There are many beginner developers who are applying to big companies and are working very hard for those interviews. What would you suggest when someone gets rejected in such interviews?
First thing one needs to understand as a developer is that there is not one dream job in the world but many. For a college level student a dream job might be to get into a good company with a decent package while for an experienced developer it might be get a better company and work in a field of their interest or even work at senior level positions at their own companies. So definitions of dream jobs keeps on changing and so does the efforts required for getting them. If you get accepted it was because you put up enough efforts and interviewers appreciated your answers better than others if not then there might be n number of factors why you got rejected. Instead of feeling dejected if one starts thinking over the reasons they got rejected and try to rectify them in the next one then they can surely get a good job. Now contributing to opensource projects or participating in coding competitions/hackathons or other stuff for increasing your chances of getting accepted is an aspect of personal preference. Some like to do it while some don't and also sometimes there are time constraints. If you don't feel like doing then study core programming concepts and languages and build small projects on the way. Some company will surely find you the right candidate for their position and you will get a good job eventually. Because at the end of the day it's the talent and skill that matters the most while getting a good job according to me :D
(1)
You could (respectfully) ask for feedback on why your application wasn't successful. Were there particular skills they were looking for, or perhaps there were concerns about the fit between role and applicant ("great person, wrong job" happens; just as "great person, wrong time" happens).
Make it clear you are asking in order to guide personal growth (ie. don't give any vibe that you are complaining or contesting their decision) and be sure to thank them for their time if they do give feedback.
Be prepared for the fact the feedback may be quite challenging. Or, you might found that actually you were great, but someone else was absolutely perfect and it was a close decision.
(2)
Apply for other jobs. No job is the be-all and end-all. No company is perfect. The job that makes you happy may be one you didn't expect to love.
(3)
Also keep in mind the bigger and more desirable the company, the more people apply. Chances are you are one of dozens or even hundreds who didn't get the job.
Ive been there. Being rejected not only once but multiple times. Sometimes it really made me feel down and worthless but you know, there are a lot of companies out there that will know your worth and treat you as their valuable asset even if they are just a small company. It is really hard being rejected on your dream job and it will really take some time to completely shrug it off but remember that you must not forget who you really are and why at the first place you want and thrive to learn to code. You don't have to change yourself just to please or meet the standards of that big company. You just have to be you and continue on what you are doing. Dont give up! Eventually, you will get your big break in your chosen career.
I have strong feelings on this, so rant imminent. I also want to preface this by saying that these are my feelings and not necessarily representative of the entire community as a whole, in case that gets misconstrued somehow.
I've decided that what I do is for two groups:
That's it. Notice no company is any part of that. Now, if in trying to accomplish these tasks for #1 and #2, I can benefit a company, so be it.
Say I wanted to work for Google (which I don't; a search engine front which uses peoples data is of no interest to me), Facebook, or any number of large company. Before I even go there, I know one of several things:
The above would be my overall expectations when I put that application in. Now, there's a chance these bad things won;t happen and it'll "all just work out" but this is life, it's not a TV show and we all know how life is.
You have to remember that the creators of these said companies all got rejected from other companies. In fact in some cases, that's the reason why they started their own. A big company rejecting you basically says nothing about you. Now, if you kept getting rejected over and over by everyone for years, I would say step back and look at what you're doing and/or how you're presenting yourself... But otherwise, keep learning, keep coding, and keep applying.
Not sure why anyone wants to be a farmer in the zillions at these huge companies, aside from pay and benefits, but that's just me. I personally don't want to be a bot, I want to have a bigger impact on my workplace than to be employee #478237 from Engineering. But not everyone is me and I respect that.
Another perspective that I want you to consider is that large groups of people are often all wrong. There's this strange misconception that "the more geniuses under one roof," that they are mysteriously right all the time. This is completely false and it has been proven time and time again when aforementioned smart people will invent or create something that the 20,000 geniuses at Microsoft and/or Google overlooked. The reason this happens is because although Microsoft and/or Google employs said number of very smart people, not all of them are given the authority to use their smarts. I could be Team Lead of Windows Operating System for example and perhaps I haven't thought of something. Joey from my team has only been there a year and frankly, he has a better idea than I do and than the stakeholders do. However, company politics and policies prevent this idea from going into place. We've now displaced the fact that we have Joey, smart guy, on the team. Does this make sense? Large companies start out free/open but end up walling people in. When you wall geniuses in, their effective smarts diminishes. Such behavior can be seen, when, for example, a 16 year old stumbles upon a way to break Windows login and the bug has existed for 15 years without anyone at Microsoft knowing.
I invite you to consider that fact and use it to better situate your mind when you get rejected by a big company. Cheers,
If you think about the reasons why you desire to work for the big (i.e. most visible) companies, you may be able to find many smaller companies that share some of the same values.
One should always keep their expectations right before appearing for an interview. The chances of getting rejected is always 50% in any situation irrespective of your level of preparation. Getting into depression is the last thing one should do.
Being confident in oneself and never-give-up attitude is the key here.
Cheers! 🍺
There are career developers (5+ years) who would get denied for jobs at "big companies".
It's just a job. There are plenty of small companies that pay just as well if not better, have just as good benefits, if not better that aren't so hard to get into or work for.
Brush it off and move on.
Gergely Polonkai
You have to believe in things that are not true. How else would they become?
You never apply for your dream job, you make it yourself. Don’t get me wrong, you don’t have to be an entrepreneur and start your own business for this. Bear with me.
For a while, my dream job was as a systems engineer at a big company, managing thousands of servers. When I got there, I hated it so much after a few months. Then, I badly wanted to be a developer/devops guy at a big company. When I got there, I got bored after a few months.
Then, I wanted to be a developer using a language (and preferably, framework) I like, with likeminded people, working on projects I can call mine. So, at the aforementioned company, when a need arose to build a new service, I applied with my detailed idea, and started building it. I wasn’t building the Big Software made by that company. I was building some internal tool used by a bunch of people to ease their work. But I was working with awesome people, with my favourite language, and a framework I really liked that time.
After roughly finishing it, a small startup came to me with an offer using the same language but different framework. After the first interview I know it was for me. The team was awesome, the product they made was awesome, the ideas and plans they had for the future was awesome. So I accepted, and this is probably the happiest job I ever had.
Never apply for a dream job. Make your current job the one, or if you can’t, find a better one.