I finally understand what FAANG wants in a candidate
6 rules on “how to tango” in the interviews which got me the job.
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Friends,
This edition is a must-read because it pulls back the curtain on what FAANG companies like Google really look for in candidates—beyond just technical skills or a polished resume. Rita distills her hard-earned insights into practical communication strategies that can make or break your interview performance. Whether you’re prepping for a big tech interview, looking to sharpen your self-presentation skills, or simply curious about what it takes to stand out in a competitive job market, this newsletter delivers actionable, eye-opening advice you won’t find in a generic guide.
Here’s a sneak peek at what you can expect to gain from Rita’s piece:
Interview Strategies
Positivity and Self-Awareness
Time Management and Preparation
Mental Health Perspective
Thank you, Rita, for contributing to this guest post. You can find her on LinkedIn.
I finally understand what FAANG wants in a candidate.
FAANG is an acronym for Facebook, Amazon, Apple, Netflix, and Google.
Disclaimer: I solemnly swear not to brag at every corner that I’m working at Google now. This is the only article I’m mentioning it in. I’m still cool and independent like that — the sunglasses are not just for show, you know.
Getting into FAANG as a non-native English speaker
I’m not the kind of person that employers actively hunt for. None of the company names in my CV will tell you anything. There are at least 2 other challenges that make me “unfit” for many employers, such as:
my non-nativeness in English (which, in Content Design, is a real joy-killer) and my traceable Slavic accent,
the necessity for an EU or US employer to provide me with a visa.
Even with these “quirks” — which make me less competitive in the job market — I made it. It’s not because I’m special. It’s only because I learned the unspoken rules of the interview tango. Which, at Google, consisted of exactly 6 rounds.
In this article, I focus on the communication strategies I developed while preparing for the interviews — NOT on the hiring process or the questions I was asked. Although there is no universal resource you can learn from to nail interviews with FAANG, in the case of Google, I found the most useful stuff on Jeff H Sipe’s YouTube channel.
#1: FAANG wants learners, not just “doers”
One of the most common strategies to approach interview questions is the STAR method (situation-task-action-result). STAR is meant to be used for questions like: “Tell me about a time you...
successfully tackled a task under a tight deadline, or
pitched an idea, or
made a mistake, or
killed a mammoth,
etc.”
Now, STAR is not very new at all. Moreover, it’s kinda lame. It is a solid way to structure a response, but...