For background information on this post, please see Preparing for Programming Interviews.
The Google Resume is a book written by Gayle Laakmann McDowell, who was a software engineer at Google and interviewed over a hundred engineering candidates. She is the founder of CareerCup. The book has many examples to illustrate the recommendations the author makes.
Here are some major points in the book:
• Developing a strong career background with: a track record of achievement, communication skills, showing leadership, finding or being a mentor, developing specific and tangible skills
• Compensating for a low GPA with a combination of passion and specific skills
• Getting to know professors by getting involved in their research, asking them for help, becoming a teaching assistant
• Making an impact by improving the lives of coworkers, being very skilled at what you do, proactively soliciting feedback, learning about other teams, and then quantifying your impact
• Volunteering for nonprofits in a way that shows you gained skills in sales, marketing, and engineering
• Starting a side project as a student to gain attention from recruiters
• Using keywords in your resume that match exactly what a company is working for
• Contacting a recruiter or hiring manager directly instead of submitting an application through a job web site
• Getting personal referrals, which are the best way to get jobs
• Being helpful to employees at a prospective dream company (such as helping them find useful information)
• Contacting recruiters in a well-researched way instead of spamming them
• Preparing for career fairs by: researching companies, preparing questions, preparing answers to basic questions, preparing an elevator pitch, tailoring your résumé to each position, dressing appropriately, and following up
• Networking by immersing yourself in the startup community
• Making a résumé that: describes accomplishments, quantifies results, is tailored to a specific position, is meaningful to both recruiters and engineers, is professional and concise, and is structured to differentiate you from other applicants
• Sticking to a one page résumé that is relevant to the position
• Making a cover letter by describing qualifications in a way that matches what a company wants
• Finding references who: have worked directly with you, speak well of you, understand the position you’re applying for, and are eager to help
• Demonstrating these traits in interviews: passion for technology, excitement about the company, creativity, initiative, getting things done, and intelligence
• Preparing for interviews by: practicing your pitch, reviewing your résumé, studying the company and its products, analyzing your interviewer based on social networking profiles, preparing questions for the interviewer(s)
• Keeping the attention of interviewers by: varying your speech, telling stories, being concise instead of rambling, and giving a sense of structure to your responses
• Ways to project confidence: eye contact, matching the interviewer’s volume, and watching out for nervous habits
• Thanking the recruiter and interviewer
• Using good communication skills by: listening fully to the interviewers’ questions, clarifying ambiguity in interview questions, and solving problems out loud
• Preparing for programming questions:
1. Trying to solve the problem on your own
2. Writing the code for the algorithm down on paper
3. Testing the code by hand
4. Typing the code into a computer exactly
5. Listing the mistakes you made and analyzing them
• Answering coding questions in an interview:
1. Asking your interviewing questions about the problem
2. Designing an algorithm
3. Writing pseudo-code first (and telling the interview that’s what you’re doing)
4. Writing the code (at a medium speed)
5. Testing the code and carefully fixing any mistakes
• Ways of creating an algorithm: figuring out a general rule based on examples, relating a problem to similar ones, simplifying and generalizing a problem, solving an algorithm for a base case and then for other elements, and trying to apply each data structure from a list of data structures
Other parts of the book discuss:
• how to best answer questions about object-oriented design, scalability, and testing
• applying to gaming companies
• how to evaluate job offers
• how to negotiate salary terms
• defining your career path
• managing performance reviews
• deciding whether or not to return to school
