Last semester (Fall ‘08) was one of the busiest I’ve ever had. Not only was I working part time at GTRI and taking classes as usual, but I was a TA and also going to career fairs and on job interviews. It was a great experience and I made some great connections, but tiring to say the least.

I attended the Georgia Tech career fair and immediately began meeting with recruiters and getting positive responses from my resume. In turn I was able to land interviews with GEICO, Bloomberg, and Oracle.

Bloomberg: The Bloomberg interview was first and it was an experience I’ll never forget. This was the first CS technical interview I’ve ever done and I was completely unprepared for what was about to go down. I interview with 2 developers from Bloomberg and they started right in on asking me technical CS questions. It basically felt like I was taking an oral final exam for the entire CS curriculum. Needless to say, I didn’t do too well and I received an email from them saying I wasn’t being selected for second round interviews.

GEICO: The position at GEICO was for a Web Developer at their corporate office in Chevy Chase, MD (5 mins. from D.C.). The on campus interview went well as I have most of my experience in Web Development and it wasn’t a technical interview anyways. So, they asked me to do a second round phone interview with the head of the Internet Business Unit. That interview also went well given my experience and so they asked me to come out to Chevy Chase for an on site interview. I flew out to Baltimore Washington International and then grabbed the rental car and headed to the hotel. The next morning I went to the corporate office and met everyone. All on site interviews also went well and I was feeling good about a possible offer. Well, I still haven’t received an offer, but I’ve been in contact with the recruiter and she informs me they’re still conducting interviews and I’m still a candidate. So, we’ll see what happens with that.

Oracle: The first round Oracle interview was on campus and pretty brief. This was for a consulting job where I would basically fly all over the country and work on various consulting projects for Oracle’s customers. The interview went well and I was asked to have an on site interview at their Buckhead corporate offices. The night before the interviews we were invited to a dinner so we could meet some of the interviewers. The dinner was nice and there were a lot of graduates from different schools and with different majors there. It wasn’t just technical grads there which I found surprising. The next morning I went to the on site interviews. There were to be 2 interviews and a “test” more or less. The test was comprised of 2 questions. The first was a consulting type question (non-technical) and the second was geared towards CS majors and contained a question about setting up a database, creating ER diagrams, and then writing a SQL statement for a specific query. Don’t ask me where I pulled ER diagram concepts from my brain, but I did. Also, the SQL statement looked correct too, I felt like I was possessed. The first second round interview was non-technical and went well, then the second second round interview was technical. I think I did well on both so I was excited to possibly get an offer. I ended up getting an offer, but with the travel and hectic schedule I didn’t think the salary was sufficient, so I declined the offer.

After the career fair interviews were finished, I actually found opportunities for 2 more interviews through connections and also on site recruiting events. I was able to get interviews with the NSA and Google.

NSA: I was excited about opportunities at the NSA because of the job descriptions. Basically exploiting networks (aka paid hacker). So, I went to their recruiting event and setup an interview time for the next day. I conducted the interview and seemed to impress the recruiter who gave me a condition job offer on the spot. A conditional job offer just means, we’ll give you an offer, and if you pass the extensive security screening, you’re hired. Well, I received the offer and I felt the salary was a little insufficient, so I declined the offer.

Google: Well, this is the dream job of course. I was able to land an interview thanks to the help of Joel Webber, a developer at Google who came and spoke at one of my classes about Google Web Toolkit. I knew what to expect from the interview, basically another extensive CS knowledge test along with a problem solving section. There were 2 interviews, back-to-back days. I was actually a little pessimistic going into the interview, but knew I would try my best to answer their questions. So, the interviews happened and as I thought, tough questions with less than adequate answers from me. Shortly after I was sent an email that didn’t necessisarily decline me, but basically said they weren’t going to do second round interviews with me.

So where does this leave me? Well, I was able to get job offers from Oracle, NSA, maybe GEICO, my current job (GTRI) and I also was left with a lot of great interview experience for the future. So, I believe grad school is the way to go. I wanted to have a good salary coming out of college given that I’m getting a late start in industry. I’ve applied to Georgia Tech to get the Master’s in Computer Science and will be awaiting word from them. I intend on doing the Fastrack program which allows CS undergrads to get into grad school at Tech with less requirements. I will update with their decision, so wish me luck.