Vietnamese guy sent out more than 600 job applications before joining Microsoft

After persistently sending out more than 600 job applications within 5 months, Nhat Quang received nods from 4 American companies, including Microsoft.

Nguyen Nhat Quang, born in 2002, is a former student of Computer Science at Rice University (USA). About 4 months before graduating, Quang received a letter of acceptance to Microsoft as a software engineer. Despite having the opportunity to work at a leading technology company, Quang admits that the job market in the US is very harsh, especially for international students. Before being accepted to Microsoft, the male student had to send out about 600 job applications over 7 months.

Nguyen Nhat Quang is a former student of Computer Science at Rice University (USA). (Photo: NVCC)

With the goal of working in the US, right from the beginning of university, the former student of Hanoi - Amsterdam High School for the Gifted started looking for internship opportunities to gain experience. But Quang admitted that for first-year students, applying for an internship in the US is relatively difficult. So the male student changed direction and applied to the school's software engineering club called Rice Apps. "Luckily, this club gathers most of the best students in the faculty. I have trained myself to work scientifically and dedicate myself to my work," Quang recalled. In addition, many seniors in the club are also working at large companies, so the male student learned how to do professional projects. What made Quang most proud in his first year was contributing to the project of creating a website for the school to serve credit registration. In addition to improving the interface and tools, students can create their own 4-year study plan on the website, view information for each class and previous students' reviews of the class. During this time, Quang participated in coding. In his second and third years, the male student became the project leader and then the president of the Rice Apps club. According to Quang, participating in the school club is also a very good environment for students to accumulate experience when they do not have the opportunity to intern at businesses. But when entering his second year, Quang set a goal to get an internship at all costs. At that time, the male student spread out about 150-200 applications, mainly searching for information through LinkedIn, Handshake, job fairs and company websites. The position Quang was looking for was usually a software engineer intern. Luckily, the former president of the club Quang had participated in was working at Facebook, recognized Quang's potential and efforts, so he introduced him to the company. "Having someone in the company introduce will increase the likelihood of the candidate's resume being viewed," Quang said. The male student applied to Facebook in August and was called for an interview at the end of November.

Quang studied at Hanoi - Amsterdam High School for the Gifted (Photo: NVCC)

Normally, internship interviews at technology companies in the US will have 2 rounds related to algorithms and data structures. Thanks to the basic knowledge of computer science learned in the first year at Rice University and self-practicing programming skills online, Quang received a 3-month internship invitation from Facebook. Working for the first time in a large company, Quang felt "overwhelmed" when everyone worked professionally, independently and had a high ability to self-study. "There were days when the whole team had to continuously meet and work with other departments to build a certain feature. But thanks to that, I learned more communication and teamwork skills," Quang said.

After his internship at Facebook, Quang also realized his strengths and weaknesses. With more experience, in the summer of his third year, Quang focused on applying to large technology companies. The male student sent out about more than 200 applications, and about 10 companies called for interviews, including the technology corporation Nvidia. During the interview round, while Facebook only focused on solving problems, Nvidia also cared about how to handle situations, the projects the candidate had participated in... Passing the rigorous review process, including a 60-minute programming round, the male student was accepted to intern here for nearly 4 months. As a software engineer intern at Nvidia, Nhat Quang worked on software to simulate the surrounding environment for self-driving cars. Quang worked about 12 hours a day. To meet the demands of the job, the male student also learned many new languages, such as C++. According to Quang, technology companies are always looking for a well-rounded student with experience in the job position they are recruiting for and leadership skills. Therefore, Quang pushed himself to complete the assigned tasks with the expectation of being officially hired after finishing his internship. However, during that period, many "big guys" were laying off a series of technology engineers. Nvidia was no exception. The manager directly in charge of Quang said that the group had no new recruitment targets. "That was an extremely stressful time for me," Quang recalled.

Quang is currently a software engineer at Microsoft (Photo: NVCC)

In that context, the male student had to pull himself together and prepare his resume early to apply for many different positions. In addition, "because he didn't know when the opportunity would come", the male student regularly practiced interviews and participated in many career seminars to look for opportunities. Within 7 months from July 2023, Quang sent out a total of more than 600 applications. The male student received responses from 37 companies and was accepted into 4 companies, including Tiktok and Microsoft, after going through a series of rigorous interview rounds. Quang chose Microsoft because he considered it a technology company with a good foundation and opportunities to learn and develop. In addition to salary, the Vietnamese guy will be supported with an H1-B visa (temporary work visa), support money transferred to the head office, airfare... Receiving news of being accepted to Microsoft in mid-February 2024, before graduating from university, in July 2024, Quang officially started working at the Microsoft Data Center. Although Quang was relieved to receive his first official job, he still felt that his responsibilities were heavier than when he was an intern. “In the coming time, I will try to improve my expertise, create influence for my team and develop the AI ​​and cloud sectors. In addition, I also want to continue to support career guidance for students who want to find jobs in the US, in fields such as software engineering, data science, and machine learning,” Quang said.

(Source: Vietnamnet)/Vtcnews.vn

Source: https://vtcnews.vn/chang-trai-viet-gui-hon-600-don-xin-viec-truoc-khi-vao-microsoft-ar920139.html