It’s not surprising that many new grads aspire to work for one of the five prominent U.S. technology companies: Facebook, Amazon, Apple, Netflix or Google (often referred to by the acronym FAANG).  

Cutting your teeth in an industry-leading company can provide the foundational cachet for a long, successful career in technology. However, it goes without saying that scoring an offer from a member of the FAANG fraternity isn’t easy, especially when FAANG hiring is down from pre-pandemic levels.

But when it comes to hiring activity and investing in future talent, they’ve all shown signs of cooling down. Even Amazon, which continues to hire for more than 35,000 positions, cooled off from a high of 41,000 openings just a month ago. Here, we take a look at how — and where — the FAANG companies are hiring (or not) to get a better sense of how things are panning out for those who are looking for their next job in tech.

These “Big Tech” companies hire around 923400 employees per year using their effectual ways. So, the big question:

“How do they do it?”

  • Employee referrals: All these companies set up employee referral programs. Now, this may sound cliche because all the startup companies do this too but these FAANG Companies do something in addition to those programs. They reward their employees if and when that employee provides them with referrals. Well, they don’t just give them bonuses but better rewards. Google uses a “nudging approach” towards their pre-existing employees for getting referrals. In addition to that, Google also implements “sourcing jams” through its employees’ LinkedIn and Facebook contacts.
  • Employee Value Propositions: Big tech companies give value to their employees’ time and hard work, which in turn makes their employees work better. They just don’t provide great paychecks but also provide far better benefits that attract the top talent.
  • Conduct tech events: This is where their brand value works. Tech events are hosted by various companies all over the world but not all events get famous or tend to attract the top talent as planned, why? Well, the fact is, top tech companies not just implement tech events, they host interactive and innovative events such as tech meetups, hackathons, boot camps, coding challenges, etc., where the participants can learn and upgrade their skills.
  • Provide a great interview experience: Big brand companies not just attract the top talent but also put them through a meticulous interview process, where the recruiters not just ask them typical and traditional interview questions but create an interview environment that is interactive for both the candidate and the interviewer.
  • Reach out: Big tech companies do not wait for the talent to come to them, instead they reach out to the top talent and provide them with extraordinary offers that center the focus of the candidates towards them.

How you can get a job in FAANG companies

First of all, one needs to focus on harnessing the soft skills required to be taken in by a FAANG company.

Ability to think out of the box, problem-solving skills, expertise in solving algorithms and data structures, teamwork, coding competition expertise, contribution in open source projects, brainstorming, ability to improve solutions, grasp information quickly and organizing one’s thoughts are major qualities FAANG companies look for in a candidate.

1. Interview process

It varies from company to company; one should read the blogs which talk about it. Generally speaking, there are around 3-7 rounds of interviews for an entry-level and a lateral role.

2. Pre-screening round

In this round, your resume is shortlisted by the recruiter and is also considered the most difficult segment to crack.

A candidate would need to grab the attention of a recruiter by making their CV stand out.

The interviewer tries to understand the candidate’s background and asks a few HR questions, the answer should match the job description. If a candidate is able to crack this round, then next would be a technical test.

3. Technical test

The concepts one needs to focus on are data structures and algorithms.

Doing a bit of competitive programming would help to overcome the challenging problems.

4. Personal interview

It is divided into two parts, Technical and HR interviews. One can crack technical interviews by practicing more and more coding and problem-solving.

The various courses would help candidates immensely. In the HR interview, candidates will have to justify their worth to the company, as to what makes them the best fit for the role.

—

Following these tricks and techniques, prospective candidates can prepare for all rounds of interviews. Thorough preparation will make the entry process easier and help FAANG aspirants stay ahead of their competitors.