How you can get a job in Google (Best 6 Tips)
What's up, everybody? How's it going? In this blog, I'm going to be sharing six tips on how you can win a job as a software engineer at Google, these tips are really going to apply to any big tech company. By the way, not just Google,
I worked at Google, as a software engineer for a little over two years, I went through the entire application process to get into Google. So I have a lot of knowledge on this matter. And I'm really hoping that the six steps, which cover the entire sort of application process and application life-cycle are gonna be really helpful for you.
With that said, let's dive into it. So the first step has to do with when to apply? Or rather, what do we need to be ready to apply? I get a lot of people who come to me and tell me Client, who is my dream company, I want to be a software engineer at Google. But I'm not applying yet.
Because I'm not ready. Maybe I'm not a good enough software engineer yet. Or maybe I don't have enough experience yet. And therefore, I am not applying to Google as of right now. Not ready. And that always surprises me. Because truth be told.
1. The Only thing you need to apply to Google is to know how to code well enough to take the coding interviews.
This is Tip Number One, the only thing that you need to be ready to apply to Google for a software engineering role is to know how to code well enough to take and pass the coding. And that's really all you need. I don't really long I'm not trying to trivialize getting into Google,
I'm not trying to make it seem like, it's super easy, and anybody can do it. No, there's a lot of other stuff that comes into play. And I'm gonna be talking about it in the following tips.
But truthfully, as far as being ready to apply, all you need to know is how to code well enough to take and pass the coding interviews. I'm a good example. I applied for my job at Google, right around five months after I wrote my very first line of code ever. And I had a few software engineering projects on my resume. I'll talk about that in the next step.
But all that I had otherwise to study knew how to code well enough to take and pass the coding. And if I had told myself, I'm not a good enough software engineer yet, which I could write, I could have told myself, I have no work experience. I'm not knowledgeable enough about all the areas of computer science and software engineering that exist,
I would have never applied and I would never get to Google. So once again, tip number one, if you know how to code well enough to take and pass the coding interviews, you are ready to apply to Google.
2. If you have no work experience in software engineering,
Tip Number Two- When you're applying to Google, no matter what application channel you go through, you're going to need to sell yourself, you're going to need to convey to the recruiters who are going through your application that you are worthy of being interviewed, and typically, are not even typically, but all the time this is done through your resume.
But as far as this tip here goes, I think that all you need on your resume is if you have no work experience in software engineering, I would say three software community projects on your resume. And if you do have work experience,
let's say even six months, at a company, even if it's not a well-known company, I would say that one software engineering project to go with that work experience is going to be what you need to convey to those recruiters that you're worthy of being interviewed.
But the key point that I want to make here, which kind of goes hand in hand with tip number one is that these software engineering projects, let's say you need to make three desk three software engineering projects on your resume.
So you have no work experience. If I take the three software engineering projects, out of the four that I had on my resume that I was most proud of the three that I think we're really good at. It took me about three weeks to make finish.
So what I'm saying here is that this is not something that could take years, you know, so this really goes hand in hand with the first tip of you're probably ready to apply to Google right now. Just take a few weeks to work on some cool software engineering projects. And you'll be ready, right?
Don't think that oh, you need to spend hours and hours or days and days, weeks and weeks on the software engineering projects. That is not the case.
3. Apply to Google by directly contacting recruiters on Linkedln.
Tip Number Three- This one has to do with how to actually apply to Google. I get a lot of people to come to me and tell me, Clements, I applied online. I submitted my resume online. I had a good resume I had good software engineering. they know how to code well enough to pass the coding interviews. But I never got contacted,
I must not be good enough to get a job at Google. No, no, no, no, no, no. When you're applying online, via the Google online application system, you're competing against millions, literally millions of other resumes, and is not a good way, or the best way to apply for a job at Google. Yes, it is to their people. I know a few people who got their jobs by literally throwing their resumes in the applicant pool online.
And that doesn't work for them. But they likely got really, really lucky, or had stellar resumes that sort of hit all the keywords and somehow managed to get through. What I would recommend is to contact a Google recruiter, a human being direct, this will seriously increase your chances of actually getting an interview by like, 400%. Okay, this is not a real statistic.
I don't have any statistical knowledge on this. But it will really increase your chances. So here, you might be asking yourself, but Clements, I don't know, Google recruiter? What do I do? And the answer is simple. There's this little website called LinkedIn, you may have heard of it. If you don't have an account on LinkedIn, I would highly recommend that you create one, it's really useful for this exact purpose.
Go on LinkedIn. And on LinkedIn. There's a little search bar at the top type in the search bar, Google recruiter, what do you think pops up? Google recruiters will literally have pages and pages and pages of Google recruiters. They're all smiling.
They all look super friendly. They're all Google recruiters. And what you're going to want to do is to spend a bit of time and by the way, this is not going to be easy. I didn't title this blog six easy tips to get into Google, I titled it six tips to get it to Google, maybe I could put part two because they're not easy.
You're gonna have to spend some time finding Google recruiters who happen to have their contact information on their LinkedIn a few of them do a few of them have their email address on their profile, or a few of them will invite you to message them on LinkedIn. Even if they don't invite you to message them on LinkedIn. Go ahead and message them and tell them that you're interested in applying to Google.
Now, I would definitely say, don't go and bombard 15 different recruiters with messages, probably try to find maybe three or four recruiters who are maybe you know, located in the office that you want to apply to, although they don't necessarily need to be in the same office that you want to apply to. But you know, that could help and see if you can find ones with their email, or if you can't just pick a few recruiters sort of randomly send them a message on LinkedIn.
If you don't have their email and wait to see if they reply, give them a few days, three to four days. If they don't answer, maybe follow up, and they don't answer after that. Move on to another recruiter, you probably don't want to have five different recruiters answering you at the same time, because why I would recommend sort of staggering them out in buckets of maybe like two, three, or four.
But that will more than likely will lead to a positive result, the recruiters are going to contact you back and you're going to be able to initiate the interview process. Bonus.
Tip number 3.5. I bet you didn't expect there to be a bonus tip number 3.5. But you're super happy that there is one. So you're gonna smash the like button. Right now, once you message all these recruiters, you might have one who responds to you and tells you, hey, whatever your name is, I'm actually not the recruiter who handles people of your level or the role that you're interested in. But you could apply online. And if that doesn't work out,
I can put you in touch with my colleague who does handle applications for people like you if you get a message like that. And you can definitely get one because I got exactly that message and I covered it in the Blog that I mentioned right before, do not, please do not I repeat, do not tell them. Okay, I'm going to go ahead and apply online. No, do not do that. Okay, that's just going to bring you back into the whole competing with billion resumes.
Now tell them, hey, whatever your name is, I'm really interested in this position and really excited about it. And I'd love to get the interview process started as soon as possible. Could you put me in touch with your colleague? And they're probably going to say yes, and you're going to have skipped that whole nonsense of applying online, which would likely not lead anywhere.
4. Prepare for the coding interview! (Get a job in Google)
Tip Number Four- This is perhaps the most important tip of all, well, I'm probably gonna say the same thing about the next tip, but the very simple and it's once you've landed the interviews, you have your interview scheduled,
you have to realize that the only thing that matters from here on out for you to land that job at Google, and whatever big tech company you're applying to is your performance on the coding interview, I'm going to repeat the thing that matters at that point.
For you to land that job is your performance on the coding interviews, it doesn't matter what you have on your resume, it doesn't matter whether or not you went to college, or if you got a few C's in college, or who referred you if you get referred? No, the only thing that matters at that point is your performance on the coding interviews.
Now, this should make you feel two things. First of all, it should make you feel empowered because you have the power, you have the power to control your own destiny in some sense.
On the other hand, this should also make you feel a bit scared because that's a big burden, right? Basically, it's your performance on those interviews in those very short in the grand scheme of things, interviews, is going to be what dictates or what determines rather, whether or not you get the job. This is why it's very important that you prepare for the coding interviews a lot, and very well.
Now, of course, if you're not new to this channel, you probably know I'm about to do that to shamelessly recommend that you check out algo expert, my company algo expert.io, we've helped 1000s upon 1000s, literally, of software engineers land their dream jobs at companies like Google, you've been getting an insane amount of positive feedback lately, definitely recommend that you check it out, use the promo code Clem CLM for discount the platform and prepare for those coding interviews. So that's tip number four.
5. Communicate in your interviews! (Get a job in Google)
Tip Number Five- Perhaps the most important tip of all, although I think I said the same thing about the previous tip, but nonetheless very important tip. And that is communication. In the interviews, it is so so, so important that you communicate very well. This is really one of the things that can make or break you in the coding interviews,
I talked about this at length in one of our interview tips, Articles on algo expert. But really, it's so important that you communicate well, there are so many people, so many candidates who do very well in their sort of algorithms, and they're coding or at least decently well, but then sort of mess up when it comes to communication.
And it's really nothing too crazy. It's just that they don't voice their thought process. They don't talk out loud when they're doing their coding interviews, it's so important. And it could really make or break you in those coding interviews, you don't want to fail those coding interviews, because you could have communicated better or more.
6. If you get rejected by Google. (Get a job in Google)
Tip Number Six- The final tip has to do with what to do, if you get rejected by maybe you've gone through the first five tips, you land the interviews, you prepared for the interview, and you still somehow didn't get an offer.
That doesn't mean that you weren't ready for that you were a bad software engineer, or that you'll never be able to get into Google, it's possible that you didn't prepare enough.
But it's also possible that you did and that you just got unlucky, or you've just had a bad day or a bad couple of interviews for whatever reason, these interviews ultimately, even if you are very well prepared are sort of hit or miss.
And so the point here, tip number six is that even if you get rejected from Google, if you really do want to eventually work there, you should reapply in the future. Well, I don't have any personal experience with this.
I know actually, at least a handful of people at Google and employees at Google software engineers there who got into the company, not on first trying they got into it after the second or even the third try at the interviews.
So if you got rejected or if you get rejected, and you really want to work at Google, definitely reapply in six or 12 months, and even if you get rejected a second time, reapply a third time because you might just get in. Those are all the tips I've got for you. I really hope that you found them helpful. If you did, let me know in the comments.