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How Hard Is It To Get A Job At Google

Getting a job at Google: The Hard truth about applying and how I got an offer while still being an undergrad student

Leo Gujis

Hey! I'm Leo and for almost 2 years I work at Google as a full-time Marketing Consultant in Dublin. H owever it wasn't easy to get a job offer from Google. While in university my internship application was rejected from more than 20+ Consultancies, Banks & Tech Companies (Including Google), I wasn't even passing the Resume screening process! That was until I realized that the way I approached job-hunting was totally wrong and I had to reinvent the way I did it. Eventually not only I got a job, but actually received a full-time offer from one of the largest (and best!) tech companies in the world - Google. This is my story on how I did and how you can do that too.

Ready? Let's begin!

The Hard Truth

Most likely recruiters at the TOP firms (especially consulting) won't care about your application unless you are straight A student from the TOP1 University.

It's been my exchange year in Singapore when I realized — my 2 year start-up experience, years of leading student organizations & 3+ languages I spoke fluently didn't matter to recruiters at the top firms. I have applied to 20+ jobs & internship in Consulting (BCG, McKinsey, Bain, Accenture), investment banks and several leading start-ups with 0 responses except for "We appreciate you sending us your application, however after careful consideration we won't be able to proceed with the interview process".

Why did I fail more than 20 times? It all has to do with a concept of Brand Recognition & trust.

For the recruiter that is going to review your resume, big brands such as Harvard University, internships at BIG3 Management & BIG4 Accounting companies exhibit trustworthiness and almost guaranteed quality of the candidate resulting in an easier, faster way to recruit people. That's a hard truth but it makes a lot of sense — how else would YOU judge if candidate is eligible for a position when you are given only 5 seconds to review their Resume? Under the pressure to hire The Best, you, in the shoes of the recruiter, would most probably opt for a "safe option" and Big Names act as a safe keywords that trigger "Invite to the interview" reaction. In some ways it's similar when buying a brand new Smartphone: would you buy a trusted brand that your friends have or a no-name phone?

In similar way I was this "no-name" smartphone who worked in a random start-up and was still studying at one of the best Scandinavian (but not TOP5 Global) university. In addition to all that my GPA was way below typical 3.7–4 GPA range (U.S. Scale) for the TOP jobs.

Thus let's start from what NOT to do if your GPA is below 3.5 or if you don't have degrees from Oxbridge, Harvard, Stanford and other Big-Name universities.

  1. Don't apply through the system — you are very, very likely to compete against candidates from the mentioned Big-Named universities or people who have done something extraordinary. Point 1 leads to:
  2. Don't write motivation letters — motivational letters take disproportionate amount of time to write and unless your CV already has some special-points it's better to skip writing motivational letters altogether.

If I don't apply — what should I do then?

And the answer is (drum-roll): build a relationship with someone who would care to refer you internally. As in every area of life key to everything is always people, especially when you are going against odds you would definitely need to find a mentor to help you out and refer you. As a rule of thumb — referral candidates would usually have a priority when applying. And do you know what else works in your favor when getting referred? Power of referring bonuses & perks — Someone who refers a candidate would usually receive something in return if candidate gets a top job — thus there is an incentive to refer great candidate like you!

Let's go deeper into this — how to make someone who's probably too busy with their own work to care enough to boost your career if they don't know you in the first place?

Well, this is where things get interesting. Get ready for: 3 Steps in getting your dream Job.

Step 1: Define what your core passions & skills are and find THE company that would be a good match for you to express yourself.

At initial stages of my realization I was obsessed with getting job at TOP consulting & banking firms focusing solely on the pay, brand name and other perks that these firms could give me. The problem with such motivators are that they were setting me up for a failure — even in a case I would get an interview I couldn't have answered a question "What drives you to apply to this position" without relying on some cliches ("Great company to enhance my career") and beaten phrases ("I see an opportunity to expand my horizons"). And not being able to answer these questions would make a lot of sense, after all I didn't have much motivation beyond cliche understanding of these companies & their cultures. A lot of candidates fail not because they are bad candidates, but because they haven't answered the most important question of "Why" to themselves.

Alright, if standard reasons to go after prestigious jobs doesn't work how do you then find personal motivators that go beyond the surface ? It's by looking at what your environment is (Friends, Family) and even more importantly focusing on what's your ever-existing passion.

In my case I was always fascinated by start-ups and have worked in few before starting to look for my first-ever job in prestigious firm. At the same time most of my friends were successful by doing a lot of marketing work on freelancing sites, thus I was always curious about what that "Digital Marketing" actually meant.

These factors naturally led me to define 2 core criteria that I have applied for my job search:

A. Company would be working with start-ups

B. It would be marketing-related

All other companies: Consulting, Banking had no relation to my passions & environment I was living in and naturally my applications to all these firms had very, very little chance of success, simply because I actually didn't care and wouldn't understand their world that well.

In case you have defined what drives you beyond brand name & prestige look on, we will go into details on how to turn that passion into an opportunity to actualize it.

Step 2: Join a network which has purpose of helping young professionals

As a rule of thumb you would want to join a network which either connects aspiring professionals (You!) with someone who already holds coveted jobs or a network where you would be able to introduce yourself in a stress-free environment. In this day and age there are plenty of such networks. Examples include:

A. Network for specific ethnicity/race/gender with a goal of empowerment. In my case I have joined Lithuanian LT Big Brother that connects young Lithuanians with Lithuanian mentors who have extensive international working experience. You would be surprised how many professional networks are based on cities, geographies, cultures and etc. There must be one for you too!

B. University Network: in case your university have career days with Alumni — join them! It's a big + if speakers/brand ambassadors have attended same class. You even might have had same professors or attended same students organizations — great topic for a small talk!

C. Sport clubs & associations: a lot of my clients & influential business leaders are part of the same sport clubs & societies — they can range from Tennis, Badminton, Basketball — you name it. Truth is — if you share passion in the same sport and happen to go to the same sports facility you have 100% chance at making a great first impression. How? Invite for a game! Competitive sports are great way to build ties & confidence.

Step 3: Pitch yourself in a humble, yet confident way

How?

Remember Step 1 about your passion? Share your passion with a person in question and show how that company would help you and how YOU would help the company!

You arrive to that "pitch" by actually asking questions about the company, projects and day-to-day life and expressing your honest interest via questions you ask to said professional. It's important to actually listen attentively to everything what these professionals share with you. After all they are sharing their precious little time to provide you with information about your potential future workplace, wouldn't that be extremely valuable?

After you have had chance to discuss company & projects with your mentor/play-mate/friend take some time to think IF that company is a place where you would like to work at and in case it is — relate all said projects & day-to-day activities to your passion.

After that feel free to ask for an advice on applying or a reference for such a job. In best case scenario — having heard sincere (Important!) expression of interest they could refer to you their own workplace OR recommend you to someone who's looking for someone like you.

In my case I was blessed to have 4 mentors from Consulting, Tech & Finance firms, these mentors, after countless discussions, CV reviews and hours over Skype & Hangouts have helped me to narrow down my search for "Tech Companies" and eventually introduced me to a Googler. Said Googler (for whom I'm very grateful) referred me to company I work today. It didn't matter that I was only a student within 2/3rd year of my studies and still had 1+ year to finish, the only thing that mattered is that I shared my passion for start-ups and was humble in asking for advice.

Thanks for reading! If you want to connect & follow on the upcoming stories: LinkedIn "Leonardas Gujis" & "Leo Gujis" on Facebook,

Cheers!

How Hard Is It To Get A Job At Google

Source: https://medium.com/@leonardas.gujis/getting-a-job-at-google-the-hard-truth-or-how-i-got-an-offer-while-still-being-an-undergrad-40078c465369

Posted by: martinezbealad.blogspot.com

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