Facebook is regarded as one of the topmost and highly sought-after organisations to intern and work at. If all the top organisations of the world were ranked according to the popularity of their internships among students.
Facebook would undoubtedly stand tall at the top, along with other exciting startups, Google, etc. This article discusses how to get a Facebook internship, the interview experience, the length of the Facebook internship interview process, and preparation for it.
Table of Contents
What is the interview process with Facebook for interns?
Once you have applied to the internship program at Facebook, the recruiting team will go through your resume and understand your qualifications & background.
Image Source: Facebook
Here is how the process looks like:
- The candidate applies for an internship and submits their resume.
- The Facebook recruiting team goes through the resume and understands the candidate’s background as well as qualifications
- If found suitable, the candidate gets shortlisted for the next round.
- The recruiter reaches out to the shortlisted candidate and sets up the first round of interviews.
- This is the initial technical screening and could be a phone or video call that lasts for 30-35 minutes.
- The recruiting team tries to get a better idea of the candidate’s skills
- The candidate could be given some problems to solve, in line with their skills, as a test
- If the candidate clears round 1, they move on to the second round of interviews.
- The second round of interviews is set up with the candidate.
- It is a more elaborate and thorough interview, generally held in-person or over a video call, and lasts for 40-45 minutes.
- Candidate’s skills are thoroughly tested.
- The final decision on the person’s candidature for an internship is made.
The tests are meant to evaluate your skills and understand your thought process, approach to tasks, attention to detail, etc.
How long does it take to hear back from the Facebook team?
The process of recruiting interns at Facebook is fairly quick and could sometimes wrap up in as little as 3-4 days. On average, the interview process is completed in a week and the decision is given soon after. The candidates are kept informed of their status regularly by the recruiting team.
What happens after a candidate is selected for an internship at Facebook?
Once selected, the Facebook team reaches out to the candidate and discusses the options with them.
- Candidates are given a list of teams, from which they are generally required to select the top 3 teams that they would like to be a part of during their internship.
- Candidates are then assigned to one of their chosen teams and a mentor.
- The mentor connects with the candidate and discusses the different projects the candidate could join, from which a final one is agreed upon and assigned to the candidate.
- The candidate is onboarded and the internship starts.
Work Culture at Facebook
Internships are a very important part of Facebook’s recruiting strategy and an intern gets a lot of amazing opportunities at Facebook. The interns are given options to choose the teams and the projects they would like to work on. Depending on the individual’s educational qualifications, interns would be assigned to different levels of internship and could be part of exciting projects that take place at Facebook.
The work environment is liberal, making the Facebook internship experience memorable and valuable. Some of the benefits of interning at Facebook include:
- Access to Facebook merchandise and apparel
- Free meals at the in-house cafeteria
- Attractive stipends
- Opportunity to interact with senior employees, etc.
And the interns get invited by Mark Zuckerberg to his home for a barbeque! Now, isn’t that cool?
What does a Facebook intern do?
As an intern at Facebook, you could be involved in a lot of tasks, depending on your skills. However, coding, in essence, will play an important part in most projects – whether you’re working on development, newsfeed, machine learning, anything.
Specific responsibilities of an intern would vary from project to project and team to team. The work culture is open and you can speak to your mentors about your progress and your work. They would guide you with your projects and review your work along with a few other team members. They would also help you switch projects, if required, to something that you could be a better fit for or find yourself more interested in than what you are doing already.
While interns are still at the lowest end of the hierarchy, Facebook does offer its interns a lot of opportunities to learn new things and make the most of their skills. If your performance is commendable, Facebook could give you a pre-placement offer (PPO), allowing you to work full-time post-internship.
Preparation for an internship interview at Facebook
Here are some ways you can prepare thoroughly for an internship interview at Facebook:
- Review your basics thoroughly, especially data structures – lists, arrays, hash tables, hash maps, stacks, queues, graphs, etc.
- Practise important concepts that require one to be immaculate and attentive, like reversed link lists, algorithms, etc.
- Be well-versed in coding by hand (on paper or whiteboard) and on a computer.
- Practise answering the different types of coding questions with the most efficient, bug-free solutions without using the aid of a compiler.
- Practise writing code without a syntax highlighter or auto-completion as during the interview you will be writing code in a simple text editor.
- Plan out your career aspirations and how you would elaborate on them. When the interview panel asks you where you see yourself 2-5 years down the line, you should have a solid plan to showcase.
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Frequently Asked Questions
The entire internship process can take about a week or less to wrap up. It is generally pretty quick and recruiters will keep you informed every step of the way.
Yes, coding interviews are a part of the interview process for interns at Facebook.
Here are some important tips to help you ace the internship interview with Facebook:
1. Don’t be afraid to ask questions to the interviewer – this is your opportunity to learn from actual Facebook engineers.
2. When you are problem-solving and coding, learn to think out loud; this helps the interviewers know your thought process.
3. Practise speaking clearly at a balanced speed and be concise.
4. Learn to share your reasoning and thoughts behind proposing a particular solution.
5. Be hands-on with finding bugs and fixing them yourself, rather than waiting for your interviewer to ask you to do it.
6. Reading engineering blogs about product design has proved to be immensely helpful for candidates in the past.
7. Try to have a conversation, don’t make the interview a one-sided and monotonous experience.
8. Be prepared to talk about yourself and the significant events in your life.
9. Be confident and motivated but don’t overdo it.
Coding Ninjas is here to help you with that. Rest assured, you can surely get a job in coding even if you have no experience. You need to have sufficient practice and be thorough with the fundamentals. Do practise projects and come up with your solutions. Not having professional experience doesn’t have to mean not having any experience at all.
Key Takeaways
Facebook continues to be one of the most popular and most sought-after companies to intern at. Facebook has a very straightforward process to recruit interns, who subsequently get a lot of opportunities to learn and excel at the organisation.
The key to secure an internship at Facebook is thorough preparation — strengthening your basics, revising important concepts, and practicing coding questions — and confidence. With the right training and practice, you can secure not just an internship but also a job at Facebook.
Do it right, and your dreams will definitely come true.
