Getting rejected from Facebook ended up being a blessing in disguise
Tags: career, beginners, motivation
Published: 2020-10-22 10:58:21


In September 2018, I applied for an internship at FB. I got the interview but **I bombed it.**

It all ended up working out great for me in the end though.
Failing at the interview directly led to me landing **my dream job.**

(Check the story out in video form below, or keep scrolling for the text version) 

{% youtube UzF7_mtvCNM %}


## September 2018

I'm a few years into studying CS, and I'm actively searching for a good internship or job opportunity. A good friend of mine ends up landing a FB internship interview. 

So I ask how he got the interview and he forwards me the recruiter's information. 

I sent him this email. 

![email to FB recruiter](https://dev-to-uploads.s3.amazonaws.com/i/upiikvx0wg0tt2dakllk.png)

Shortly after that email and some back and forth, I land an internship interview with FB! This could be huge. I'm beyond excited, and I'm a little bit nervous.

I start preparing for the coding interview. I'm practicing leet code, whiteboarding with my friends, and studying up on interview tactics.

### Searching for additional interview practice

I noticed that I wasn't nervous when I was whiteboarding with my friends. 

How could I recreate the feeling that I'd have during the interview? 

Luckily enough, I find a local developer group is hosting mock interviews! So, I sign up and go. 

Algorithm questions weren't super popular at the meetup but I still got to practice a few simple ones under pressure. 

Towards the end of the mock interview sessions, I end up meeting a guy named David. He's one of the co-owners of a local boutique software firm. We hit it off and he seemed impressed with my performance in the interview. 

We decided to stay in touch and exchanged information. I add him on LinkedIn.


### The Facebook Interview

The day of the FB internship interview came before I knew it and I still felt a bit underprepared.

I was able to find a solution but it was a O(n^3) (read: a very bad) runtime. 

The interviewer seemed a bit distracted during the interview and I got the impression that he wasn't very impressed at all with my performance.

**Rejected.**

One good thing about the FB process was they got back to me almost immediately. The next day I was informed that I didn't pass the interview. I was a little bummed but not very surprised. 

I still had a goal of landing a good internship and quickly got back to trying to improve my chances. **One way that I did this was by going to lots of hackathons and documenting my progress on LinkedIn.**

Through some luck and hard work, I was able to win 1st place at a hackathon with a team of my good friends. 


### Serendipity

David, the guy with the boutique consulting firm messaged our team on LinkedIn after our win. He had a project in mind for us. A paid project. 

He was interested in hiring our team to build some proof of concepts in partnership with one of his clients. 

After some back and forth, he brought 4 of us on as interns. 

2 years later, 3 of us still work here full-time! 

An overview of the events:

- Friend gets a FB internship interview
- I ask for a referral to the recruiter and get the FB interview as well
- In order to prep for the interview, I go to a local interview prep meetup
- I meet David at the meetup, who owns a consulting firm
- I bomb the FB interview
- I go to hackathons and stay active on LinkedIn
- David notices my activity and happens to have a project that would be perfect for a hackathon team
- David hires me, the friend who referred me to the FB interview, and 2 others 



### Current job and how it fits me better than FB 


I've been here for 2 years now and it's been an incredible journey. I'm a full-stack software engineer. 

I get to work on a variety of projects and my schedule is incredibly flexible. I mostly work from home, make a great living, and work with some of the smartest and fun people I've met. 

There's so much opportunity for growth here and I really like the small company feel. My work directly has an impact on the entire company. 

Thanks for reading y'all! 

### How has failing helped you in your career?