Sep 18, 2008 10:00 PM
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In the next year, Facebook plans to visit 20 universities and 5 business schools as it looks to staff up its already swelling operations. Students graduating from these institutions need to be prepared. In a post to announce the tour, Facebook recruiter Marcia Velencia writes that the company is "looking for people that are passionate," who, like Facebook, "value working hard, smart, and fast, and following that up with some good fun." Velencia and Facebook will almost certainly find these types of candidates and successfully lure them into the company. They will do so by allowing the candidates to believe — not explicitly promising them — that working at Facebook will make them rich, allow them to change the world, and put them on a fast track toward an exciting career in tech. Here's what graduating students entertaining a career at Facebook should actually expect.
Facebook will not make you rich.
On a job board for University candidates, Facebook says its hiring engineers, product managers and customer service reps. That means unless you're an engineer or you've started your own business during school, Facebook probably plans to hire you into customer service. Its where the company needs bodies as it staffs its ad sales operations and grows its user base. It's also the area Facebook COO and former Googler Sheryl Sandberg knows best. Working Facebook customer service will not make you rich. The job only pays $18.75 per hour.
You are not going to change the world.
At some point during the interview process, Velencia and Facebook HR will expect you to say that one reason you want to work for the company is that like Mark Zuckerberg, you want to change the world by connecting people. It's fine to say this in order to get the job. Just don't believe it. If you want to change the world go work for Teach for America.
You will not be technically challenged. Code will not iterate quickly.
I interviewed then Facebook CTO Adam D'Angelo in 2006 and I asked him what he liked most about working there. He said he loved how fast the company moved, pushing new code and making changes to the site. D'Angelo is gone from Facebook now and soon, so will that ethos. The site redesign that's users are just now moving to in September? It was supposed to launch in April.
Minion work at Facebook will be like minion work at Google — awful. Though it could turn you into a champion political in-fighter, which is a crucial talent for a career in tech.
Facebook COO Sheryl Sandberg built Google's customer service operation. She will try to replicate it Facebook. Here is how one Google employee described her division:
I'm surprised that you guys don't shed more light on this, but AdWorders only make $45,000 base plus meager bonuses that are only a few hundred per quarter. It's the worst department because everyone hates their job "Hello, this is AdWords, how may I help you?" The dreaded phone shift, chat shifts, answering emails is the core job. They don't tell you that when recruiting and hiring kids from elite universities.Managers that started as entry level and 'made it' to manager level are extremely paranoid and neurotic because they only have measly community college bachelor degrees and feel threatened (and rightfully so) by the new hire managers that are straight out of Harvard, Northwestern, INSEAD & Stanford MBA Programs. Yet they can't get the boot because they're well-connected and the people who suffer from their poor management are lower on the totem pole and could never risk the backlash that would undoubtedly result.
I know of one manager who everyone hated, yet nothing ever happened to her. Instead, her direct reports just prayed that they'd get to switch managers within the quarter. Her name is Tracy-Lee Blumberg. I know of at least 6 different employees who cried every single day that she was their manager. THREE were male. And other bad managers include Heather Huffman and Stacy Brown-Philpot.
It really is a crazy system because everyone is cut throat and if you happen to land a good project or get an opportunity (to work on a coveted project or work from a remote international office) people really try to bring you down.
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