How difficult is it to get internships at Google, Apple, etc. @ top unis?

College Majors Engineering Majors
1

<p>Hey guys</p>

<p>I'm going to be a CS major at the University of Michigan. Employers rated it as the third best university for computer science (with, of course, Carnegie Mellon being the first).</p>

<p>Though I appreciate and respect all firms at Silicon Valley, my dream company is Google. I've loved all of their products ever since day one. I'd take any job offer from Google over anything else. I actually used to read small facts about the company every day during my freetime.. lol. </p>

<p>Anyway, when I enter college, I'm going to try joining CS-related clubs and do my own pet projects. I'm interested in software development. This summer I learned HTML5 myself and I'm still working on learning Java. I always keep myself updated on the latest technologies. I wouldn't consider myself a "talented coder" though (just trying to be humble!)</p>

<p>So what does it take to get internships at Silicon Valley firms? What do these companies look for exactly? Do I have a slim chance at getting an internship from any SV firms?</p>

<p>Thanks guys</p>

2

<p>OP - This is the advice I give to all college students, engineering or other. Take advantage of the resources at the campus career center early and often. </p>

<p>For example, here is the link for yours… assuming I did the google search correctly for the right "Michigan"school.
[Welcome</a> to The Career Center | Career Center](<a href=“http://careercenter.umich.edu/]Welcome”>http://careercenter.umich.edu/)</p>

<p>There is a career fair Oct 1-2.
<a href=“http://careercenter.umich.edu/article/fall-career-expo[/url]”>http://careercenter.umich.edu/article/fall-career-expo&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/p&gt;

3

<p>Relevant personal projects (important) or publications, good persona, motivation, determinism, having your own ideas, teamplayerism, knowing some speciality or having a special interest, “snappy” problem-solving ability (this may be tested), good GPA (may be irrelevant).</p>

4

<p>Get to know google employees at the career fair. Ask interesting questions and send out resumes to google every year. Eventually they will notice you.</p>

5

<p>Google and Facebook took a bunch of people a couple years ago, they slowed down a little this year but they’re still taking people. Amazon and Microsoft were better represented though. But yeah, you can definitely get a job at google if you want to. Apparently they are big proponents of 381 so make sure you take that.</p>

6

<p>Pretty hard. Will most likely require a resume pass.</p>

7

<p>Not exactly speaking from personal experience, but as a bit of anecdotal guidance, I witnessed a clever guy get offered a Google internship at a hackathon (at Umich, no less; definitely to to Mhacks this fall, BTW). Of course, he got the offer (and refused it, actually) because he had built something really interesting and technically complex by himself.</p>

<p>Anyway, I think the overall advice for CS students is to build/make stuff. That doesn’t mean you need to be proud of everything (definitely play around and build stuff just because you want to), but it’s nice to be able to show something off every once in a while, and even nicer if your work has already gotten some recognition/attention. And definitely go to hackathons, and look into joining Michigan Hackers as soon as you get to Umich.</p>

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<p>Thanks for the replies. </p>

<p>Does anyone know what the top hiring companies are for UM CS majors?</p>

9

<p>While Google is definitely a great company, I feel I should caution you from hanging all your hopes on Google. There are a ton of other great companies out there, and as you go through college (and intern at different places), you may end up reevaluating your priorities.</p>

<p>That being said, Google’s interviews (like most other premier tech companies) are very data structures and algorithms heavy. Definitely do cool personal projects, but also make some time to learn how to do interview questions. I’d recommend these books: [Cracking</a> the Coding Interview: 150 Programming Questions and Solutions: Gayle Laakmann McDowell: 9780984782802: Amazon.com: Books](<a href=“http://www.amazon.com/Cracking-Coding-Interview-Programming-Questions/dp/098478280X]Cracking”>http://www.amazon.com/Cracking-Coding-Interview-Programming-Questions/dp/098478280X) and [Elements</a> of Programming Interviews: 300 Questions and Solutions: Adnan Aziz, Amit Prakash, Tsung-Hsien Lee: 9781479274833: Amazon.com: Books](<a href=“http://www.amazon.com/Elements-Programming-Interviews-Questions-Solutions/dp/1479274836]Elements”>http://www.amazon.com/Elements-Programming-Interviews-Questions-Solutions/dp/1479274836)</p>

<p>It looks like Qualcomm, Microsoft, Intel, and Amazon hire a large number of graduates (go here for more info: [Annual</a> Report | Engineering Career Resource Center](<a href=“http://career.engin.umich.edu/annualreport/]Annual”>http://career.engin.umich.edu/annualreport/) ). There are definitely going to be a bunch of other companies interested in UM CS majors, though.</p>

10

<p>Here’s another hint. Nearly all my friends from the class of 1985 got jobs with the Intel’s, Microsoft’s, and the likes of the 1980’s. Not to mention the unreal hours, high cost of living, and pay that was not all that was thought to be…</p>

<p>Thirty years later, many of them are ‘program managers’ or other fancy titles that basically means they’re sheep-herding offshore people doing the coding, or are out of the business altogether. </p>

<p>Even more strange, I started my career in a very boring (supposedly) place only to be a key part of a team that wrote (in 1985) a visual WYSIWYG software development environment. So, while my friends were ‘qualifying C-cell batteries for the F-15’ ($60/each) I was writing a compiler two weeks into my new job. </p>

<p>Don’t blindly go for the big name. Go for the important position and what you can learn, whether it’s with Google or with the IRS. </p>

<p>I now get emails once in a few weeks from all the big names to interview with them, but in reality, I’m doing cutting edge stuff (mobile entertainment devices to social media to cloud computing) that I would never get to do in a place like Google (I’d love to find out if they have mid 50’s Frank Zappa lookalike coders there). Plus, I have a real life, and you can buy what I help design and program at your local store. So, how bad can it be NOT working for Google?</p>

<p>The other issue, after working a few months with the Facebook Graph API (I’m now using the Google API’s as we have to support both) is what I termed ‘Software for 3 year olds, by 3 year olds’. Facebook’s API’s make Win32 almost rational :D</p>

<p>My wife works for one of those ‘big names’ in corporate analytics consulting and from her title you’d think she runs the place. In reality she sheep-herds a bunch of offshore kids younger than her children, requiring the writing ability of Steven King, the patience of a 1st grade teacher, and the ability to foresee where they’ll mess up and offer extra help after you have explained the same thing for the 10th time (because 9 of the team members quit all of a sudden)…</p>

11

<p>The thing is that engineers from Intel and Microsoft are in demand. So many Microsoft engineers are working at Amazon now. There are plenty of them join startups to work on interesting stuff. There are so many more opportunities available to them. The networking effect is unbeatable.</p>

12

<p>

Hah, OK. It’s a great school, but third? I hope you didn’t pay a lot of money for that ranking.</p>

<p>

No offense, but you might want to work on the whole humility thing. On the bright side, it does sound like you are taking prudent measures to set yourself up for success, which bodes well.</p>

<p>

Focus on academics and get great grades in school. To the extent that you’re able during your first few years, take the most challenging course load you can while still performing well.</p>

<p>Clubs and projects are nice to have, but the real bang for your buck will be from your experience section; this is where you’ll have the opportunity to stand out from the crowd. College campuses are typically rife with part-time opportunities, especially for students who are gifted in STEM and computer/programming/web specialties. Check on-campus job boards, ask STEM department representatives, etc. </p>

<p>Dump a huge amount of time into designing a suite of job application materials. Research templates and content guidelines. Spend time formatting and have somebody at your career center work with you to make it shine. Once you think you’ve finished for the first time, print out a copy of everything, ball it all up, throw it away, and start over from scratch. If you haven’t spent at least 40 hours on designing your first suite of professional job application documents, you haven’t come close to finishing. People, especially technical people, especially young technical people, typically assign far less importance to job application materials than they should based on the importance they assign to actually getting the job. All the preparation, projects, and experience in the world isn’t going to count for **** if you have an amateurish and rushed application. This will shape the first impression companies get of you, and you can maintain and use good materials for the rest of your career: taking the time to get this right up-front is an investment you cannot afford to pass up. No matter what anybody ever tells you, no matter what nagging doubts you have, if all you take away from this is that you should spend at least an order of magnitude more time on application materials than 99% of people in your situation do, you have already come out ahead.</p>

13

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<p>Based on it’s ability to educate students alone and the natural intellect of its student body, I agree, 3rd doesn’t make sense. But in terms of use to employers trying to recruit there, it’s a huge school, arguably the best in it’s geographical region (assuming CMU counts as a different region) and with a student body probably more willing to work for “low prestige” companies than the East and West elites. I don’t know the ranking or the metrics, but it’s not unthinkable if you take all of these criteria into account.</p>