I didn't mind answering the same questions for hours on end. And I didn't mind the fact that I never even got a chance to eat lunch because the line to talk to me was so long. What really bugged me about representing Google at career fairs were the chemical engineering majors.
I know, that's unfair. There were others like them: bioengineering, material science, physics, and so on. A quick glance at their résumé would reveal nothing for which they were especially well suited. Sometimes I wanted to ask them, Is there any reason you're talking to me other than "Oh-my-god it's Google"? Why technology? Why you?
But I wouldn't. Instead, I'd politely smile and offer a canned response of, "I'm not sure what the best match would be for your background at this time, but we'll keep your résumé on file in case anything comes up." This is kind of like telling someone you meet at a bar, "How about I get your number, and I'll call you instead?" I've used both techniques, and let me tell you, they work great!
It's not that you can't find a role for a chemical engineer, but until Google starts its own chemistry lab (and I'm not holding my breath), a chemical engineering degree alone probably won't be your ticket into the company. The eager chemical engineer—or English literature major—needs to find other avenues to prove that they have what it takes to be a "Noogler."
Recruiters want to know two things when they pick up your résumé: Where would you fit at our company? And would you do a good job? If a recruiter can't identify answers to those two things, then your résumé goes in the trash pile. Your goal, therefore, is to get the experiences and background that will answer those questions:
Develop a track record of achievement. Recruiters want to see that you have a pattern of setting ambitious goals and accomplishing them. Your successes could be in academics, project work, volunteer work, employment, or athletics.
Learn to write and speak. Communication, whether written or oral, is vitally important to your career success. If you aren't comfortable with public speaking, get practice with it. If your writing is weak, take a writing course, or start a blog to get more practice. You don't need to be able to do dramatic readings or write elegant prose, but you do need to be able to write in a way that is clean and professional.
Emphasize depth over breadth. As a college student, I didn't play sports or act or sing. I had two college activities—teaching and representing Microsoft on campus—and I poured everything I had into those. Because I put 200 percent into those responsibilities rather than spreading myself thin, I was able to show tangible accomplishments. (Of course, there's a trade-off. The more breadth you have the more likely you are to have at least some relevant skills in any job.)
Become a leader. You don't need to be the president of a club or the manager of your team (though those are nice, of course), but find something you can lead. Kevin, now a Google employee, led the fund-raising process for a local entrepreneurship club. His team of three raised 17 percent more money than the year before!
Find a mentor (or become a mentor). Even if it's not an official mentorship arrangement, find someone who is five or more years ahead of you whom you can contact for advice. That person will offer you insight into their career and, one day, may even help connect you with opportunities.
Develop a tangible skill. You'll position yourself best for these companies if you develop a specific, tangible skill. If you want to be a marketer, learn about marketing. If you want to be in sales, help a local organization raise money. Without a tangible skill, you'll likely blend in with everyone else—everyone else who's waiting at the door to be let in.
Learn about technology. If you think you want to work at a tech company but don't know much about technology, now is a great time to start reading web sites like TechCrunch and CNET, as well as company-specific blogs. Think about what the major topics are—social networking, mobile applications, cloud computing—and ask yourself, who are the leaders in this field, and why? In what ways are these fields changing technology, and therefore the world?
You know Google—that company famous for wanting Ivy Leaguers with at least a 3.7 GPA? When I joined Google, my team of eight people consisted of three people without a college degree. And our next college hire, well, his GPA wasn't too hot, from what I hear.
Academia is merely one way to distinguish yourself, and there are plenty of other ways. So if your GPA, or your school, doesn't stand out, look for additional avenues. Besides, you'll need to excel in multiple areas to get your résumé selected.
A degree from an "elite" college doesn't get you in the door, but it does make it easier for you to get noticed. If you go to a smaller or lesser-known school, there are still plenty of avenues.
Ben, a student at a small liberal arts school in Indiana, got recommended for a Microsoft internship through his professor. Once he was in the door, his college name stopped mattering, and it all came down to his interview—and his internship. "After I finished my internship, they worked hard to recruit me for a full-time position," Ben says. His coworkers couldn't care less about what college name was on his diploma.
If your school isn't nationally known with the prestige of a Harvard or MIT, reach out to your professors or your college's alumni network for connections. Or, you can try to build those connections yourself by seeking out mentors or advice from people in the field.
This is where I'm supposed to say, "It doesn't matter what you major in, as long as you find something you love!" But I'm an honest person and I have to tell you: it does matter.
Some majors will simply be easier to get in. The more directly applicable your major is, the better. Computer science, marketing, finance, and accounting majors will have a much easier time getting their résumé noticed than, say, a History major. After all, they have academic experience, and possibly other work experience, that lends itself to a specific role.
But there are all kinds. One day, when I was hanging out at Bill Gates's house (OK, it was for a Microsoft barbeque, but doesn't it sound cooler when I leave that out?), I met an intern who was a music major. Not a dual computer science and music—just a plain old music major. And even he had a directly applicable role: making sound effects for Xbox. He spent his days using ordinary household objects to mimic sounds like a golf ball hitting the grass. I decided that that was, in fact, the coolest job ever.
While a computer science degree is a fantastic way to get in the door, it's obviously more applicable for programming jobs. And for some reason, not everyone wants to stare at lines of code on a computer screen all day screaming, "Why isn't this working?!?" That's cool—I won't judge you.
Even if you're not pursuing software development as a career path, you might find it useful for your tech company career to learn just a bit of coding. It'll help you communicate with developers down the road and offer context to their work. Plus, it'll show a passion for technology that not many candidates can show.
Many universities offer a Programming for Non-CS Majors course, which is a great option for those who aren't as dedicated to the profession.
If you choose to major in something less applicable, like history, your minor is your opportunity to add an applicable skill to your résumé. Seek out a relevant minor that complements your path, whether that's finance, marketing, computer science, or one of several other career majors.
A minor is also a great place to prove that you're quantitative. A minor in math or engineering will do that, but so will a minor in economics, finance, or accounting. Whether fair or not, many techies associate the ability to work with numbers as a sign of intelligence (as well as an important job skill), and a minor is your chance to show that.
Project-heavy courses are an excellent way to add tangible "accomplishments" to your résumé, even before you have the credentials to get "real" work experience. While other students are trying to dodge these rigorous courses, you should seek them out. You should cherish them for all the grueling, pizza-and-coffee-filled late nights that they bring.
"Remember the projects you work on," Peter Bailey, a software engineer from Denver, adds. "Understand them. Deconstruct them. Save samples of particularly tough problems you've solved. Improve them, even if only on your own machine and on your own time. Because in the future, interviewers will ask you many, many questions about the projects you've worked on. They don't want to know that you're smart. They don't want to know that you can figure out anything with 30 seconds of Google time. They want to know that you can solve problems and produce results—sometime before Christmas. And this holds true whether you're fresh out of college or a 20-year IT veteran."
Of all companies, Google is perhaps the most renowned for being GPA snobs. Hysteria surrounds the recruiting process, screaming that Google takes only candidates with at least a 3.7. Like most myths, there's some truth to it, but it's mostly just hot air.
The top companies look for the top candidates—people with a track record of success. Your GPA is one point on that graph. But there are other points, too, and you can recover from any low point, whether that's your GPA, your college degree (or lack thereof), or even work experience.
Here is how two candidates with unusually low GPAs scored offers with top companies:
Though their reasons for the low GPA may differ, as well as their compensation strategies, Beth and John found that their GPA really only mattered in the résumé selection process. They were both able to compensate for poor academic performance by excelling in other areas. Companies care about what you can actually do, and your interview performance is generally considered a better indication of that than some silly number.
My college routine involved weekly coffees with Dr. Max Mintz, a professor whose course was so intense it was featured in the New York Times. We'd meet at Buck's County Coffee Co., and he'd order a large iced coffee—none of that crazy Starbucks venti-skinny-half-caf-extra-foam lingo for him. When they ran out of iced coffee (which happened more often than one might expect), newbie baristas would taste a hint of the dry sense of humor that his incoming freshman class so much enjoyed:
"Do you have ice?"
"Yes."
"Yes."
"Then you have iced coffee."
"Right away, sir."
Max "went to bat for me" (as he put it) more than once when dealing with certain administrative issues at our university. I haven't had the pleasure of seeing him mid-rant, but he can apparently be quite a formidable force. Since then, he's written multiple letters of recommendations that, while I've never seen any, were strong enough to get me into Google, Microsoft, Amazon, and the Wharton School for my MBA.
Ironically, I didn't do particularly well in his two courses, but I did work my butt off as a teaching assistant for them. The truth is that regardless of how much professors emphasize studying, few professors will be impressed by academics alone.
To get to know professors, you need to go above and beyond:
Get involved in their research. Professors usually welcome assistance with their research projects. For freshmen and sophomores, research positions can also be a great way to get a bit of experience before the biggies like Facebook and Google will open their doors to you.
Ask them for help. If you're doing something on the side—whether it's building a software application or researching a new market—your professors' research may intersect your project. Asking them for guidance is a win-win; you get expert advice, and they get to geek out on a novel application of their favorite topic.
Become a teaching assistant. Not only do you (usually) get paid for this, your professor gets to see you "in action." This makes for a much stronger letter of recommendation if you need one down the road.
Lunch, coffee, or office hours. Many universities offer some sort of "take your professor to lunch" program. If yours doesn't, you can seek your professor's suggestions on course selection or career direction over coffee or during office hours. Like Max, professors are usually much friendlier than they may appear in the classroom.
A strong relationship with your professors can offer you powerful recommendations as you look for jobs, as well as guide you through your academic and professional career. Set a goal to get to know (at least) one professor each semester; it'll pay dividends for years to come.
While we may hope that our bosses are our best advocates, we need to face facts: our bosses have their own agenda. That's casting it in a very negative light, of course. Many bosses will be unselfish and help you move up in the company, or out to a better position. After all, the vast majority of MBAs had bosses who wrote them great letters of recommendation that ultimately led to their departure from the company.
Nonetheless, while you can usually trust your boss with having the best intentions, there are limits to this. You are your own best advocate, and you—not your boss—must map out your career from day one.
A good employee does everything that's assigned to them; a great employee asks for more. Perhaps the best thing you can do to get a great next job is to do a great job in your current one:
Think broadly. If you're in an engineering role at a web-based company, is there additional debug information you can log? You probably (or hopefully) work with testers; how can you make their lives easier? The more people that you impact, the better your peer reviews will be and the more the company will value you.
Be really, really good at what you do. This doesn't mean that you have to double your time at work. Perhaps it's merely a matter of shutting off other distractions, or perhaps it's a matter of being extra careful.
Solicit feedback proactively. Don't wait until your midyear review to solicit feedback. At that point, your manager may be so overwhelmed that she writes your feedback hastily, at best. Asking for feedback early and frequently will demonstrate maturity, while also ensuring that you are able to quickly correct any issues.
Learn about other teams. Understanding the broader context of the company's roles will be useful when you want a more senior position; for example, if you're a developer, learn about what program managers do. If you're in sales, learn about marketing. Even a little bit of exposure will help you a lot. It'll show you to what other roles are doing and how they all fit together.
The best program managers, the best marketers, and the best developers have something in common: they each understand the others' roles. The marketers are figuring how to position and price a product, while the program manager designs user specifications and passes them down to the developer. It's all interconnected in the great circle of product development.
Start from your role and work outward: who (outside of your own position) do you interact with on a regular basis? Make a point of grabbing lunch with them to understand their role. How do they make decisions? What do they do on a day-to-day basis (you know, when they're not with you)? Understanding the roles around you will enable you to perform better at your own job by offering greater context, while also offering you transferable skills.
No matter how happy you are in your current job, with any luck, this role will wind up as a stepping-stone to a new position or to a new company. Suddenly, all your years of work get mashed into a tiny five-bullet box on your résumé and you picture yourself with a T-shirt saying, "I slaved away for five years and all I got were these lousy bullets."
Your five-bullet box should be planned while you're working, not after you leave. Seek out measurable, tangible accomplishments. Build something, create something, lead something. If you've tackled a major issue for your company, can you quantify its impact in terms of dollars, hours, or reduced sales calls? Seek out this information when it happens to ensure that you can get the most precise, accurate data.
Some students lift boxes at the university mailroom during the year and bus tables during the summer; others go do something a little more . . . "interesting." I don't think I need to tell you which role will help you more.
My first "techie" job was doing web development and design for the Penn Medical School the summer before I started college. The pay—$12 per hour—wasn't bad for my age but more importantly, I had a position that was actually specialized to my background. Exactly one year later, I was an intern at Microsoft getting paid, let's just say, considerably better.
Of course, not everyone will be so lucky (and I was, indeed, very lucky), but my having an "interesting" job at a relatively early age played a critical role as well. I doubt that my future manager would have looked as fondly upon a waitressing job.
There are lots of interesting jobs you can take—paid, unpaid, and, well, underpaid. Whether you're looking for a part-time position during the school year or for a summer job, you can get an interesting, résumé-building position through the following:
Help a professor out with research. Many freshmen and sophomores can land research assistantships with professors, where you might code (if you're a computer science major) or do other field-specific jobs.
Contact a start-up. There's nothing a young start-up loves more than a bit of free labor. One start-up I talked to had 30 interns—and only 12 employees! Offering to help out a start-up for free can give you fantastic experience. If you really need the money, you can always split time between a start-up and a paid but "boring" job like waiting tables.
Volunteer for a nonprofit. Like start-ups, nonprofits are usually cash strapped and desperate for help. See if you can help them out with something, whether it's coding, fund-raising, or advertising. You'll not only learn marketable skills, but you'll meet other volunteers who may have full-time jobs—jobs at companies who could, one day, hire you.
Remember that experience builds on itself. I never would have gotten to Microsoft if I hadn't been a Photoshop monkey for a summer. And I never would have gotten to Apple if I hadn't been at Microsoft. And I never would have . . . well, you get the point. Your path to getting your dream internship junior year starts freshman year, or even before.
When I was in high school, my mother used to refer to certain classmates as being "Checkbox People." You know the type. They take all the "right" classes, play all the "right" sports, and join all the "right" clubs. With over 30 percent going to an Ivy League university, my high school was brimming with them. And in a very controlled environment, these students would do exceedingly well.
As much as I loathed the Checkbox People, they were doing something right. They (or my high school) knew how to position themselves for success, even if their alleged passion for theatre was faked.
Things aren't so different now. Not all extracurriculars are created equal. Some show more intelligence, some show more creativity, and some show more leadership. What's right for you depends on your background and, of course, what you enjoy. This section will focus solely on the résumé-building aspects of extracurriculars; it's up to you to mesh that with your happiness and other preferences.
Much like I won't delve into selecting activities based on enjoyment (which should absolutely be a factor), I won't discuss selecting volunteer activities based on the value-add to the world. If you choose to volunteer, the way in which the nonprofit or volunteer activity contributes to the world is no doubt important. You can make your own determination on this matter.
With that giant disclaimer in mind, allow me to offer this résumé-specific advice: don't serve soup in a soup kitchen. Don't sort clothes for homeless people. And don't pick up roadside trash. While these may be great activities to do for other reasons, no employer will look at your résumé and say, "So, just how many ladles of soup did you say you could do per hour? We've needed a Senior Soup Ladler around here for a while, and I think you're just the right fit!"
These activities will certainly help in some ways. They'll show that you are eager to help and that you can juggle multiple responsibilities. They can help fill employment gaps, and they can expand your network. They won't, however, go the extra mile.
To get the most mileage out of your community service hours, focus on activities that will build your skills, let you explore career tracks, or get initial experience in a field:
Sales positions. Consider helping raise money for a homeless shelter through cold calls and other connections.
Marketing positions. Help a local minority entrepreneurship group figure out how to target their advertising and promotion materials.
Software engineering/design. Ever seen a nonprofit's web site? They could probably use your help. Or what about getting involved with an open source project?
Almost any role that you wish to break into at a tech company probably takes place at a nonprofit as well, so you are sure to find something that adds a little extra "oomph!" to your résumé.
If volunteering gives recruiters a reason to call, starting something makes them get down on one knee and propose (an interview, that is). Of course, it depends on the scale of the project, your commitment to it, and your role, but it's nevertheless one of the best things you can do to boost your odds.
David, a Microsoft program manager, launched a consulting firm whose clients included Fortune 500 companies. He worked nights and weekends for them, which boosted his résumé and refreshed his coding skills. Although program managers often have trouble getting considered for software engineering roles, David landed interviews with both Amazon and Google. Amazon loved his passion and commitment, and offered him a job as a software engineer.
Provided you have the dedication and time to follow through, starting something can be a great way to make your résumé leap. It shows initiative, creativity, and a commitment to go above and beyond. And, if your background lacks in particular areas, whether that's leadership, coding, or marketing, launching a business or a web site can be a great way to fill that gap.
If you've got some time to spare, consider pursuing the following paths:
Launch a business. Lots of us have ideas floating around in our heads—why not pursue one of them? If you're a coder, this is a great way to learn something beyond the relatively narrow field of your work experience. If you're not, this can be a great way to boost your tech or field background. You can hire developers or other skilled workers to implement your project from web sites like odesk.com and elance.com.
Write a blog. Writing a blog is a great way to show that you have great writing skills, to increase your "net presence" (making it easier for recruiters to find you), and demonstrate your interest in a field such as technology, media, or gaming. Your blog should be updated at least every week or two, so be sure that you have the diligence to post regularly. This can prove much harder than many people expect.
Start a club or organization. You don't want to form clubs just for the sake of forming a club, but if there's a genuine gap in your area, you may want to create an organization to fill it. Doing so can build your leadership experience, expand your network, and show a proven interest in a new field.
But, be warned: if you don't follow through on your project, it can demonstrate flakiness and potentially burn bridges. Make sure that you are excited and committed to your plans.