months, and then you get
your offer and then you start in like, around like August.
Mayuko Inoue: So is it right then to kind of generalize that, like each company kind of has like, a number like
they have, like, there's this many seats open for new grads. And then so like you said, like new grad,
recruiting tends to be very volume based, where it's literally just like, interview as many people as you
can from different schools and try to fill those seats. Is that kind of like a good summary of how that works?
Sarah: Yeah, so there's like internship, and there's also co-op. So for some company like Microsoft, for
example. Or even like Facebook, they have specific recruiter to support certain school. And then some
company like for example, Apple can choose to have a much longer internship or that's what called co-op,
where it can be anywhere from six months to a year. And then there's only some company that say, you know, we
don't want to do that. We only want to do like, you know, 12 weeks sort of like program for intern. And
usually I would say like, stay on top of that company internship program. Because when we post a job, we just
get so many applicants. So usually the job only stay up for about a month. And then after that, we're going to
take them down to process all of the applicants that we have from those pipelines.
Mayuko Inoue: How do companies decide where to recruit from, as far as like choosing which universities?
Sarah: Yeah, so usually, they would choose like top tech companies. So for example, at Microsoft, they
would have a team of recruiter who only go after an Ivy League school, and then we have, Microsoft sometime
would have like a team that go to like top tech school like UC Berkeley or Waterloo. And you know, it really
depends, and usually company pays so much money to these schools. And that's where they want that ROI back
in their pocket.
Mayuko Inoue: Yeah, that makes sense it like I think I get a lot of questions about like, is it worth it to go
to a four year university for computer science? Or should I go to a boot camp? And ultimately, one of the
things that I think is important to think about is like, what kind of connections does that school have?
Because if you go to a school that has those connections, like if you go to UW, it's going to have a
connection to Microsoft, because it's right there. If you go to Stanford, you're gonna have connections to
basically every tech company there is. And so like, it's not just about I think, the education or the
experience of going to school, but it's the network that you gain as a part of being able to go to that
schools. How does it work on the recruiting side that like we just general people, normal people who are
trying to get a job into tech that we don't know about? Like, what's something that you think is like, a piece
of information that recruiters might all know, but yeah, it's it's not common knowledge out there.
Sarah: There's just a lot of different channel for like sourcing candidates. So sometimes we don't just look
through like the people that apply. And sometimes it will take us to kind of go out there and operate almost
like a headhunter like to see like who's doing what and you know, which in turn are new grad would be good for
certain position like this is more common for machine learning and AI just because usually, there's something
specific that we're looking for. The part that's I think that can can be a little bit tricky to navigate
here is industry recruiting is completely different than new grad recruiting. And they're just a lot more
red tape being put around new grad and internship. So sometimes, like, the difficult part is that we, I just
get so many messages from students, you know, asking for, if they can take a look at my resume and things
like that. And this, I can't do anything about it, I don't support the campus. And I don't have any
visibility into that. Even for an Amazon, we have two completely applicant tracking system where one is, or
only intern. And unless if I support intern, that's the only way that I would get access into it. So I can't
just randomly submit someone else and resume for that pod. And that's something that kind of like sucks at
the same time. Like as much as I want to help. This isn't anything that I can do. So for those that you
know, maybe want to reach out to your recruiter be strategic about who you are reaching out to. So instead
of just going on LinkedIn, and just look for a like technical recruiter and send your resume that way,
don't do that, do a little bit more of a tailor search, search for campus recruiter, search for a co op
recruiter or search for a like new grad recruiter, because you're probably will hear back from those
recruiter, more than like a leadership or like an industry recruiter.
Mayuko Inoue: I think there's a lot of pressure to have like a computer science degree to get that software
engineering job. most universities, computer science is an impacted major, which means it's really, really hard
to get into their programs and really, really hard to stay in the program. So there's just a lot of pressure
to like, stay a computer science student. And I think there is a lot of just like this notion that if you
don't graduate with a degree, then you won't be able to get that software engineering role. But what do you
think about that from a campus recruiting perspective? Is it really important for there to be a line that says
B.S. computer science?
Sarah: Yeah, so I'm gonna get the PhD out of the way first, because PhD is something very specific and
usually they will require you know, that you have a computer science or whatever it is that the company
really needs. So, PhD read your job description, it will say as a requirement then therefore, you will need
a computer science in order to get that PhD internship or Scholar Program or full time position. But for
bachelor and master degree, if you read the job description carefully for The education section, they
don't say you are required to have a computer science usually a lot of company will say computer science or
stem or related field and when they say that a computer science degree is not required. And actually, in fact,
like from I mean, from my time working at Amazon and a few other companies, the best engineer that we have
actually didn't have a computer science degree. The best engineer that we have came from degree like math,
especially math, physics, and some even came from more like education background or even like music and those
make really good software engineer. So you don't need a computer science unless if you're wanting to do
something very specific, like machine learning and AI, then, you know, the company can require that. But for a
bachelor and master, the answer is no.
Mayuko Inoue: Yeah, the math, physics, education, and music majors, it's just that like boggles my mind,
because that's not like when I was going to school, I was like, that's not what I want to major on major
computer only way to get a job. But that's, that's really interesting from a campus recruiting
perspective, like who's the one to make the decision of hire versus no hire if it's a little bit like more
abstracted away from the teams?
Sarah: Yeah, so this is kind of like where it gets really tricky, because the manager that you talk to
that person may not be your manager when you start that position. So usually, I mean, I'm speaking from like
Amazon, and I specifically support Amazon Web Services, we would just kind of put the words out there in terms
of like, hey, in recruiting, we're trying to put together a team of, you know, interviewers, like who
would want to participate, so only certain manager would say, okay, like, I'm open to do this, and then
only certain engineer that want to be a part of it. The nice thing about Amazon is that if you're trying to
become a bar raiser, it does help kind of get your interview count in. Because at Amazon to be a bar
raiser, you need like 100 interviews to become one. So like, sometimes like for the people that want to get
promoted, they would like want to volunteer to do the interview, in terms of like making a yes or no hire
like decision, each person on the interview panel would have like a rubric. So let's say if there's three
interviewers on your panel, one person would cover data structure and algorithm, one person would cover object
oriented design, and then maybe the manager would be the one that do like cultural fit. And there would be
like, the checklists that they go through that the candidate do this. If they do, let's say, let's say
this candidate checks, 7 boxes out of 10. That's a maybe and if the candidate only check 1 out of 10,
okay, that's a hard No, or the candidate check 8 out of 10 boxes. Okay, that's a yes. And then usually, we
would have a debrief to where all of the interviewers sit in a room kind of talk about, you know, that
candidate performance and whether or not they would be a good fit for the program or the company.
Mayuko Inoue: That's so fascinating. That's like totally separate from how I thought campus recruiting
would happen. It's literally like, it's very rubric focus. And it seems it's just like some you're just
trying to find like a well rounded engineer who has like computer science fundamentals. Sarah can new grads
negotiate salaries, when they get their offer?
Sarah: For new grads usually is going to be really hard because everything is again, we're operating from
volume here. And usually by cohort, just because of you know, pay quality, we want to pay everyone the same.
For a co-op, usually, there's a little bit more of like flexibility in terms of negotiating but not much. But
as a new grad, you do have the power to negotiate. In fact, for some company like Microsoft, they want to
reward you for you know, going back to them. So if you had a previous internship with them, they will give you
a higher compensation package when you come back to the company.
Mayuko Inoue: Thank you for sharing that. Thank you all so much for watching until the very end, I hope it
helped you to better understand how the recruiting process works. Sarah, of course, as always shared so
many other amazing insights. So you can watch the live recording of the show on Muko's Corner by becoming a
member today by clicking the Join button below. And you'll also be able to listen to the audio recording of
the show through the Muko's Corner podcast. And of course the other way you can always support me and my
work is to subscribe to this channel and share this video with your friends. I'll see you next time and
take care everybody. Bye