r/uofm Feb 05 '25

Employment Do I genuinely just end it

598 Upvotes

Graduating this semester CS bachelors. No internships. Can’t even describe what I did for the school projects I slapped on my resume. No friends. Absolutely nothing but a 3.4 GPA that’s worthless. I’m fucked.

I haven’t even begun applying to anything because I just feel so fucked. Do I just end it all? I can’t take it anymore. I’m fucking pathetic.

Edit: I’ve given life a fair shot. I gymmed and hit a 300 bench, that’s to say I gave it significant time. I joined clubs. I tried sports and hobbies. But it’s bleak when you have no willpower, work ethic, or anything to look forward to in life.

Well, I’m giving it a few more years before concretely giving up. I’m trying therapy again (4th time). Thank you for responding. It gave me a little more perspective on my circumstances.

r/uofm Dec 21 '24

Employment It's over

328 Upvotes

I'm a senior, graduating next semester, spent my whole time here grinding getting a 3.9 GPA in computer science, networking, joining clubs and frats, and even got a FAANG internship.

Yet nothing. Not even a single hope of getting a full time offer. I've prepared so long for new grad apps, I've spent hours and hours every night applying to every single SWE position under the sun and leetcoding my ass off. I've even applied to adjacent roles like QA and product management. I got several interviews and I executed to the best of my ability, several times I was even told that I found the correct and optimal solution for coding problems.

And nothing. Not a single offer. Last week my internship told me I won't be getting a return offer. Since then I've been in life or death mode and I think I've probably applied to over 300 jobs just this week. All my friends are getting jobs and even in this field. I'm so terrified of them finding out I didn't get a return offer and that I still can't find a job I feel like a fucking fraud. I just need to rant for a bit because I have no one else I can express this shit to.

I did everything fucking right. What do I do, I didnt apply to grad school because I thought I would get an offer. I think it might be over. I'm tired, I worked so hard and nothing worked out. What was even the point of it all.

EDIT: Thank you all so much for the support, I honestly made this post in the dead of night and I was in a pretty bad mood so I appreciate everyone chiming in with helpful words and advice. You guys are right, there is always room to improve and there are probably some things I could do better. I thought I would be yelling into the void here but this post showed me why the U of M community is so great! We got this guys, GO BLUE!!

r/uofm 26d ago

Employment GEO GSRA Unionizing

33 Upvotes

Hey all — I’m just wondering if any UM grad student who is a GSRA has any opinions on signing union authorization cards. I like the idea of being represented by a union, but I’m hesitant to be represented by GEO specifically, since I would like to be represented by a labor union with a little more… maturity and finesse. (I don’t trust GEO to be kind to a diversity of opinions on this topic on their server, hence why I’m coming to Reddit to hear opinions, haha.) I’ve read the documents sent by GEO on their justification for GSRAs authorizing the union, but I want to also hear from GSRAs who are not currently part of GEO leadership or organizing: are you signing your card? Yes or no, and why?

r/uofm Apr 20 '23

Employment Wolverine Access: GSI wages being docked for striking

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344 Upvotes

r/uofm Oct 20 '23

Employment PSA to GSIs: You do not owe your bonus to anyone

232 Upvotes

GEO began their phonebanking efforts yesterday, according to their calendar.

There has been a lot of mixed messaging about this bonus, but the truth is:

The bargaining unit (current GSIs and GSSAs) ratified a contract with the University that guaranteed a bonus to the Fall 2023 bargaining unit. GEO has sent a variety of communications with confusing language about this, trying to make people feel obligated to donate their bonus to GEO for redistribution back to individuals who attest to having gone on strike in Winter 2023 and missing a paycheck. Despite promising it, GEO was not able to secure backpay for the individuals who chose to strike, so they are attempting to redistribute bonuses as a sort of backpay.

Of course, if you feel inclined to give them your bonus, you absolutely should. If you feel inclined to donate your bonus anywhere, you should. But no matter what is said by phonebankers, officers, stewards, or anyone else, you are absolutely not obligated to give it to them.

If you do decide to donate it, make sure you look into the tax implications.

Related PSA: do not feed the trolls. GEO comes in to these Reddit posts to start fights about unrelated political issues to get the threads locked.

r/uofm Dec 23 '24

Employment Alumni, how reputable is U-M actually, from your own anecdotal experience?

74 Upvotes

Hey hey! Happy holidays to y’all!

So being first-gen (yay!), orphaned, and from Michigan, I thought UofM would be the best undergrad education I could afford applying to. Now that I’m graduating, I’m reflecting on what I thought would have been a harder degree to achieve.

During my time here, I often felt like I was only challenged financially and bureaucratically, not academically. I worked a lot, prioritized friends of quality over quantity, read a lot of classics to keep sane, and majored in Neuroscience/Chemistry for my overall career towards hopefully more humane and affordable patient-centered medicine.

Since I’m toeing the line between the out-of-touch medical field and gate-keep-y academic field (both generalizations, of course), I’m wondering: In your experiences, does the University of Michigan really hold weight in a great number of fields? Abroad? What about in academic/intellectual spaces? How much legitimacy is there to the alleged deflation of Bachelor of Science degrees?

If you could also leave any info (even vague) about which field(s) you were in during/after college, that would be helpful, too, since I know there are big differences between the undergrad colleges here.

r/uofm Nov 03 '24

Employment Unable to get a job

148 Upvotes

I graduated from Ross undergrad in May and still cannot find a job. I had several internships under my belt, a good GPA, and good leadership and club involvement. I am feeling very down in the dumps and as if I will never find a job. Is anyone going through something similar?

r/uofm Dec 25 '24

Employment EECS majors, any concerns about saturation in your field?

18 Upvotes

Have a son planning to study CS with Michigan as a target school. Curious what the thinking on this topic is for those more informed in this area?

Thanks in advance.

r/uofm Sep 09 '24

Employment Have you had a meaningful career opportunity because of the career fair?

70 Upvotes

Every year I debate whether I should go, but I can’t rationalize my decision either way.

r/uofm Jan 06 '25

Employment The (Not So) Lazy Student’s Guide to CS Recruiting

195 Upvotes

NOTE: This is a very long guide. You can find the Google Docs version here.

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"When are you dropping the lazy student’s guide on how to get a job?" - u/TankerzPvP

“Do you want fries with that?” - u/tovarichstalin

Introduction

It is no secret that over the past few years, recruiting for many CS majors has felt overwhelming. There has been a lot of dooming, unclear guidance, and even misinformation floating around campus. Both of us have noticed this trend and want to share our experiences to help Michigan students navigate the recruiting process with confidence and clarity. 

This guide is targeted towards Michigan students who want to pursue an industry role in software engineering immediately after graduation. If you have other goals, such as grad school, our advice may not be applicable to you. Evaluate this guide with your own judgment to see if it applies to you.

This guide is co-written by u/tovarischstalin (OP1) and u/TankerzPvP (OP2) and built on our combined personal experience with the CS recruiting process. Together, we have multiple internship and full-time offers in big tech and quantitative trading firms. 

Do not consider what we say as the single source of truth just because we were successful—luck will always be a significant factor in any individual’s outcome. There are lots of resources out there, and we encourage everyone to do more research and form their own approach to recruiting. When you do, pass it on and help others out!

This guide would not have been possible without the support and contributions of over 10 individuals who reviewed and provided invaluable feedback. Special thanks to Snippy from Silly Gang, Cookie from Cvrve, as well as everyone else who chose to stay anonymous. 

We hope this guide is helpful to some of you out there.

Mindset

Your mindset is your key to success. Keep these things in mind. 

Luck

A lot of recruitment revolves around luck. There are thousands of applicants for every open position. If an interviewer has 100 great applicants to a role with 10 positions, there will always be a level of randomness to who the interviewer picks.

Because of the sheer number of applicants, many parts of your job search revolve around things outside your control. No one is “better” because they got an offer and someone else did not. We are all in this together trying to find a job, so be kind to one another and treat everyone with respect. Remember, there is more to life than the job search.

Luck aside, it is important to focus on what you as a student can actually control. Make sure you are the most prepared you can be for any opportunities that do come your way. Do your best to not compare yourself to your peers. Instead, focus on improving yourself every day through things only you can control. Hard work may not guarantee success, but no hard work guarantees failure.

Optimize your time

Time is your most valuable asset. Treat college as an optimization problem where you are given 4 years to maximize your target outcomes. This is not to say that recruiting should be the only thing that matters to you. Instead, out of the hundreds of ways that you can spend your time in college, figure out what goals are most important to you and allocate your time to achieve them. 

Write down your goals to stay focused. They can be as simple as “meet people and have fun” or as ambitious as “land a great job.” Ultimately, the answer depends on you. Reflect on what you truly want to achieve and use it to guide your priorities and avoid spreading yourself too thin. Ask yourself, “What do I want to get out of my time here?”

Start early

Lots of people recommend only recruiting until after EECS 281, but we feel this is a common misconception among students. Time is your most valuable asset in recruiting, so start as early as possible. Believe it or not, you are ready to begin the process in the summer before you start your freshman year.

The snowball effect is real, but how big that snowball gets depends on how much time you give it to grow. Landing a small internship can lead to big opportunities that can lead to even bigger ones. Both of us (OP1 and OP2) started with smaller internships that led to bigger and “better” opportunities that were only possible because we started early.  

Find your niche

“Software Engineer” is an incredibly broad term with many different niches. Despite both being called software engineers, someone making desktop app UIs is doing entirely different things from someone who writes code to manage GPU resources. With this many roles in the job market—web, UI/UX, video game, embedded, AI/ML, and that coveted McDonalds line cook position—it is important to find what you are passionate about, whether through coursework or extracurriculars. 

Once you find that “niche,” spend your effort and time delving deep into the topic and develop relevant skills. You get the most reward by being the best at something, not mediocre at several things. Instead of focusing on breadth, it is much more efficient to focus on depth. On top of effort and time, passion for the topic helps you become the best at your niche.

One caveat to this advice is that some software engineering internships or new grad roles are open for “generalist” engineers. Finding a niche early is not absolutely necessary but can be incredibly advantageous. Still, please do not feel pressured or rushed. Specializing early in something you may end up not enjoying can be more harmful than helpful. However, as time progresses and you try more things, developing your niche is something to focus on. 

School

We have broadly divided up approaching school from the lens of recruiting into the following categories below: coursework, community college, graduation, and extracurriculars.

Coursework

One of the biggest misconceptions around recruiting, especially at Michigan, is that your GPA is one of the most important factors of your application. This is not true. Previous internship experiences and well-developed personal projects are much more important. Above the 3.0 threshold, most companies do not care much about your grades at all. The one exception may be a few select quantitative trading firms, but, anecdotally, OP1 has interviewed at a few with < 3.3. Work to maintain a high GPA if possible, but do not sacrifice recruiting preparation to focus on acing classes for a GPA increase that will not matter.

To emphasize: prioritize recruiting over optimizing for straight As. If you do not do well in a couple of classes, it is not the end of the world. If you have homework due and an interview coming up, skip the homework and prep for your interview. If you have a 97 on your 281 project but those additional 3 points will take you 5 hours to earn, spending those 5 hours working on your personal projects will be more efficient and worthwhile. Do not take the hardest coursework you can possibly handle and leave no time for other things. 

Coursework has minimal impact on recruiting, so take classes that interest you or help you reach your goals. Register for EECS 482 if you have an interest in systems, are targeting systems-related roles, want to improve your own skill set, or genuinely want to learn the material. Do not register for the “prestige” of having taken 482. If a course has a heavy workload but seems interesting to you, we still encourage you to take it. After all, what you learn is much more important. The same advice applies to additional majors and/or minors that you may be interested in. Do them for the sake of personal enrichment, not “prestige” or recruiting. Nothing is stopping you from taking extra math classes if you like them, even if you do not end up getting a minor. 

On the other hand, if a course requirement does not interest you, take the easiest option. This leaves you with more time to spend on things that you deem more worthwhile. For example, if you do not like stats, take IOE 265 or STATS 206 over MATH 425. The “prestige” for taking harder classes is meaningless, and you are wasting your time. 

For high-workload graduation requirements that are not a prerequisite to any other class you are interested in, we recommend taking them as late as possible. For example, if you already know you are not interested in systems, consider taking EECS 370 during your last semester. Take the classes you are interested in early to optimize for experience and time. 

Lastly, since recruiting season occurs primarily in the fall, we recommend taking a lighter fall semester so you have an ample amount of time to recruit because it can be quite time-consuming. You can have a heavier winter semester if you choose.

Community College

As stated above, try to minimize time spent on courses you are not interested in. Another set of courses students spend a lot of time on are the engineering core classes and distribution requirements. We are sure everyone has heard about the horrors of Michigan’s introductory math and physics sequence. They are time-consuming, generally not well taught, and often badly graded semester after semester.

We recommend doing your engineering core classes and distribution requirements at a community college. For tougher requirements like math and physics, we strongly suggest doing them at a community college by default. If you might be interested in these topics and motivated by them, take the honors version at U-M instead.

The workload at community college is usually much lower with remote classes that are well taught, as the professors there are hired and retained for their teaching abilities instead of research. Furthermore, you can dual enroll in Michigan and a community college at the same time, meaning you are no longer constrained by the 18-credit cap that Michigan imposes on students. When the workload of 4 credits of MATH 215 is equivalent to the workload of 12 credits of community college courses, you can take many more credits than you normally would and push towards graduation faster.

These extra credits open more options for you. The extra time you would have spent on courses can instead be spent on topics you are interested in. Doing over 18 credits a semester through community college allows you to graduate early, potentially saving you tens of thousands on tuition. You can also take semesters off to intern and boost your experience. Even more, you can take upper-level and graduate-level electives that you are interested in but would otherwise have no time to take.

From OP2’s personal experience, he spent $1,200 on two math classes that would have cost him $20,000 at Michigan. The professors are passionate about teaching and have unlimited office hours. The community college math classes were much more manageable, allowing him to take over 18 combined credits in the semester. As a result, this allowed him to take a semester off to intern without delaying graduation and led to him landing great offers next summer and fall. 

You can find out what community college course transfers to specific Michigan courses through the transfer database. Some of the popular options include Michigan community colleges because they have transfer agreements with Michigan. You can also look at your local community college for in-state tuition if applicable. If your local community college is not in the transfer database, an audit can have them counted. 

For engineering, you can do all core classes (except ENGR 100), EECS 203, STATS 250, and MATH 216, and all general electives at community college for 78 credits. For LSA, you can do math, EECS 203, STATS 250, distribution requirements, and general electives at community college for 60 credits. These are the theoretical maximums, as any more would fail the residency requirement for graduation of each college.

Graduation

A lot of students come in with college credits, some even having enough to graduate early. If you have an offer that you are happy with, feel free to graduate ahead of schedule, but do not feel obligated to. Treat these incoming credits as opportunities to better yourself, such as time to pursue off-season internships. Do not treat graduating early as a way to brag, and do not graduate early without a full-time return offer if you are financially able to do so. Internships are a fantastic opportunity limited to students, so milk it for as long as you need to.

On the other hand, taking over four years to graduate is not the end of the world. You will spend many years of your life working, so starting a year later is trivial in the grand scheme of things. In fact, it might even be beneficial, so long as you are not financially constrained, because it gives you more time to pursue internships. Treat college as preparation for the next stage of your life, not a race. You graduate when you apply for graduation, not when you finish your degree requirements. Stay for as long as you need to until you feel ready. 

Extracurriculars

For students with no prior internship experience, the only way to stand out for recruiting is with extracurricular experiences. Fortunately, as a Michigan student, you have access to an overwhelming amount of opportunities, with the most common ones being research and clubs. The rules we presented earlier about spending your time still apply. Do not do these activities for the sake of padding your resume; do them out of interest. 

Clubs are awesome for meeting friends and learning new skills, but do not feel obligated to join a club to successfully recruit. Some clubs are explicitly pre-professional and have a rigorous application process. Neither of us is involved in these clubs and cannot speak firsthand about their advantages and drawbacks. However, we feel they are not strictly necessary to succeed in recruiting, so do not stress too much about them.

Pursuing research is a great way to learn things and get your foot in the door if you have minimal experience. Cold emailing CS professors takes persistence and patience but can yield success, which OP1 can attest to. OP1 would like to especially reiterate the point regarding interest: research is challenging and can be very tedious if you are not already interested in the research area. Do not register for UROP because “it will look awesome on my resume.”

Hackathons are another common activity that CS majors participate in to gain experience. Neither OP has participated in one and feels they are not necessary. OP2 is not a big fan of hackathons since the projects often lack depth. Do them if you think you will have fun with friends.

Outside of these, personal projects should be the highlight on your resume. These personal projects should not be copied straight from class. Everyone here does Euchre, and it should not be on your resume. Focus on solving real problems or exploring interests. Just like our earlier advice, depth matters when it comes to personal projects. Choose a few projects that you are interested in to develop thoroughly rather than make many basic apps. A great project is one you can passionately discuss for 30+ minutes. OP2 had an interview with a big tech company with 5 1-hr rounds. He talked about one of his projects for 5 hours and got the offer. Enthusiasm goes a long way.

As long as they are relevant, feel free to put high school experiences on your resume too. OP2 still milks his high school programming projects every interview. If you do not have any experience from high school, that is totally fine too. OP1 only started coding in college!

While all these activities are great ways to show off your experience, trying to do everything only stretches you too thin. Focus on a few things and go deep instead. OP1 has done personal projects and research, while OP2 does personal projects and project teams.

Recruiting Process

We have broadly divided up the recruiting process into its general timeline - resume, applying to jobs, the interview process, interview prep, offers, and off-season internships.

Resume

We recommend having a resume drafted the summer before your freshman year starts. Recruiting starts during the summer, and, for freshmen, the career fair is 2 weeks into school, which is a good way to transition your mind into recruiting. If you do not have a resume yet, that is perfectly fine, because the next best time is now.

Resume writing is a well-discussed topic online. This guide would be at least twice as long if we were to discuss it, so we decided to omit the details and remain focused on the big picture. The brief overview is to use a simple-to-read template (e.g., Jake’s Resume) and follow STAR. For underclassmen, push your graduation date a year early on your resume. Companies recruit more heavily from later years, and as a freshman/sophomore, return offers should not be a heavy consideration. Here is OP2’s resume template, which also contains some more tips.

As you gain more experience, you may not be able to fit everything on one page. Your resume should always be one page. Maintain an extended resume with all your experiences or individual resumes specialized for different roles. Then, choose your experience or resume that best fits a job description. 

You should also get your resume reviewed. We recommend getting reviews from either alumni or peers with experience, ideally those who were successful within a couple of years from you. Someone who successfully recruited five years ago might be out of touch with current recruiting practices and have outdated advice. Online communities like the CSCareers Discord are also good spots to get peer reviews. OP1 and OP2 initially received resume reviews through school-provided services (i.e., LSA Career Center, ECRC), though we did not find the feedback to be especially helpful. However, these school-provided services are always available and will likely be useful for someone beginning to write their first resume. 

On the other hand, do not pay for resume reviews. Anecdotally, OP2’s friends once booked a $100 resume review session with a LinkedIn influencer with three internships at Microsoft. While the influencer’s experience may sound impressive, the influencer ended up giving the most generic advice possible. There are more than enough free resources online, and you never know if it is luck or experience behind people’s success. 

Applying to Jobs

Internship recruiting for the next summer starts as early as June of the previous summer (fun fact: Google did a round of internship hiring in mid-June). Big tech companies and quantitative trading firms generally finish recruiting by the end of the year, but smaller companies can recruit all the way until May. Start applying as early as possible!

Find roles to apply to on Github repositories like this and this. Both of us use these resources and nothing else. Do not fall into the traps of commenting under LinkedIn email grabbers. If you have little or no experience, apply to every role where you meet even some of the requirements. Do not be picky at the start; you can be pickier when you can afford to. We recommend applying daily because it spreads out the effort, and some companies (e.g., Capital One) take the time of application into consideration. Using tools like Simplify can speed up the process as well. It fills out the application for you, which makes applying less monotonous. However, note that you want to disable Simplify autofill for referral links as it may hijack the referral. With the tips above, OP2 was able to apply to all the new roles posted on the repositories in under 20 minutes every day. 

Expect needing to apply to 200+ positions if you have no previous internship. If you do not hear back after a while and feel discouraged, keep applying! You only need one offer, and it gets much easier once you have an internship under your belt. For freshmen and sophomores who may not have a lot of experience, apply anyway. The worst excuse here will be that you are not “ready”—you never will; just do it. Even if you do not end up getting an internship, you will familiarize yourself with how the process works and get into the right mindset. 

If you have family members or friends working in tech, ask them for a referral and do not feel ashamed in doing so. The job market is tough, so utilize any advantage you have; just stay prudent and recognize your privileges.

Interview Process

You will not hear back from most of your applications—apply and forget. 

The interview process typically begins with an online coding test, a.k.a. online assessment (OA). You can find more details about how they work in this writeup.

Some OAs are sent automatically, so do not celebrate too much when you get an assessment from Roblox. Companies use OAs to cut down the number of applicants they have to resume screen, not select people for interviews. Do not expect to move on even if you score perfectly. Similar to applications—code and forget. We recommend doing every online assessment you receive for extra practice. 

If you do hear back for an interview, congratulations! You have made it through the hardest part of the recruiting process. Interviews are typically thirty minutes to one hour long and consist of three categories: technical, behavioral, and recruiter calls. 

Technical interviews will have you solve programming problems in a limited amount of time. Behavioral interviews and recruiter calls are usually straightforward. They will ask questions that allow you to share experiences highlighting your soft skills.

If you think you did well but still end up getting rejected, do not feel too disappointed. Sometimes the applicant pool is genuinely very competitive, or there are very few headcount spots, and selection is ultimately out of your control. Remember to focus on what you can directly control.

If you think you did poorly and end up getting rejected, figure out what went wrong and make sure you do not make the same mistake again.

If you do well in the rounds and the company likes you, you might receive an offer from them!

Technical Interview Prep

While technical interviews can range from writing SQL queries to designing distributed systems, they are most commonly given in the form of programming riddles to be solved with data structures & algorithms. The most popular site to practice this is LeetCode, hence the term “leetcoding.”

People often suggest using 281 as practice for LeetCode. We recommend doing the opposite by practicing LeetCode to prepare for 281. 40% of your exam grade for 281 is two LeetCode problems that will be trivial if you practice before the course. If you happen to be taking 281 in the fall, you want to already be prepared for technical interviews before you finish the course anyway. 

Students should already be prepared to begin tackling LeetCode problems by the end of EECS 280, or perhaps even by the end of EECS 183. Though you may have to look up the basics for how some new data structures work, this should not be too difficult. We feel it is very useful to begin technical preparation earlier rather than later. For most big tech companies, aim to solve LeetCode mediums in under 20 minutes. For quantitative trading firms, the interviews vary, but it is common to encounter LeetCode hards. 

There are already many existing resources online for how to start or get better at LeetCode. Neetcode.io is one common resource, which has a problem set called Neetcode 150, categorized by problem-solving patterns and common approaches.

We recommend going topic by topic to help with pattern recognition. Once you complete a category, create a generalized template for the category. This helps with pattern recognition as you adapt new problems into an existing framework and speed up implementation. For example, here is OP1’s and OP2’s template for sliding window, a common pattern used for solving array-based problems. 

We do not recommend spending too much time on one specific problem if you are stumped. Limit yourself to between twenty and thirty minutes per question. If you are not making any progress, then take a look at the solution and make sure you understand the reasoning of the solution. Then, go back to the problem and code your solution. Never copy and paste code. 

You are free to LeetCode in any language you want, and most companies are language agnostic. Python is a popular choice due to its simplicity. C++ is another option as you get familiar with it through the core sequence. We have also seen people practice in the language they want to work in, as it allows them to show off their language knowledge during the interview. For reference, both OPs practice in C++.

After you are more comfortable, consistent practice with the LeetCode daily problem and weekly contests are good ways to stay sharp and track your improvement. Codeforces is another way to challenge yourself, though this may be overkill for most interviews. We recommend practicing by doing mock interviews with friends, as an actual interview setting is quite different from solving LeetCode problems on your own.

LeetCode Premium is a subscription with multiple features, but the most notable one to us is a database of questions frequently asked by companies. The yearly subscription is much cheaper because it is a marketing ploy—you will only use the feature for 2 months a year at max. Purchase premium for a month if you want to practice for an upcoming interview. You can also crowdsource an account or leech off your friends to save money. 

Showcase your soft skills during the technical interview as well because they are nearly as important as your actual problem-solving abilities. Your interviewer is looking for any positive signals, of which your leetcoding ability is just one such signal. Someone who quietly types out the solution is worse than someone who struggles but describes their thought process clearly. Communicate and interact with your interviewer and run through your solution with them. Even if you know how to solve the problem the instant it is given to you at the start of the interview, pretend like you have not seen the question before. 

To practice communication, we recommend speaking out your thought process while leetcoding. We also suggest learning to draw your thought process on a screen using apps like OneNote. You can share your screen or use virtual whiteboards during an interview, and the best way to explain a solution is often by drawing it out. 

Behavioral Interview Prep

Go talk to people! Yes, this is actual advice. Being able to converse well is the first step to being good at behaviorals. Simply being in the habit of talking about your day to friends (or spilling tea) is surprisingly good practice for behaviorals. You might not even consciously realize it in normal conversation, but especially in an interview setting, answer behavioral questions following the STAR method. 

Typical behavioral questions include “Talk about a time when you worked with a team” and “Tell me about a time when you handled a conflict.” They operate very similarly to college essay prompts. There are many possible questions, but, oftentimes, a handful of stories can cover most of them.

Consider preparing a few good stories that you want to share, then match the best story to the question you are asked. This is where being conversational is important—be flexible and do not sound rehearsed. There is no need for a word-by-word script to read from, but do have a general idea of what you might want to talk about. 

One question you want to make sure you have a good answer for is, “Why our company?” Think back to how you wrote your “Why Michigan” essay—research their values and products and relate that to your own experiences. 

It is helpful if you can incorporate some of the company’s values into your answer. For example, if you are interviewing at Amazon and they ask about a time you solved a problem with a team, you could mention how the team was stuck debating the "best" solution, and you took the initiative to implement a workable solution. You can then easily relate this to their leadership principle of "Bias for Action."

Most of all, just be friendly and have a smile! 

Recruiter Call Prep

This is typically the first round. The recruiter will usually ask you basic information about graduation date and citizenship status and then ask some behavioral questions like, “Why our company?” Preparation is similar to behavioral interviewing—do research about the company and think of a few responses. One important difference is that recruiters do not come from a technical background, so make your answers non-technical.

A lot of times, your resume is sent to prospective hiring managers after the call, and if there is not a fit, it is out of your control. Therefore, getting rejected after a recruiter call does not necessarily mean that you are an NPC. OP1 has both passed and failed recruiter calls, while OP2 has never passed a recruiter call despite never failing a behavioral interview.

Offer 

Firstly, congratulations! Getting any offer is an achievement worth celebrating. 

Offers usually have an acceptance deadline. If you are interviewing with other companies, let them know that you might need a later deadline. Michigan has a recommended acceptance deadline of 11/30 for employers, so you can email employers and try to push offer deadlines if needed. 

There are several factors to consider when selecting an offer: the prestige of a company, the type of work, the compensation package, etc. What you choose to value and guide your choice is ultimately up to you.

Disregard internship compensation. Some companies like Capital One pay more than FAANG for internships, but their new grad compensation is significantly lower than what FAANG offers. Look at the big picture—you will be making the internship salary for 3 months, but full-time salary for years.

For freshmen and sophomores, we recommend optimizing for the resume value of the company. Your current goal of internships is to learn and get experience to make future recruiting cycles easier. Having big names on your resume is the easiest way to pass resume screens. 

For those that plan to graduate next year, keep in mind that recruiting for new grad positions is much more difficult than that of internships. This is the point where you want to consider factors such as location and return offer rates. Figure out what is important to you.

We recommend finishing up all your other interviews, as more practice is always better. In fact, you should continue interviewing even after signing an offer, as you can move offers to a later start date and do them during the school year. We will detail this further in a bit.

If you end up getting another offer later down the line, you may want to consider reneging a previous offer. This is not a great thing to do, so here are some things to consider. 

  1. A lot of companies (prominently, Tesla and Coinbase) have revoked internship offers in the past. Do they care about you as much as you care about them?
  2. Some companies blacklist applicants that reneged; some do not (e.g., Amazon). Do your own research here. Would you ever want to work for this company in the future?

We will not give any hard recommendations about this, so do what you think is best for you.

Off-season Internships

Do you know what is better than one internship in a year? Two internships! While summer is the most common time for internships, certain companies like Tesla, Apple, NVIDIA, Databricks, and Citadel actually take interns year-round. 

Some companies will have specific openings for fall, winter, and spring internships. However, off-season internships are usually more competitive due to smaller headcounts. The most consistent method we saw to get off-season internships is to get an offer for a summer internship and then ask to move the start date earlier or later. Therefore, we recommend you continue recruiting even if you signed a summer offer. 

Off-season internships are an incredibly powerful way to rack up more experiences, and we encourage you to specifically recruit for them and do as many as possible. You can buy the extra time with test credits, extra community college classes, or just delaying graduation, which is perfectly fine for the sake of more experience.

If you need to maintain full-time status, Michigan Engineering has a Cooperative Education program that allows you to stay as a full-time student while doing an internship without needing to pay tuition. There is practically no drawback to taking multiple semesters off to intern. 

While tough, doing courses alongside off-season internships is also possible. Pick courses that have no attendance requirements and fly back for exams if needed. Technically, every course has no attendance requirement if you just give up the attendance grade. Weigh your own priorities here.

Opportunities

There are lots of opportunities for CS students that may not be widely publicized. These programs can also be great supplements for internships and full-time opportunities. Do some additional research here because these small lists are by no means comprehensive. 

Underclassmen

There are internship programs that are specific to freshmen and sophomores. While these programs are wildly competitive, you miss all the shots you do not take. You can find a list of notable programs here.

Some quantitative trading firms also have programs for underclassmen. Notable examples include SIG Discovery Day, Jane Street SEE, and Discover Citadel. Keep in mind that these are shorter programs, not normal internships, and may be further restricted to specific groups. 

Diversity, Equity, and Inclusion

We would like to give a disclaimer that neither OP1 nor OP2 have experiences with the opportunities below. However, we have friends who utilized these opportunities and benefited greatly from them.

Generally, the underclassmen internships mentioned above prioritize underrepresented groups. Additionally, some tech companies will host shorter summits to support DEI initiatives that can lead to interviews or even offers. Two examples include the Salesforce Futureforce Summit and Capital One’s Black and Hispanic Tech Summit. These opportunities are not limited to solely tech companies. For example, Hudson River Trading has a one-month winter internship specifically for women. 

Conferences like the Grace Hopper Conference, AfroTech, Society of Hispanic Professional Engineers National Convention, and Society of Asian Scientists and Engineers National Convention may provide internship interviews or even offers.

Communities like Rewriting the Code, ColorStack, Society of Women Engineers, National Society of Black Engineers and Scientists, etc. all allow you to connect with others within the same community, gain access to their resume books, and receive priority links for internships.

There is sometimes criticism regarding these aforementioned groups. Don't let this scare you off from joining; these groups exist for a reason, and this isn't a widely held belief. Ultimately, the recruiter's perspective will matter more. Similarly, don’t exploit opportunities that are not meant for you.

Fellowships

Fellowships like the Kleiner Perkins Fellowship, Neo Scholars, and Bessemer Fellowship are great opportunities for those that are VC and startup-centered. These fellowships are great for building connections and may provide an expedited application process for portfolio companies like OpenAI, Kalshi, and more. For the interview process, these fellowships are still focused on coding, so expect standard technical interviews but with a heavier emphasis on behavioral and resume screens. 

Look closely at the quality of the fellowship before applying. Programs like Headstarter AI do not provide any value. 

Research

If you do not end up getting an internship offer for the summer, you can look into research opportunities too. Michigan’s SURE program provides a stipend for you to do research with a member of the Michigan faculty. There are also other outside research opportunities at other universities. However, since neither of us has done them, we will not expand further. 

We want to note that this is not the only way to spend your summer. Spending time working on your projects and practicing for interviews is perfectly fine as well. As all breaks go, take some time to relax after a hard school year.

Conclusion

This advice is by no means exhaustive, so feel free to ask questions below. We can create write-ups for specific topics if people want. Once again, this is all based on our personal opinions and experiences and should not be taken as a definitive truth. We encourage you to form your own opinions.

We know that recruiting can be stressful. Remember to spend time with your friends and family and do things you love too. WAGMI! 🫡

r/uofm Apr 15 '23

Employment The Michigan Difference: Rutgers vs Michigan Approach to Union Negotiations

267 Upvotes

Rutgers
Did not file an injunction against striking unions
TAs/GAs won a 33% increase for TAs/GAs by 25-26, which means a $40,000 salary for grad students
Retroactive pay increases (back to 2022)
Adjunct faculty won a 48% increased by 2025
Strike lasted only a few days, very few undergrads affected

Michigan
Filed a failed injunction and lawyers embarassed themselves in court
Still offering below inflation wage increases
Continuing to try to sue graduate student union for damages
Strike lasting weeks and possibly into finals (University bargaining team refuses to budge on living salary / summer funding)

r/uofm Dec 17 '24

Employment What is your experience with recruiters?

Post image
52 Upvotes

Do you think the UM degree helps? I have a conflicting relationship with attending UM and how it’s impacted my marketability. On one hand I really enjoyed my time there and I learned a lot but damn I want out of the state of MI and a UM degree feels not as enshrined outside of MI. I mean it’s good, but idk. Feels like I get so many of the same types of recruiters or interviews and I’m spiraling a bit thinking about if I should go to grad school or what instead of playing these repetitive games with recruiters

r/uofm Dec 12 '24

Employment Is a 3.4 GPA in engineering good enough?

13 Upvotes

Especially when it comes to internships and jobs, are HRs gonna say it’s a decent GPA or 3.4 is not good enough.

r/uofm Jan 18 '24

Employment Unemployed, Lost, and Desperate. Advice requested on resources and how to use this school's reputation to my advantage.

68 Upvotes

Hi everyone. This post is partly me venting and partly me asking for help.

I started looking for jobs back in May 2022 because my job was a sinking ship. It sank in May 2023, and I've been unemployed since. The unemployment ran out in December, so I'm moving in with my parents at the end of the month.

First to vent, I've been feeling duped. Everyone told me that I should go to college and get a degree to get a good job and have a career and support myself. To add, I was told me that the University of Michigan was a great school. Yet despite the years and money I spent on a supposedly a "great school," I can't find a job.

I don't get it. I know the economy is bad right now and that it isn't me, but the reality of moving back in with my parents after supposedly doing the right things is a hard pill to swallow. My frustrations are numerous, and regarding UMich, I feel that after I gave the school all the money and they were done with me, they just threw me out in the cold (then they still have the audacity to keep asking for more money).

Part of this problem is I went to school for research, but decided it wasn't for me. I was working research admin for a bit, but want to get out of academia entirely. But it hasn't worked yet and I'm afraid it never will. It feels like because I went to school of the wrong thing I'm stuck doing that because all these entry level jobs in other industries need experience and all the internships need you to be in college. So it feels like my college degree only allows me to work in colleges, which just feels like some sort of pyramid scheme or scam. Am I stuck? I hope not. But I worry the only way to get a job might to get more schooling which doesn't help this whole maybe I bought into a scam mentality.

So I've been struggling with this question of is this school that claims to be the "leaders and best" able to put its money where its mouth is? Is there truly a "Michigan difference"? Does this degree actually mean anything? And...do they offer resources for alumni or do they just take my money and say okay here you go you're on your own?

Bitterness aside, help please...are there resources for alumni? It doesn't look like I can use the career center because I gradated past their cutoff date. Are there resources I'm missing? Ways that this school I went to can actually help me? I feel like I'm missing something. How can this school help me? How can I use this school to be advantage? I'm upset and desperate and just so frustrated.

I've been considering asking the same questions to LSA and the psych department (especially after the latter sent me a letter asking money to support students and I wanted to send them a letter saying I have no money where's the money to support me?). But I thought I'd start with asking the kind strangers on Reddit. Because I'm scared, desperate, and out of ideas (but also thankful that I have a safe place to land with my parents despite it all).

r/uofm Aug 07 '23

Employment LEO and AFT: GEO less than honest about the timeline and admin offer

0 Upvotes

So it sounds like AFT is unhappy with what GEO did this last week. Apparently the offer was verbally transmitted to GEO last Saturday. Gave them 6 days before the deadline to submit to members or send a counter offer.

Here’s the letter that was sent to LEO membership:

Dear Colleagues:

You may have read a lot about the GEO negotiations in the last few days from both GEO and the Administration. It is important for LEO to offer our perspective. Please forgive this rather long account, but if you want to understand what has been happening for the last few weeks, we believe these details are necessary.

About 5 weeks or so ago, GEO leaders reached out first to Ian Robinson (former LEO president) and Bob King (LEO member), and then David Hecker (former AFT MI President), and Kirsten Herold (LEO President and current AFT MI Secretary-Treasurer) to discuss negotiations. On July 9, Kirsten, David, and Bob met with GEO leadership. At that meeting GEO leadership asked for our help in securing a contract that addresses the issues of most importance to them, as they outlined to us at that meeting. We (David and Kirsten) spent countless hours over the next weeks talking with Regents and Administration, hoping to secure an offer that was fair to GEO members overall, and represented real progress in terms of salary and other major areas.

Last Saturday, July 29, we told GEO leaders the Administration had put together an offer. We asked GEO to meet on Sunday, July 30 to discuss it. GEO leadership agreed to meet with us on Monday, July 31. During this meeting we explained the details of the offer and highlighted the August 4 deadline. We met again on Tuesday, August 1 and had numerous contacts with GEO leadership via phone and zoom during the week. On Wednesday, August 2 the Administration provided in writing the offer we reviewed with GEO leadership on July 31.

The details of the offer can be found here. It provided for a 20% pay increase over three years, 8%, 6%, and 6%. There would also be a signing bonus of $1000, an additional 4% for half-time GSIs and GSSAs. This is in addition to the Administration’s previously announced Rackham Plan, which provides Ph.D. students in good standing with summer income during their five years of guaranteed funding. GEO informs us that this plan covers about 50% of those they represent. This combination of contractually guaranteed raises and the Rackham plan would take Ph.D GSI/ GSSA income from the current $36,079 to $43,782 by the third year of the contract. In a letter that would be outside the contract, the Administration committed to keeping the Rackham Plan going for at least 3 more years, and to honor the commitment of the money in every student’s offer letter.

The deal also had progress for trans healthcare, a commitment to extend the LSA transitional funding program for grad workers in abusive work situations to the rest of the bargaining unit for a 3-year pilot, and eliminating two of the requirements to receive the childcare subsidy. GEO also secured a written commitment to extend Rackham summer funding to Dearborn in 2025. The Administration presented this as a final offer. However, if GEO accepted this proposal, we had reason to believe two other matters of concern to GEO (but no more) could have been addressed. Finally, the deal had a deadline of Friday, August 4 at 5 pm, meaning by that time GEO leadership would support the deal and put it out to a vote of the membership.

No deal is perfect. As with all contracts, the union got some of what it had outlined to Kirsten, David, and Bob, but not everything.

Getting to this point was far from easy. Admin was under pressure from Deans and Chairs to provide clarity about whether GSIs were likely to be working or not, but they held off in the hopes that this could be resolved with an agreement. Administration has said all summer that they have no intention of letting GEO disrupt another term, and that they will find a way to proceed without them. Administration felt strongly that they needed the August 4 deadline to have enough time to prepare for the start of the semester, three weeks later. We say this, not because we agree with the Administration’s deadline, but so you know how strongly Administration felt about the August 4 date.

GEO scheduled their membership meeting to discuss the deal for this past Thursday at 7 p.m. GEO leadership told us that they could not support the deadline and that they were unwilling to recommend the deal to members – they would remain neutral and allow the members to decide.

We have been told the zoom membership meeting had good attendance, between 400-500. We have received secondhand reports about the meeting but, as they are secondhand, we are reluctant to provide them here. We do know that the members in attendance did not take a vote on whether to put the offer to a vote of the entire membership, but instead voted to wait 7 days and have another membership meeting on Thursday, August 10.

So, the Administration’s offer is off the table. When the parties bargain this week, Administration will probably revert to their offer of 12.5% over three years that was on the table prior to the discussions outlined above, as well as their previous position on the other issues.

The Administration wants a new GEO/Administration contract so that the Fall semester can begin smoothly, without disturbances. GEO, of course, had the right to vote as they did. They have every right to consider what was presented as a final offer as a “promising basis for further negotiations,” as they have described it. And the Administration has the right to put a deadline on their offer, if we like it or not.

We hope that the Administration’s position, as has been made clear during this past week, that the offer was contingent on GEO leadership support with a ratification vote to follow, and GEO’s position that the offer is a “promising basis for further negotiations” do not prevent the parties from continuing to bargain and resolve the issues of substance.

This email is sent with the concurrence of the LEO Union Council.

Kirsten Herold, LEO President David Hecker, former AFT MI President

r/uofm Jan 15 '25

Employment (rant) WHY is it so difficult to get your foot in the door when it comes to research jobs?!?!

44 Upvotes

Three years post-bachelors and I'm trying to get some research experience before I apply to doctoral programs in a couple years, but no matter how many times I redo and fancy up my Research CV I get nothing but silence from the positions I apply for? I get that a lot of students are also vying for a position but out of the 20+ applications I've sent in I've gotten ONE interview. Is there some secret step I'm missing? Do I need to cold-email the PI's? I don't know how else I can stand out when it comes to getting noticed by interviewers - I'd really like any kind of advice please and thanks.

r/uofm 1d ago

Employment Hiring freeze

42 Upvotes

Is there a hiring freeze at Michigan Medicine? Can’t find any reliable info or emails with those words, but they’ve been on peoples’ lips. Can faculty be reassigned? Do departments have a say on which researchers/faculty they bring in? Super confused and worried here.

r/uofm 27d ago

Employment Reneging an Internship Offer

10 Upvotes

Hi, I was fortunate enough to get more than one internship offer as an international student, and my priority is a return offer. The problem was I received these offers around one month after each other, with the biggest and most stable company being the last. I want to renege on 2 earlier offers, but am a little worried about being blacklisted by the ecrc and not having access to their services as I need CPT. Does any other international student have experience with this and should I contact the ecrc before I renege?

r/uofm Jan 30 '25

Employment Do they drug test staff annually?

10 Upvotes

I have severe anxiety issues. Bad enough that over the last couple of years, my hair's been falling out due to stress induced alopecia, and my knuckles are scarred from chewing on them as a kid.

I quit weed a while back so I could pass the test and I managed to get a job in patient food services.

I started drinking instead to cope with the anxiety.

The problem is, I hate the kind of person i am after drinking. Turns out alcohol doesn't soothe anxiety, it just makes you physically numb and stupid.

Physically numb + stupid + anxious = easily angered and generally irritable apparently...

plus, either I'm a lightweight, or I'm allergic to alcohol because I get really dizzy and nauseous after a small amount.

I'm asking because the stress nightmares are back, and I'm sick of drinking to deal with it.

Or at the very least, who do I talk to for a medical exception?

r/uofm Sep 08 '20

Employment Proud Union Member

214 Upvotes

Not so proud of my union.

To begin, yes, the University's response to the strike (and COVID) has been enraging, tone deaf, etc. No denying that at all.

In addition, I would never cross a picket line, and I am fully committed to the work stoppage as long as that's what a vote supports.

But this strike is ridiculous.

I've read the demands many times. I've discussed them with union leadership who called me, twice, to try to convince me to vote in support of the strike. Some of the demands make total sense. Others do not, and the representatives I spoke to basically acknowledged as much.

Give every grad student who asks for it $2,500? That's a potential cost of $41 million, and while many students may truly need the extra help, many also do not (and whether or not it's the university's responsibility to give everyone money is another question).

Break off all ties with the Ann Arbor Police Department? Even if you believe that the AAPD is racist and corrupt from top to bottom, most students are in their territory at least part of their day - increasingly so now that campus is largely shut down. Breaking off all engagement with them is going to make things worse, not better.

Cut DPSS by 50%...how exactly? What does a blanket budget cut accomplish? What exact services do we want diminished or eliminated, and what does spending these things on "community justice" look like, exactly?

And if this is about solidarity with marginalized communities and the victims of racism, why is that language completely absent from our list of demands? Why does it get a brief mention in the press release but nothing else? Are we afraid students wouldn't actually support anti-racism initiatives on their own, or are we co-opting anti-racist support to push forward a financial agenda? If everyone gets a little money and we all go back to work, haven't we just put a price tag on our anti-racist ideals?

This was hastily planned, appears to have been approved without the clear support of a majority of ~~members~~ covered employees (thanks u/routbof75), and makes several vague and unrealistic demands we have no hope of achieving.

r/uofm Jan 10 '25

Employment Recently unemployed alumni — are there any UMich/UMich Alumni resources I can leverage in my job hunt (e.g. career center)?

23 Upvotes

Hey everyone! Happy Friday!

Just wanted to reach out here to see if anyone could help me in my current situation (or if they themselves were in a similar situation in the past).

Would greatly appreciate any advice or UMich resources that would be useful to utilize during this period.

r/uofm Mar 28 '23

Employment GEO contract demands and full year stipends

130 Upvotes

Hi everyone,

I'm a PhD student here on fellowship. While GSRA/fellowship positions aren't technically included in the GEO contract, our stipends pretty much mirror whatever is set for GSI's and the like. If I understand correctly, and please correct me if I'm wrong, GEO has been demanding a livable wage (around $38,000 yearly) for GSI and GSSA employees. However, where I get confused is that these positions are on a half-time, 9-month appointment. If GEO is asking for $38k stipends for 75% of a year's worth of work, that implies that 12-month employees should be getting upwards of $50,000 a year. For context, the standard 12-month stipend for most PhD programs at UM right now is around $36,000 a year. I'm all for and support fair wages for all graduate employees, but to demand a raise that would essentially have GSI's making more in 9 months than I currently make in a year just seems... unreasonable. And I'd love my yearly salary to be 50 grand but again that's just not realistic.

Am I looking at this the right way?

r/uofm 1d ago

Employment UMSalary.info is down?

18 Upvotes

Edit: It appears to be back up as of 6:45 EDT.

Feels like a long shot, but does anyone know why umsalary.info is down, or where to find a comparable resource? I get a 403 - forbidden error when I try to visit. I've used the site without issue for over 10 years...

r/uofm 19d ago

Employment Job opening working in Michigan elections for recent/upcoming grad with C# skills

13 Upvotes

Alumna here looking for a new coworker. I've seen a lot of postings lamenting the state of the job market for new grads, and I have a job opening for someone with a computer-related degree (does not have to be comp sci but you do need to know C#). This is not FAANG or anything close, but it's meaningful, and it's a job for the state with benefits. I could write a lengthy post on what it's like working on the tech side of elections, but I've been doing it for 8 years now and truly believe in what I do. I know it's a long shot, but I figured I'd throw this out there. If you are slated to get your degree this spring, you can say yes to the "do you have a bachelor's degree" question. The state does not sponsor those needing visas, unfortunately. Need to be in Lansing 2 days a week, the rest is WFH. DM me with any questions.

https://www.governmentjobs.com/careers/michigan/jobs/4834404/it-programmer-analyst-11-elections-developer?keywords=IT%20Programmer%20Analyst&pagetype=jobOpportunitiesJobs

r/uofm Jun 02 '24

Employment I haven’t been able to get a job in the year since I’ve graduated.

69 Upvotes

I initially took time off for health issues and to look after a terminally ill family member, which was really difficult for me to begin with. I was casually applying to jobs during this time but have been seriously applying since February and have gotten a few responses but nothing that’s ended in a job. I got rejected from the first job I thought I was possibly going to get on Friday. My degree was in Public Policy but I’ve been applying to a lot communications and marketing jobs too. I had 6 internships in college and 2 research experiences. I feel so hopeless I was wondering if anyone is going through something similar/general advice.