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Fog Creek's Intern Hiring Process

92 pointsby dodgerabout 11 years ago

13 comments

crazypyroabout 11 years ago
As someone who just went through the internship process with a few different companies, I find this fascinating. This is pretty much what I expected going into the experience (multiple interviews, at least 1-2 coding questions&#x2F;examples to do, a test maybe). Out of the few companies I interviewed from, I had nothing as intense as this. The majority of them didn&#x27;t even test coding&#x2F;theory knowledge at all. They were just simple interviews that lasted 2-5 hours. The hardest part of any interview was a freaking mental acuity standardized test I took at the company who I&#x27;ll be working for that wasn&#x27;t hard, so take the term &quot;hardest&quot; lightly. Good news is I accepted an offer at that smaller engineering company! A good portion of my interviews were for engineering companies because of the employers my university attracts, so that could also have affected the technical parts of the interview.<p>I&#x27;m not sure how I feel about how many interviews and how long this process is. I know some of my fellow students would be completely blindsided by such a long process unless it was clearly laid out. The compensation seems nice from the companies that hire around here (I go to a predominately STEM university in the Mid-West and all the companies I interviewed with came to our career fair in February, which is pretty late in the process). I&#x27;ll make just over half that much monthly, but it&#x27;ll be June-December and in STL. The highest I&#x27;ve heard from my classmates is 7k&#x2F;month, but that was from Exxon Mobile and there was very little technical parts of the interview. He did have to take a hair test for drugs though. Ideally, I believe most of the larger corporations, like Boeing, Monsanto, etc, (like the article said) start interviews after the fall career fair.<p>Another side note about compensation: Seems to be pretty wide spread between 13-30&#x2F;hr (without adding in housing) at companies around the Midwest. I don&#x27;t exactly have the greatest academic credentials though (3.0 gpa), so some of the more selective companies may pay more, especially for graduating seniors. Exxon-Mobile being the highest, Boeing right in the middle of that range, and a local ISP looking for a non-coding cs major on the low end for the curious.<p>edit: Just adding in details as I get time.<p>FORGOT THE MOST ANNOYING THING<p>I was given the offer on Friday and he needed an answer on Monday, else he was going to extend the offer to other candidates. This was pretty obnoxious to me, but I ended up taking the offer because I was interested in it more than my other potential offers, but seriously, recruiters, a weekend is not enough time to get back to you with an offer, especially when other companies are asking you to keep them notified with enough time that they can either speed things up or not waste time on a candidate.
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dominotwabout 11 years ago
Can&#x27;t they atleast hire one person that didn&#x27;t luck out by being born in a rich&#x2F;middle class american family to go to ivy league universities.<p>What is such complicated product that Fog Creek makes that it needs graduates from top 10 universities? Serious question.
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ultimooabout 11 years ago
As someone who did a summer internship last year at an amazing SF company, the pay-scale at fogcreek sounds pretty competitive (read amazing).<p>$6,000 a month comes to a shade less than $40&#x2F;hour. Bear in mind that most full time students work only in summers so although considerable federal tax is deducted from this amount, the intern is likely to receive most of it back when filing taxes next year.<p>Also, catered lunches plus an apartment in NYC plus two amazing events in twice a week (which likely include dinner) means that the only money that needs to be spent is a handful of weekday dinners plus weekend fun, and I haven&#x27;t even gotten to the thousand dollar signing bonus yet!<p>Being in college, I knew about 10-12 others who interned last summer in the Bay Area. With most companies in the SF Bay Area you&#x27;re looking at about $27 to $34 at most large companies in the south bay and $35 to $40 in SF. Plus an hourly pay scale means that interns don&#x27;t get paid on holidays like 4th of July, Labor Day, or when they get sick (didn&#x27;t know anyone who got paid monthly instead of hourly in the Bay Area). I haven&#x27;t heard of housing benefits in the south bay much and heard of only one company in SF that threw in free housing.<p>(Sorry about a long comment focusing only on the financial aspects of an internship program but it is an important factor that debt-ridden students take into account).
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sbucciniabout 11 years ago
On behalf of a student who just finished up the internship search: Companies&#x2F;recruiters, please note the advice put forth here.<p>A couple of points I&#x27;d like to touch on:<p>* Be sure to provide your interns with a ton of guidance, and promote this in during your recruitment process. Many of my fellow students are turned off by the bigger companies since they feel like they won&#x27;t be able to make an impact. As a smaller company, this is your ace in the hole. Use it to your advantage.<p>* Personally, exploding offers leave a bad taste in my mouth. Everyone knows how long the recruitment process takes, and you should give the intern the common courtesy to make an informed decision. The last thing you want is a disgruntled intern on your payroll for a few months.<p>* You should consider internships as an investment. Build a relationship with your intern, and it will pay numerous dividends in the long run. They might return for a full-time position or they may refer a friend that they respect. A good way to support your intern during the school year is to sponsor a hackathon or an interview workshop at their school. This gets you face-to-face with some of the most motivated hackers at any school, where you can begin the courting process.<p>Just some quick thoughts from the student&#x27;s side of the table.
LukeWalshabout 11 years ago
&gt; If you don’t know where to begin here’s a good rule: only target colleges that admit less than 30% of applicants. That will give you a head start on being selective, especially if you have limited spots available in your program.<p>I personally think this is silly. If you want to be selective just focus on applicants who actually build things. If you look at collegiate hackathons at places like university of michigan, UIUC, or Purdue it&#x27;s clear that there is a lot of talent in the midwest. Just because someone wasn&#x27;t born on a coast or with a connection to an ivy league school doesn&#x27;t mean they don&#x27;t make a cut for selectiveness.
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inconshreveableabout 11 years ago
As a former Fog Creek intern (2010), I can tell you that Fog Creek&#x27;s internship program is one of the best built out programs I&#x27;ve seen in the industry. It rivals and exceeds those of software firms with 10-100x resources. The talent they attract is top-notch too.
coviabout 11 years ago
I have to say the pay is by no way &quot;spoiling&quot;. It is no where near the top tier pay (for interns) seen in the industry.
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jonhellerabout 11 years ago
There was a whole movie about interns at Fog Creek.<p><a href="https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=0NRL7YsXjSg" rel="nofollow">https:&#x2F;&#x2F;www.youtube.com&#x2F;watch?v=0NRL7YsXjSg</a><p>I admit it could have been edited a bit better (read: more interesting), but it was still fun to get a bit more of an inside view of a process like this.
bcaineabout 11 years ago
This sounds like a great program, I just wish it was offered year-round. Even though I think Northeastern University and Waterloo are the only schools with a completely integrated, well defined Co-op program, it seems like its a growing trend.<p>I&#x27;d assume having year round interns and a continuous recruitment process would be less disruptive to the team&#x27;s work velocity and give you a bit bigger reach for students too.<p>Plus, I&#x27;m a bit jealous of some of the summer-only internships at a lot of interesting companies. Can&#x27;t complain about graduating with 18+ months of interesting work experience pretty much guaranteed though.
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sergiotapiaabout 11 years ago
All of this sounds extremely exhausting for a simple internship. About 30 times more effort than I&#x27;ve ever had to put to land a job as a freelancer.<p>I&#x27;ll take my standard $50&#x2F;hour rate and avoid these rat-races. 400 applicants and only 8 hires!? YIKES. Are these fellas going to the moon?
mathattackabout 11 years ago
Remember that this is New York City. $6000 is great money to begin with. Add $2000&#x2F;month minimum for rent. (And imagine digging up a security deposit too...) This is investment banking money for a software firm with a much more respectable work-life balance.<p>(I have no connection to the firm, though I have read pretty much everything that Joel has written)
sscaliaabout 11 years ago
Am I the only one flabbergasted by the comp #&#x27;s thrown around in the article and in these threads?
asselinpaulabout 11 years ago
Does anyone know how much one would make in a Finance Internship at a hedge-fund, prop firm and investment bank?
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