Source
r/uwaterloo•
pitpub

Relative competitiveness for each coop term for SW jobs.

I recall when looking for winter coop, a lot of employers commented that there were very few 4th year students (makes sense since most coop students have their last study term in winter). Meanwhile almost all engineer/math have their final coop term in Fall term.

I would expect that Fall would be most competitive for good jobs (fb, google, etc) with all the 4A students. Does anyone have any anecdotal experience with this?

Posted May 25, 2015, 5:41 PM UTC · edited

38
FrostshockFTWCS Alum•

Summer is often the only time US students can get internships, so that's the most competitive term for US jobs.

4
valleygrunt•

I'm not so sure. Yes there will be people from Stanford competing but US companies hire a lot more interns in the summer than other seasons. Many companies don't even have non-summer internships. So I'm not sure how it balances out in the end.

2
grapeape25SoftEng 2015•

You are assuming that each company has a fixed number of positions. Whether they are telling the truth or not, all of the major companies (the ones you describe as good jobs) are not simply interviewing to fill a quota. If they feel you are qualified, you get an offer. There is no rankings.

So you technically aren't competing against other students unless you are going for small companies that can only take on one or two students.

4
blundermineCM / Stats•

That's not really true. Most companies will have spots on certain teams available. They send the managers for those teams to do the interviewing. In the majority of cases those managers won't go to other teams and say "I have a good person but no room for them." They just won't get hired.

3
grapeape25SoftEng 2015•

The ones OP describes as good jobs (presumably the "big 4") will hire a bunch of people they feel are qualified.

They'll ask each teams how many co-ops they want then distribute them. You do not get interviewed by the manager of the team you will be on. You probably won't even see your interviewers again.

2
applewatch334•

This is true for most of the large tech companies, not Apple though.

1
worldwise001former grad student•

Google, Facebook, etc. won't send managers for those teams to necessarily do the interviewing. You get a generic-ish softeng interview (maybe catered to your background), then if you pass you get put into a pool, and then a team internally picks from the set of qualified candidates.

Source: I've done this and actually turned down one or two teams for another team.

2
EverythingInCS•

Actually you're talking about regular companies. Big companies such as Facebook, Amazon and so on can hire as many as they feel qualified. There's no number limit. Source: I interviewed with them and asked interviewer/recruiter

1