CS and the City

The interview and offer round for my sixth and final co-op term has come and gone.

Summary: I wish all co-op terms were 6th round co-op terms.

I knew going in that this round would be different. With a year and a half of experience, and two “Outstanding” ratings from my last two terms at Business Objects, I was pretty confident I’d have some impressive offers. I decided to limit the number of applications to avoid being overwhelmed with interviews. This was a very wise move.

I applied to 13 companies (15 positions in total)

Amazon (Seattle)
Apple x2 (California and Vancouver)
Christie Digital Systems (Kitchener)
Google x2 (Both in California)
IBM (Germany)
Infosys Technologies (India)
Kaleidescape (Waterloo)
Microsoft (Seattle)
Nortel Networks (Ottawa)
Oculus (Toronto)
Pacific & Western Bank Of Canada (Saskatoon)
Pandora (California)
Sydus (Singapore)

Note: Pandora was not through JobMine (University of Waterloo’s co-op system)

Pandora didn’t actually have a co-op program when I approached them and I couldn’t get them rolling in time sadly. I didn’t hear back from Apple California, one of the Google positions, Infosys, and Nortel (probably because I got too frustrated with Nortel’s application site and didn’t submit my resume outside of Jobmine).

I had interviews with 10 of the companies. Some of them went better than others. I did better than I had hoped in the technical ones, which is always a nice sign.

Ironically, when it came to offer time, I got an offer from every company I interviewed with except Apple. This is ironic because Apple was by far my first choice and one that I had spent significant amount of time smoozing with.

I also had a few great compliments over the process:

• One of my interviewers said that I had “the most beautiful resume he had ever seen”
• This was the first term that one of my interviewers had offered me the job straight up in the interview
• After an interviewer had quoted their co-op weekly wage during an interview, they emailed me to offer me a substantial increase on that number if I took the position
• A company strategically revoked an offer to me after they explained that “I was a highly desirable candidate,” and that I was “unlikely to accept the position.” Which, although the company was very interesting, was ultimately true.

Each of the companies had a lot offer: Very interesting products and technologies, opportunities for travel, relocation to exotic locales, more than generous compensation, on and on and one.

I’d like to say it was a tough decision, but to be absolutely honest, once I knew what companies were giving me offers, there was only one choice:

Google

Even when people found out I just had an interview with Google, I had people coming up to me and congratulating me. Google is the tech company right now. To be honest, I don’t have any expectation to return after I graduate (though I don’t rule it out). I would really like to work for a smaller company or start-up come graduation time.

For me though, I need to see what all the fuss is about. Not just at Google but Silicon Valley, San Fran, everything. Though these things change quickly in my industry, right now, Google is my Mecca, and I got offered an all expense paid pilgrimage.