[theflyinghorse]

> Is this just a really well kept secret

It's very hard. Not having FANG/unicorns on your resume probably contributes massively to this. FANG style interviews are a skill of their own - I recently had a 6 hours of interviews back to back with Amazon and it was a mix of pretty tough technical questions and very specific behavioral questions. Even with practice solving sole of the question was very hard. For instance, I solved a DP question in a top down and interviewer asked me to then solve it bottom up for him in the remaining 5 minutes. You can't do this without a solid amount of practice.

[trav4225]

Yeah, personally, I constantly receive calls from FAANGs for interviews, but I pass on them all. My current lack of free time to work on interview prep is the sole reason. I almost feel like it's impossible to find the time to prep without quitting my current job first... :-/

What's always been a little baffling to me, though, is how easily these companies hire fresh grads. I have several friends that walked straight into FAANG jobs right out of school with little more than a couple quick phone interviews. One recruiter told me that the bar is lower for fresh grads because they can be more easily molded into the company culture.

[tester756]

dafq

so, If I'm fresh grad with 3 years of commercial, full time experience, then it'd be better for me to lie that I have no experience? :o

[trav4225]

I dunno. I think they just treat fresh grads differently. They probably look more at one's graduation date than at one's (lack of) experience at that point. They want really fresh meat. ;-)

My views here are purely anecdotal, and based only on interactions with former peers (students) and something an Amazon recruiter told me at one point.