The 4 Things that Earned Me a Job at Google
By: Samuel Padilla
Tags: Job Search, Personal Development, Job Hunting, Careers, Google

I was looking through my Instagram stories archive a few days ago when I stumbled upon a story from November 20th of 2018. It was a short boomerang of me clicking a submit button on a job application. At the time, there was nothing special about the story itself — you could barely see what the application was for. But now, looking back, that job application turned out to have great symbolic value: It was the very first time I ever applied to Google.

After this story was posted, I embarked on a long and silent journey that encompassed many rejections, doubts, excitements, fears, and victories. It was a journey to a dream. A dream that was born years ago when I first developed an awe for Google, its mission, its culture, and its technology. It was the beginning of my journey to Google.

Now, 2 years, 12 interviews, 3 rejections, and one all-important offer later, the dream came true. Last week, I announced on LinkedIn that I had accepted a full-time offer at Google as a Cloud Technical Resident. Very little people knew how hard I was working towards this goal, and even fewer people truly knew how much this mattered to me.

Ever since I signed the offer letter, I have been thinking deeply about the journey that brought me to this point. I have been pondering about what getting a job at Google means to me, how it lines up with my dreams, and how it impacts my long-standing struggles with impostor syndrome. I will be exploring some of these topics in a series of essays entitled “My Journey to Google”. In this first essay, I explore the path I traveled to get to this point.

This is not an overview of my life story nor it is a rundown on how I prepared for my interviews. I don’t think there is the need to know the former, and the latter deserves an essay of its own. Instead, this is a recollection of the key factors that I believe made this dream possible.

I divide these factors in four main categories: Failures, Experience, Network, and Technical Expertise. I believe that, regardless of your field or aspirations, you will find value in the key elements that brought me to this point.

Failures

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From the first time I applied to Google until I finally signed an offer letter, I got rejected three times for two different roles. Twice for Software Engineer Intern and once for Associate Product Manager (APM). The first rejection happened in 2018 when I had just become a junior in College. However, my accumulation of failures and the mindset I developed to deal with them goes back much earlier than that.

When I was a freshman in college, I developed a habit of keeping track of and celebrating my failures. To this day, I have a paper on the wall of my room where I keep track of my most recent failures and what they have taught me. Whenever a new failure joins the list, I have a small celebration — eat out, buy something I’ve been wanting, etc.

The paper has the inscription:

“Celebrate your failures, they mean you are moving forward”

Notice how it says “they mean you are moving forward”; not “they mean you are trying”. I believe the mentality of “at least you tried” is, at the very least, conformist. Claiming that “trying” is enough minimizes the importance of the result. While “trying” is a required precursor to achieve a goal, it is pointless to endlessly try without any sort of progress. This is just spinning your wheels — results do matter.

My approach to failures does not stem from a conformist mentality. Instead, it is a practice that has allowed me to reframe failures as signs of progress. Failures still suck; but I no longer look at them as something negative. I still linger on some of them and suffer them out as needed be. But I am always able to come back to the idea that, thanks to that failure, I am now a step closer to my dreams.

Ever since I started counting failures in October of 2017, I have accumulated 19 major failures in my life. The list encompasses failures that range from being rejected multiple times for internships, to failing to build 2 startups.

This habit of counting my failures changed my life in two fundamental ways. First, it allowed me to genuinely feel proud of my failures. I no longer fear what other people may think when they see me fail. I own my failures with pride. So much so that I go to the extreme of publicly sharing them, painful though they may be.

Lastly, this habit empowered me to fail more. Once I no longer feared the public judgement of my failures, I realized that failing was not scary anymore. I could try things. I could take chances. I could do things that most people my age and background would not do. Namely, trying to transfer to Stanford or attempting to create 2 startups in college. I failed at both, but the lessons that I took from these failures were invaluable.

Those 19 failures and my mindset about them are part of what brought me to this point.

Experience

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As soon as my fear of failures was gone, I was free to try new things. And oh boy did I try new things!

I started a food redistribution project at my university, I tried and failed to create a student-led consulting organization with the business department of my university, I tried and failed to create a student-led recycling program, I tried and failed to create a startup in the travel industry, I helped create the rocket club at my university, I created another startup to help international students, and — truly — the list goes on.

Every single attempt to create a new project — whether it ended up in failure or not — left me invaluable lessons. I learned how to change my communication style to pitch to different stakeholders, I learned how to sell, I improved my public speaking skills, I grew as a leader, I grew as an engineer, I learned how to motivate people, and much more.

While by no means do I claim to “know it all”, all these experiences gave me a great toolbox for future endeavors. When the interviews came and I was asked “tell me about a time when…”, I had a huge arsenal of experiences to pull from.

The key here is that I didn’t do any of these things just to have experiences to share with interviewers. Far from that. I tried all these things because they mattered to me and because I wanted to learn how to make them happen.

Had I engaged in these projects for the sake of showcasing them in interviews, the experiences would have been much shallower. In other words, if I didn’t care about the projects, my effort would not have been the same and, consequently, the lessons would not have had the same value.

When I first set off on these projects, I didn’t plan for them to help me find a job in the future. I was simply following my curiosity and doing things that I deemed important at the time. Without noticing, these projects earned me lessons and connections far more valuable than anything I could’ve learned in the classroom. I know what I know today, mostly, thanks to the things I did outside of the traditional school system.

Following my curiosity and trying new things is part of what brought me to this point.

Network

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“Life can only be understood backwards; but it must be lived forwards.” — Soren Kierkegaard

I prepared very hard for my interviews this last semester. I was incredibly fortunate to have the opportunity of preparing directly with a friend of mine who is a Software Engineer at Google. Not only did he help me with the prep process for the technical interviews, but he also provided an insider perspective that turned out to be essential for me to understand the mission and culture of the company.

I only knew this friend thanks to a startup community I am part of — Future Founders. Future Founders is an organization that connects founders across the nation and helps them grow as founders and grow their businesses. I was blessed with the opportunity to participate in two of their programs with the startup that I co-founded two years ago.

I only knew about Future Founders because of a friend who went to my college and was part of their most prestigious program in 2016.

I only knew this friend because I became a member of the entrepreneurship club at my university.

I only first attended a club meeting because of the recommendation of a professor.

And the professor only recommended the club to me because I would stay every day after class and talk to her about business.

This is networking.

All the people throughout this chain of events changed my life — from my professor, to Future Founders, to my friend who helped me prepare for the interviews. Yet, there was no way for me to know the impact that these relationships would have when I first went about building them.

I was fortunate enough to see the value of networking early on. When I was just a freshman in college, I remember making the active effort to join every possible club, go to every possible event, and talk to as many people as I could.

I found mentors who taught me everything I know about networking and provided life changing connections. I read books on the art of social skills, making friends, and personal branding. I learned how to build and maintain genuine relationships with people, I learned how to listen more than I speak, and I learned how to be genuinely interested in the people I meet.

From then on it was just snowball. I met people who introduced me to people, who in turn introduced me to more people, and so on. Before I noticed it, I had developed networking skills and a network that most people my age don’t have.

I know that there are still many things to learn in the world of networking. Nonetheless, I can assert that the networking skills and the connections I built along the way are part of what brought me to this point.

Technical Expertise

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In the fall of 2019, I logged a failure in my list reflecting my inability to — yet again — get an internship for the summer. I had been rejected for all the internship positions I applied for. The most painful rejection, and the one in which I got further in the interview process, was Google’s Software Engineer Intern role.

That failure was accompanied by the reflection:

“You are lacking technical base, simple as that. ACT, don’t just say you are going to learn more, but actually follow through with it. Your social skills are great, but you are lacking TECHNICAL KNOWLEDGE.”

I am a CS major and a great student, even having a 4.0 major GPA. However, none of that got me minimally close to developing the technical skills I needed to succeed in the opportunities I was seeking. The more I tried seeking big opportunities, the more I saw the massive discrepancy between what I was learning in my CS classes and what was needed to succeed in the real world.

The issue was that most of the projects I engaged in outside of school had a non-technical nature. They helped me develop fantastic soft skills, but they did little to help me become a better engineer. This was a long-standing struggle for me. I knew my interpersonal skills were extraordinary. But my technical skills — even though considered excellent by my university — were lacking.

I finally came to the realization that this was the only missing piece of the puzzle. If I wanted to grow my technical skills to where I needed them to be, I would have to do so outside of the classroom. I had to set apart the time, find the dedication, and seek the opportunities that would enable me to do so.

This semester, finally, it all came together. I had the opportunity to get an internship as a Web Developer with the Iowa Department of Natural Resources. While this did not sound as exciting as Google, it was a fantastic opportunity to learn how tech works in the real world.

I shut down every outside project I was involved in — including my own company — and I took the easiest possible classes at school. All with the intent to reallocate my time towards the missing piece of puzzle. I invested all the extra time into my internship, and ramping up my technical skills with courses, projects, and challenges.

This time around, when the interviews came, my technical skills were ready to back me up. I got further than ever in several interview processes and was able to finally capitalize on an offer.

Realizing that I was not going to find the technical expertise I needed at my university, and taking action to seek it elsewhere is the last part of what brought me to this point.