/lets-learn-jobs

The open archive of GU-MAD's advice for CS majors

Introduction and Disclaimer

This guide is collective advice gathered from the computer science students at Gonzaga University. It should not be considered "professional" advice.

Feel free to submit pull requests or suggest edits by creating an issue.

TLDR

  1. Apply early. August and September for Summer internships.
  2. Prep for code challenges.
  3. Apply to way more companies than you think is necessary. Over 30.

Contents

Building your Technical Profile

Your technical profile consists of 4 basic things:

  1. Skills and abilities (programming languages, libraries, tools)
  2. Experience (jobs or internships that you've had)
  3. Projects
  4. GPA and classes

Each of these generally have their own section on a resume, typically as:

  • Skills Section
  • Experience Section
  • Projects Section
  • Education Section

Side note: If you have a GPA lower than 3.0, don't put it on your resume. If they ask about it, don't lie. Many companies don't care about your GPA and it does not mean you are a poor engineer.

Skills

Generally, you want to provide a list of skills to allow the resume reviewer to quickly identify if you're a good fit for the job.

How to put skills on your resume

There are many ways to do this, however the most common is to provide a breakdown based on the above categories.

For example:

- Languages:
- Libraries & Frameworks:
- Tools:

You may also choose to specify competency, either by listing in order of familiarity, or by listing grouped by level of proficiency

Tips

  • Don't include irrelevant or generic skills like Microsoft Office Suite, it dilutes the section
  • Tailor this section based on the job posting. If they ask for a specific framework, make sure you include it here (if you've used it!)

Side Projects

For many people, classes alone are probably not enough to get the type of job you want. Having experience through side projects shows initiative and lets employers know that you can learn on your own.

Make a personal website to showcase your side projects

Many companies will ask for your website. It's better to have one than not. It doesn't need to be fancy, just some HTML and Bootstrap for style. Include

  1. Short bio
  2. Information about side projects. Include a list of collaborators and technologies used. Link to the projects if they are deployed or on an app store. Use images and graphs. This is a chance to add a lot more information than you could fit on your resume.

Optional things for your website

  1. Link to GitHub, LinkedIn, Twitter, etc.
  2. Copy of resume
  3. Email

How to get started with side projects

For most, this generally comes down to finding something you're interested in and trying to build it. However, when I first started building things, I had a lot of difficulty just figuring out how to get started. Here's what I recommend:

  1. Get a team. Other people will keep you motivated as long as you keep them motivated. It basically creates social pressure to continue.
  2. Build a game, an app, or a web app. There are sooooooooo many tutorials, docs and libraries in almost every language for these, so it's crazy easy to get into.
  3. Find a tutorial to simply get something on your screen.
  4. Set a very small goal for yourself, for example: "Move a block on the screen with the arrow keys", or "connect to a database". From here, you can incrementally build out a larger project, but small goals make it achievable.

Resumes

In general, your career center can help you write a resume. It's advised to seek advice from them first. This section will instead try to focus on specifics of applying for software jobs.

Common Mistakes

  1. Don't use PDF. Some companies will scan your resume for keywords or just to fill out their own forms. PDFs will make it more difficult to apply for a job online and makes it more likely you will get weeded out by a keyword-searcher.
  2. Single page. 1 page. Please, seriously. 1 page.
  3. You don't need an objective, personal statement, or self-summary.

General Resume Structure

- Name, email, phone
- Education
- Projects/Experience
- Skills

Projects on a Resume

Put a project or two on your resume. If you don't have personal projects, put the biggest class project you have. Make sure it's clear that it's a class project, but having something is better than nothing.

Include:

  1. The language and libraries you used.
  2. Some metric to show the size of the project (time taken to complete, user statistics, lines of code, ect)
  3. When the project was created.
  4. A short description of the project.

An example side project on a resume might look like:

# Projects

## Doohicky.io [Summer, 2016]
- Combines foo with bar whenever a user clicks a button.
- Built with Node.js and React.
- Hosted on AWS.
- 5,000 daily active users

Skills

In general you want to include three items in this section:

  • Programming Languages (Ex: Java, C++, Python)
  • Libraries and Frameworks (Ex: React, Django, Spark)
  • Tools and Misc Systems (Ex: git, vagrant, bash, docker)

Hard skills are better than soft skills. You probably don't need to put "teamwork" or "communication" on your resume.

Misc

Finding Companies and Applying

Once you have built up your profile, you need to start applying for companies. If you go to a school that has little to no connections and has a minimal career fair, you need to start applying to companies yourself.

General tips

  • APPLY EARLY. Apply in August and September if you can. Start searching for companies day 1 of school. Internships and new grad positions can fill really quick.
  • There are tons of good internship search sites online. Some of the best are Linkedin, Internship.com, Indeed.com, Glassdoor.
  • Apply for a large list of companies. Over 30. Do not set your sights on one company. Internships are competitive and it's not uncommon to send out 30 applications and only hear back from 1. This doesn't mean you're a bad dev, it can mean they've been hit with literally thousands of applications and can't easily sort through them.
  • Apply for companies even if you don't have everything. Very few people generally do. And it can't hurt.
  • Expand your radius. Don't apply to companies only in your home town. Even if you think you would never want to go to Boston or whatever, having another offer can vastly increase your ability to negotiate and you may end up getting a really good deal.
  • Visit companies in person if you can. This is pretty cheesy, but showing up with your resume (and a box of donuts) can get you noticed and passed screens.
  • Use contacts. Does your brother's ex-girlfriend know someone at XYZ company? Reach out.
  • Contact a recruiter from the company directly on Linkedin.

Lists of companies

Reaching out to people

You can always reach out to people at certain companies. Don't have connections? Does GU not provide any help for 99.9% of the companies you're interested in?

Find people on LinkedIn. Make sure that you're looking for a University Recruiter if you're looking at a big company. Want to contact a university recruiter at XYZ Company?

Type this:

site:linkedin.com (inurl:in OR inurl:pub) -inurl:dir -inurl:job -inurl:jobs -inurl:jobs2 -intitle:profiles -inurl:groups "University Recruiter at <COMPANY>"

Into google and replace <Company> with your company you're interested in.

Alternatively, you can send people messages on Twitter or via email. Always remember to try to make the best possible first impresssion.

Taking advantage of where you live.

Are you from a big city? Do you not have a job for the summer? Go on meetup.com.

There's lots of CS related meetups for various tech. This is a fantastic way to network and can really help you find people in your area who might be able to introduce you to a hiring manager.

Interviews

There are several types of "interviews" that you might experience:

  1. Online code challenges
  2. Technical Interviews
  3. Behavioral Interviews
  4. "Homework" projects

The career center should be able to give you lots of advice on behavioral interviews. However, the vast majority of your interview experience will be code challenges and technical interviews.

Online code challenges

These are typically timed algorithm and data structure challenges. They are generally conducted through an online portal.

Technical Interviews

These can be short interviews with an engineer or day-long interviews on campus. They can cover a variety of topics, but are often very similar to the online-code challenges.

Tips for in-person technical interviews:

  • Start by running through a small example to make sure you and the interviewer are on the same page
  • Interviewers will not always tell you all of the information, they want to see you be able to ask questions and dive deeper into requirement gathering
  • Start simple: start with the brute force solution and then move on to more optimized solutions. It buys you time and ensures that you got at least something right.
  • Narrate your thought process: explain what you are thinking and why you are making the choices you are making. It will make you seem thoughtful and thorough and fills the awkward silence gaps.
  • Ask for help: If you don't know something, or are deciding between a couple implementations, talk through your reasoning and discuss it with your interviewer.
  • Admit knowledge gaps: Don't try to bluster your way through, if you don't remember the syntax or semantics for XYZ let your interviewer know, brush it off, and keep going from there.

Behavioral Interviews

These are usually 30 min to an hour with an HR person. They'll ask you questions like "Describe a time you failed. What did you learn?" or "What is a project you are really proud of?". The key here is to realize that every question is merely a different spin on why should we hire you?

A nice general format to answer these questions is like such:

  1. Tell the story: not too much detail, just enough, usually 30 sec to 1 min.
  2. Explain how this experience will help this company: This is really what you want to get to. ("Through this challenge, I learned how to use online resources to solve problems, and this will make me a more effective employee because I can independently figure things out and you don't need anyone to hold my hand.")
Tips
  • Develop a repitoire of go-to stories or experiences that reflect positively on what you have to offer. In the moment it will be hard to think of a good story.
  • Don't tell the same story for multiple questions or it will seem that you have only one good experience. Diversity shows you are experienced.
  • Use the STAR method to smoothly and completely answer.

It's important to practice. Look up "20 common interview questions" on Google. Practice with a friend. Work on being concise, clear, and poised.

Homework Projects

Some companies might give you a small project to do in order to prove your abilities. If you're the type of person that dislikes short time limits and really likes building things, then you might like this.

Tips
  • Make sure you have enough time. If they give you a week to finish the project, but you have 3 tests in the next few days, share this with them. Most companies can move the schedule around a bit and let you start later or give you more time overall.
  • Use git. Using git is the standard in industry and storing your project on github looks way more professional than sending them a zip file.
  • Do what you know. If you had to learn something new for your project, make your interviewer aware of this. If you're project is a B- project, that looks pretty bad if you claim to know the library and language you're using well. However, if you didn't know it and learned enough to do a B- project, then that can look good for you!
  • Don't get taken advantage of! If it looks like you're implementing real functionality for them, be wary. If they ask you to spend more than a few hours, unless you're desperate, move along.

Nerves

When you get into an interview, do you blank out? Does a timed code challenge make you go cold and completely freak? Then this section is for you.

If you have nerves, don't feel bad about telling your interviewer upfront. No reasonable company would count that against you.

However, it's still nice to not have nerves.

There's generally two strategies to dealing with nerves during interviews:

  1. Repetition of the process
  2. Hippie-Dippie Magic

Dealing with Nerves through Repetition

You need to become more comfortable with the process of interviewing if you want to not be afraid of it. Not only will repetition and practice make you less afraid of the concept, you will become better overall, which will help you pass despite the fear.

Replicate the environment as much as you can.

  • Get a friend to interview you on a whiteboard.
  • If you're practicing on HackerRank, give yourself 20 minutes to solve the problem.
  • Pick real questions out of a book like Cracking the Coding Interview

Dealing with Nerves through Hippie-Dippie Magic

Meditation

If you haven't ever done any meditation or similar exercises, it probably seems like hippie-dippie stuff. It might be. But it's super helpful.

Meditation is all about observation. When you get nervous during an interview, your immediate reaction is to try and fight it.

But this generally doesn't work very well; your brain is really great at keeping you afraid. So this makes you even more nervous and that creates a feedback loop.

So instead, when you feel nervous, step back and watch what your body and brain is doing. Treat it like a rollercoaster. Let your brain take you for a ride. Don't fight it, just let it pass. It's all just hormones, your body can only pump it out for a little while anyway.

If nerves are really a problem, you may find it helpful to practice meditation overall. "Observing" instead of experiencing the fear is something that is easier said than done. But it's a muscle that you can build over time. Try doing this every morning after you brush your teeth.

Muscle Tightening

Another thing you can try is muscle tightening. This is an exercise that is used by therapists and mental health folks all over the country and will trick your body into thinking it's doing A-okay.

It works best if you are sitting or lying down, but in a pinch it can be done while standing up. Although that might require a bit of balance.

  1. Starting with your right hand, tighten and hold your muscle.
  2. While continuing to hold your hand tight, start tightening the rest of your arm.
  3. Then, tighten your shoulder, then your abs, and the other arm.
  4. Continue to let this spread throughout your body, down your legs and up to your face.
  5. Hold this for 30 seconds.
  6. Then slowly, starting with your right hand, release muscle by muscle. So first your hand, then your arm, then your shoulder and so on.

You might want to try this now and see how you feel.

Practicing

Both the online code challenges and technical interviews typically give you a problem to solve and then ask you to write an algorithm to solve it. Many can be solved by recognizing a particular data structure or common algorithm.

You need to practice these before you do them. Start practicing before you get the challenge. You can practice these through a number of websites, but here are our favorites:

  1. Hackerrank
  2. Leetcode
  3. Codewars
  4. Firecode.io

Tips

  • If you are struggling with a problem don't jump right to the solution, let it linger in your mind for a day and come back.
  • Once you are getting more confident trying writing solutions out on a whiteboard to get used to what it will be like in an interview.
  • When you are able to solve most questions start doing them on the whiteboard but also talking outloud. You will get used to speaking what you are thinking as you are writing code.
  • After compelting a problem do not go and attempt the next version of that same problem, it is better to appraoch problems without having just done something extremely similiar.

CS Concepts

Outside of algorithms and data structures, there are certain CS concepts that an interview might ask about that you should have a solid understanding of.

Big O

Big O is the efficiency of an algorithm.

Algorithms and Data Structures

  • Sorting (At least 1 o(n*log(n)) algorithm like quicksort or merge sort)
  • Tree's and Graphs.
    • Binary Search Trees
    • N-ary trees
    • Trie-trees
    • Representing graphs with Objects/Pointers, Adjacency List, and Matrix.

Offers

If all goes well, a company will eventually send you an offer. This section is about what's normal, what's not, and advice about handling offers.

After the interview

Within 24 hours, send a thank you email to your interviewer(s) and/or recruiter. Thank them for their time and attention, mention something specific from the interview (i.e "I really enjoyed our discussion of XYZ" or "After speaking with you, I've been spending some time looking into uses of XYZ"), and offer up additional information ("Please feel free to reach out if there is anything else you need from me").

Tips

  • This is where you can ask about timeline, if you haven't already. Simply include a line such as "When can I expect to hear back from you with regards to XYZ?"

If you hear nothing

If you haven't hear within the timeframe they advised, or at most within a week, send a quick follow-up email. A simple example would be:

Dear X,

Thank you again for taking the time to speak with me {on X date}.
When we last spoke, you mentioned I should expect to hear back {within Y timeframe}.
Do you have any update for me, or is there anything additional you need from me?

Thanks again,
{Name}

If you didn't get the offer

If you got rejected by a company you were really invested in, don't worry.

  • Be polite to the company. Do not burn bridges, do not question their decision, move on for now.
  • If you applied for multiple positions, some companies might reject you for one position and accept you for another.
  • You can always reapply. Many Googler's applied several times before they got an offer. Ask your recruiter when a good time to reapply would be, some companies have 6,9 or 12 month policies. Depending on how far into the process you got some will advance you right back to the last stage you were at.
  • Rejections often happen due to bad luck. Maybe they already found enough qualified people. Maybe the recruiter was looking for a super specific library. Maybe you got filtered out by a keyword checker. Maybe they ran out of money and the position disappeared! It's not always you.
  • That said, turn this event into a positive. Go apply to three more companies every time you get rejected. This will give you more experience and will increase your chances over the long run.

Pay

Software internships are paid. Often, they are paid much more than other jobs. How much you get paid is highly region dependent, but in general, larger cities pay more (but are also more expensive to live in). Some of the larger household name companies can pay around 45$/hour. However, a small company in a small city might pay around 12$/hour.

  • Check Glassdoor to find previous salaries.
  • Ask around to see what other companies are paying.
  • If you don't know what a specific company is paying, you can use a similar sized company in the same area as an estimate.
  • If you want to negotioate (generally always worth a shot, could be leaving several thousand dollars on the table), ask to set up a call with your recruiter. If you negotiate politely, it is highly unlikely that a company will choose to pull the offer. If they do, than that is often a sign of how the HR department at that company operates.
  • Tips for negotiating
    • Talk about what skills and qualifications you have that you think qualify you for an increase in compensation.
    • If you have other offers you can use those to get an increase in compensation.
    • There is more than just salary to negotiate:
      • Signing bonus
      • Moving bonus
      • Stock/vesting schedule
      • Vacation days
    • Be polite, avoid words that make you seem demanding or ungrateful.
    • If you are uncomfortable with doing this over the phone, try drafting an email like the one below.
Dear X,

I want to again express my thanks for extending me an offer. I believe that I can bring {skills A, B, and C} to {Company Z}.
I feel that my skills are valued at {propose increase in salary, stock, signing bonus, vesting schedule, PTO}

Thanks again,
{Name}

Discussing the offer

Do not immediately accept offers. Always do research on the salary offered, benefits, location and company.

  • If the company wants you to move but doesn't offer any housing/travel assistance, make sure you look into how much this might cost you relatively to your salary. 90k might sound like a great salary in Spokane, but can be a pretty terrible salary in Silicon valley.
  • For interns, always ask how the company handles taxes for employees. Many companies will set you up as a contractor, which won't give you a regular W2 during tax season. This means you will end up paying more taxes than a regular employee, which effectively lowers your overall wage. This isn't always a bad thing, but it's something to consider.

What's normal and what's not

  • According to NACE, the National Association of Colleges and Employers, companies should always give you at least 2 weeks to decide on an offer. In certain situations, it is feasible for them to give you several months. See the NACE guidelines here. Don't be afraid to ask for more time if you need it. Very few companies are in desperate need of an intern right now.
  • Software internships are almost always paid. Be VERY cautious about any company that offers you a job that is unpaid.
  • In general, it's probably not a good idea to take equity instead of payment, especially if you're looking for an internship. Very few great companies start off with intern labor.