Hey y'all,

I wanted to summarize my experience with recruiting this season! For context, I am a non CS major (but still tech degree) that likes to code. I'm not cracked at Leetcode like some others in the subreddit either. I honestly got super fortunate with my results this season, so here it is!

Background:

Education: Junior majoring in bachelors of cybersecurity (3.8 something GPA) at a school no one cares about, and a state that I knowww y'all don't care abt.

Experience:

- 1 paid internship. Its not a technical company but its a well-known household name. Here I mostly do software engineering work, and work at a high level/surface level of some AI/ML projects, mobile app dev, and building desktop applications for the company.

- 1 unpaid internship at a AI/ML startup. Wrote a few lines of code in python and worked with some APIs

Projects: SwiftUI todo list mobile app with basic functionalities; database, decent ux & design, etc.

Statistics

I've been super comfortable at my current internship, because the company allows me to return to work for them every semester. Ealier in the year, I was moderately eager about applying to different companies even if they paid around the same that my current one does. I just wanted to experience something different! Buttt when I made this grave mistake of finding this subreddit :D I saw how much companies could pay interns. After seeing that, I wasn't really interested in switching to a company that was super similar in pay / prestige. I probably applied to a little under 60 applications and got fortunate with my results!

I got 7 virtual interviews, and 4 offers!

Technical stuff

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Leetcode stats: 38 Easies, 21 Mediums, 0 Hards. I focused on blind 75 (didn't even finish it). I am cheeks at leetcode. Like no joke. Well, maybe I don't totally suck, but im the type that can conceptualize a problem and its solution, but coding it out is a wholeeee other beast for me.

Codesignal: I'd be fortunate if I even solved the second question before the timer ended lol. I understood the questions, but my raw leetcoding skills were not good enough. I failed a tonnn of OAs but I wasn't sad, because I knew the low effort I was putting into studying was a good indicator of my score on the OAs.

Behavioral stuff

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NOW THIS IS WHERE I SHINE!!! I believe my ability to connect with the interviewer, communicate very well, and stay super calm was my saving grace this season. For one of my rejections, a recruiter reached out to me saying even though my interview said I lacked the technical skills they wanted, the feedback on my communication & ability to take pointers/tips on how to improve my solution was exceptional. They said they want me to reach back out to them about interviewing for new grad, and if I forget, they said they'll personally reach out to me to apply haha (and that felt pretty good! so NOW I'm in my technical-skill-training-arc to prep for next season lol).

ps: Behavioral and technicals below are ranked by difficulty. 1 being easy peasy, 10 being legendary difficulty.

Offers

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Chick-fil-A (Atlanta, GA)

Position: 2022 Digital Technology Internship

Timeline: Applied 5/12 > Contacted for interview 5/20 > First interview on 6/1 > Final interview on 6/14 > Offer 6/22

Thoughts: All behavioral, smooth process.

Behavioral: ez. no technicals. ALL behavioral. super chill process, basic questions about my internship experience, "tell me ab a time when...", etc. I think they really liked my willingness to learn and my upbeat attitude about experiencing new things! They also acknowledged that I did my research v well on their company values and stuff.

Technical OA: N/A

Technical Interview: N/A

Local Data/Tech Solutions Company

Position: 2022 Cloud/software engineering intern

Timeline: Applied 6/13 > Interview 6/21 > Offer 6/22

Thoughts: All behavioral, smooth process. It was a panel of interviewers interviewing me.

Behavioral: another all behavioral process. standard behavioral questions & we had nice conversations about tech.

Technical OA: N/A

Technical Interview: N/A

Local State Financial department

Position: 2022 IT intern

Timeline: Applied roughly a week before the following date (cant find exact date) > 7/5 Contacted for interview > 7/15 Interview > Offer 7/15 same day

Thoughts: All behavioral, smooth process. It was 2 interviewers. This one felt like an ego boost tbh bc I kind of knew I wouldn't accept the offer, just wanted more interview experience to get in the mood for the season.

Behavioral: another all behavioral process. standard behavioral questions & they really liked the conversations we had.

Technical OA: N/A

Technical Interview: N/A

Microsoft

Position: 2023 SWE Intern

Timeline: Applied few days after application opened (cant get exact date) > Contacted for phone interview 9/16 > Phone on 10/9 > Final interview on 11/9

Thoughts: This is the best experience I have had with interviewing anywhere. My first interviewer was such a joy to interact with. Super positive & was eager to see how I approached each problem. Second interviewer was also super cool and we had plenty of time to chat after I optimally solved the question. For the record, I didn't fully solve a few of the questions they gave me. But it seemed they cared more about me engaging them in my thought process, why I thought the way I did, and always outlining my thoughts before coding them. It felt so good.

I thought I got rejected bc my action center wasn't working, like, at all. I spent over a week stressing on whether or not I got the offer. At one point I convinced myself I didn't care about the offer bc I gave it my v best.

Turns out, action center was broken on Safari. LOL. Went to chrome and saw 'completed' in my action center. got the offer a few days after that. Turns out, my action center turned to 'completed' ONE DAY after the interview. words couldn't describe how relieved I felt haha.

tips:

1. you'd better do blind 75

2. look on Glassdoor to see how other interviews went for people

Behavioral: ez.

Technical OA: N/A

Technical Interview: 6.5/10

REJECTIONS BABY!!!

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Crowdstrike

Position: 2023 Summer SWE Intern

Timeline: Applied 9/1 > Hackerrank 9/13 > Contacted for phone interview 10/3 > week of 10/7 > final interviews on 10/17 & 10/24 > rejection 11/15

Thoughts: OA review + behaviorals. Nothing told me I did anything terribly wrong or even messed up terribly at any point. Vibe was a little off with one of the interviewers, idk exactly why LOL. Also not sure exactly why I got the rejection, but who cares, we ball.

Behavioral: 6/10. great conversations about my experiences and conceptual security & OOP questions. interviewer said I answered them all correctly and I enjoyed our conversation.

Technical OA: 7/10

Technical Interview: N/A

LinkedIn

Position: 2023 Summer Data Science Intern

Timeline: Applied 8/30 > Contacted for phone interview 9/20 > phone on 9/30 > 3 final round interviews 10/18 > rejection 10/24

Thoughts: yea this one was dead before I even joined the interview LOL. I am good at basic/intermediate sql, but they were getting into some wild stuff id never seen before during that technical. there was also conceptual questions about data science concepts that flew wayyyy over my head even tho I tried my best to answer. I feel that if someone was an actual data science major they'd fare much much better. I believe the rejection is totally fair.

Behavioral: 3/10. great conversation. really enjoyed this one, super laid back, typical behavioral questions.

Technical OA: N/A

Technical Interview: 100/10. by the last interview I WAS 1 HP😭

Atlassian

Position: 2023 Summer SWE Intern

Timeline: Applied 9/22 > Hackerrank sent 10/13 > Took on 10/21 > interview 11/8 > rejection week after (cant find exact date)

Thoughts: I really did choke the technical. Took me a while to grasp the question bc I had to pretty much write it all down myself, think of a data structure for the input & explain that all in just a few mins. the time really flew by. my interviewer was super patient and helped a bunch with nudging me in the right direction. couldn't solve it 100% in the end, but this was a very valuable learning experience for me.

Behavioral: N/A

Technical OA: 7/10

Technical Interview: 7/10

Final Thoughts:

• I ended up accepting the offer from Microsoft (duh!)

• I am very proud of myself for sticking with things! Tbh my odds of getting something like a FAANG were super low. I got super fortunate through the whole process. But thankfully, instead of my mind being riddled with imposter syndrome, I feel accomplished. Because like anyone else, I put the effort I could into my preparation!

• Though I stated prior that I used python in my internships, I really only did a few lines of code (which where just modified solutions from stack overflow). I didn't know python really, like at all LOL. Im a java guy. I don't like it but I know it the best. I started learning python in September of this year and forced myself to get the hang of it for interviews. Maybe this is why I was a little sketchy during these technicals LOL. (it wasn't a total bloodbath tho cause once u learn ur first programming language, the subsequent ones are easier to get the hang of)

• do leetcode more often and spread it out among a few months. don't cram like I did it (few weeks). doesn't really work.

• Put IMPACT in your resume. Saying you 'did' something or 'executed' something is cool but actually put numbers in there and make it bold (and use jakes resume).

• apply through your school's coop program. process is faster and it feels like I had better odds by doing this.

• get referrals from your friends who work for local companies!!!

• stop waiting and just apply early. If I had waited, I never would have been ready.

• SMILE SMILE SMILE

• wear a suit

now I can finally. touch. some. grass. during this winter break I will be watching tv all day, getting back to playing video games, snowboarding again w my friends & finally getting enough sleep. im not touching leetcode until next year. I feel very grateful to have accomplished something like this as a non computer science major who just likes to code. when I showed my parents my offer we all went crazy in the living room! they were like 'huhh?? they pay interns this much now?? well done!' I feel happy to show them something great came out of them coming to this country to give their kids better opportunities.

I wish the best to all the rest of you csmajors :) this subreddit is the best and worst thing that's happened to me this year!

Thanks to u/kunriuss for the awesome write-up format.

Anonymized resume is attached: https://imgur.com/a/CIRb4IX Had to anonymize a ton of stuff and generalize some dates to avoid doxxing myself :)