#Soph at T5-T10, 200 apps, 1 interview, 0 offers.

1 messages · Page 1 of 1 (latest)

candid geyser
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been applying to positions from zero2sudo, simplify repo, and occasionally linkedin/handshake

gentle fractal
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Can you talk more about the actual quantifiable impact of your projects/work experience? Sure, they're only internships, but it would be good if you could quantify anything like time saved (ie. "saved 2 days of manual work per quarter), % reduction in error rates, or best of all, actual monetary gain.

candid geyser
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yeah i tried to do that with the last two (0.964 correlation and 0.2%) but the other two lowkey didn't have any impact 💀

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i'm still working at the first one so i'm hoping to add metrics sometime

gentle fractal
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it's acceptable if you "napkin math" it

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I work in insurance and it's notoriously horrible to get people to tell you how much improving your model made in cash returns

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so we just estimate it, if they ever ask you about it in an interview, just be transparent - they'll be fully understanding of how difficult it is to collect this stuff

candid geyser
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i gotcha ty!

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is there any other reason you think im not getting interviews besides the metrics?

gentle fractal
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what jobs are you mostly applying for? presumably software engineering?

candid geyser
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yup swe internships

gentle fractal
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Do you have a github? It's always helpful to have a well presented portfolio, particularly as a graduate where there's admittedly not much setting each person apart from another

candid geyser
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i do, unfortunately i dont have much to share on there cause my projects are class projects that i'd get kicked out of college for sharing 😂

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the only project i have that i can share on github are the 3rd and 4th internships

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since they were more research oriented

gentle fractal
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Otherwise you really shouldn't be too hard on yourself - ultimately it's the reality nowadays that companies leave these job adverts up on Linkedin, etc. when they're not really hiring, and the larger graduate schemes / internship cohorts at larger companies are insanely competitive.

candid geyser
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gotcha ty!

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hopefully spring cycle treats me a bit better lol

abstract lichen
dusk kiln
gentle fractal
abstract lichen
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thx ren, and do you know why the vansh ouckah one isnt being updated?

dusk kiln
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no idea

candid geyser
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speaking of projects, i've been in a bit of a dilemma on which to include

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i have the tetris one in the resume

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but i recently completed an implementation of a ray tracer in java

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using a bounded volume hierarchy

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but there are a few pros and cons

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pros: ray tracer sounds infinitely cooler, it was overall a more technicallyt challenging project

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cons: there isn't a lot i could write on the resume, definitely no metrics like tetris, also worst case scenario of BVH is O(n) which essentially renders it useless and that's something i'd have to defend in interviews

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what do you think

gentle fractal
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The interviewer will usually be more interested in your critical thinking ability and the ability to learn, more than any specific technology - they can teach you ShinyR but they can't teach you how to solve problems and think outside of the box.

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Admittedly I'm not too familiar with ray tracing and what you're describing, but showing awareness of big O, being able to talk about the decision making process you went through, and that there are drawbacks of your approach probably looks better than "yeah look at my O(logn) tetris heuristic" or whatever it might be, if you see what I mean

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I guess it's a case of trying to convey that you can think critically about the problem - it's very meta advice and I'm not sure how applicable it is to a resume, but this was the kind of thing we looked for when we interviewed graduates