Reading 02: Question 1 - My Interview Process Experience
By Keith MacDonell - kmacdone
Despite ultimately deciding to forgo a job in the chemical engineering field for completing a Masters in Computer Science, I did still go through the interview process my junior year for an internship. Overall, the process of applying for internships and participating in interviews was very frustrating and ultimately disappointing.
The frustration started at the very beginning with application process itself. The Notre Dame job site seems to only be geared beneficial to specific majors. If, for example, you are a mechanical engineering or civil engineering major, then there are plenty of companies listed looking for both internship and job candidates. As a chemical engineering undergrad, however, this was not the case. As I recall, there were maybe three or four companies the entire two semesters I was looking for internships that were interested in offering internships directly related to my major, definitely not enough to help the 93 students in my class. I would like to think that this was just because the chemical engineering industry was not particularly robust that year, but it also seems to be a bit of a failure on Notre Dame's part in providing a network for their students.
One of the things that the University of Notre Dame prides itself on is its extensive alumni network, which consists of people all across the country in every type of company. Since the job site didn't particularly help, I applied to various companies on their individual websites. I then followed up by reaching out to Notre Dame alumni working for the companies in the hopes that they would bring my application to the company's attention. Unfortunately, not even 1/3rd of the people I contacted even responded.
Chemical engineering, like computer science and all the other engineering majors, tends to rely on technical interviews throughout the progress to evaluate the skills of each candidate. However, this indication of a meritocracy paradigm seemed to be misleading, at least with respect to internships. Of the several interviews that I did have, most of the time the candidate receiving the offer was the relative or family friend of a company executive. This was very frustrating because it felt like my work wasn't paying off. I finally got my internship doing lab research at a small paint company in Kansas City. In then end, my internship came about in a similar fashion. A family friend had a contact in the company, and he made inquiries on my behalf.
It is interesting to me how much the meritocratic style of interviewing in the tech company is being called into question. The typical format of white-boarding doesn't seem to accurately model how a job actually works. Quincy Larson brings up a good point in his article "Why is Hiring Broken?" He says, "Virtually every developer I've talked with agrees that one's ability to write algorithms from memory on a whiteboard has almost nothing to do with real day-to-day developer work.
I am excited for the process I will be going through this year for a computer science internship, as there are many more company opportunities through Notre Dame connections. However, I know that I will have to work really hard and do a lot of prep for the interviews.
Despite ultimately deciding to forgo a job in the chemical engineering field for completing a Masters in Computer Science, I did still go through the interview process my junior year for an internship. Overall, the process of applying for internships and participating in interviews was very frustrating and ultimately disappointing.
The frustration started at the very beginning with application process itself. The Notre Dame job site seems to only be geared beneficial to specific majors. If, for example, you are a mechanical engineering or civil engineering major, then there are plenty of companies listed looking for both internship and job candidates. As a chemical engineering undergrad, however, this was not the case. As I recall, there were maybe three or four companies the entire two semesters I was looking for internships that were interested in offering internships directly related to my major, definitely not enough to help the 93 students in my class. I would like to think that this was just because the chemical engineering industry was not particularly robust that year, but it also seems to be a bit of a failure on Notre Dame's part in providing a network for their students.
One of the things that the University of Notre Dame prides itself on is its extensive alumni network, which consists of people all across the country in every type of company. Since the job site didn't particularly help, I applied to various companies on their individual websites. I then followed up by reaching out to Notre Dame alumni working for the companies in the hopes that they would bring my application to the company's attention. Unfortunately, not even 1/3rd of the people I contacted even responded.
Chemical engineering, like computer science and all the other engineering majors, tends to rely on technical interviews throughout the progress to evaluate the skills of each candidate. However, this indication of a meritocracy paradigm seemed to be misleading, at least with respect to internships. Of the several interviews that I did have, most of the time the candidate receiving the offer was the relative or family friend of a company executive. This was very frustrating because it felt like my work wasn't paying off. I finally got my internship doing lab research at a small paint company in Kansas City. In then end, my internship came about in a similar fashion. A family friend had a contact in the company, and he made inquiries on my behalf.
It is interesting to me how much the meritocratic style of interviewing in the tech company is being called into question. The typical format of white-boarding doesn't seem to accurately model how a job actually works. Quincy Larson brings up a good point in his article "Why is Hiring Broken?" He says, "Virtually every developer I've talked with agrees that one's ability to write algorithms from memory on a whiteboard has almost nothing to do with real day-to-day developer work.
I am excited for the process I will be going through this year for a computer science internship, as there are many more company opportunities through Notre Dame connections. However, I know that I will have to work really hard and do a lot of prep for the interviews.
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