The Google Résumé: How to Prepare for a Career and Land a Job at Apple, Microsoft, Google, or any Top Tech Company

Chapter 3. Getting in the Door

Think companies like Microsoft, Amazon, and Google are getting tons of great applicants? Think again. "Hiring managers at Amazon are spending so much time recruiting these days that they barely have time to actually, well, manage," one technical program manager at Amazon told me. Employees from other top companies echoed similar concerns:

• "There aren't enough good engineers in the United States. Period. We're like vultures fighting over what little there is to eat." (Apple employee)

• "We're always hiring great talent. Always." (Google employee)

• "It's not that we don't get enough good candidates. It's that we just don't know who they are." (Facebook employee)

It's true. While you're banging down their door to get in, recruiters are running around trying to find you.

You might be able to just stand still, dutifully submitting your résumé online. With a bit of luck and an outstanding résumé, they just might bump into you and ring you up. Most candidates, however, find that they must get a bit more creative.

The Black Hole: Online Job Submission

I won't sugarcoat this for you; we call it a black hole for a reason. Applying online does not exactly have the best track record for yielding interviews.

But it happens. I got my job at Apple by applying online—of course, I had three prior internships at Microsoft. Kari, a financial analyst at Amazon, applied through Amazon's web site and promptly received one of those e-mails—"blah, blah, blah . . . we'll keep your résumé ...