I made well over 100 applications last April - May; as a grad student close to their master's at a top EU University. I had more success from FAANG companies than startups. I eventually landed a very low paying job at a fintech startup but they had financial issues. Come mid july I found myself interviewing for a FAANG company, and today I passed probation period.
The fact that I was good enough for a FAANG company, but unhirable to almost everyone else is a bit beyond me.
I understand that, but even here I am not given any handholding, we discuss what needs to be done, if needed I write technical document, get feedback, and then implement.
It's possible that your work environment is set up to provide the necessary guidance even though it doesn't feel like handholding to you. At smaller companies you might just get a vague description of a task and be left on your own for weeks to figure it out.
I've seen it said on HN say FAANG hiring is as much to keep other people from hiring you/to stop you from creating startups, as it is to have you do a work for them
The scale of hiring at FAANG companies is on another level. Google's summer intern class is probably much larger than the number of FTEs at my current job. They need to contact tens or hundreds of thousands of prospective candidates. I'm not shocked some people have an easier time getting interviews from FAANG companies.
I see. And how did you find the company websites? The reason I ask is could the type of companies in your filter be the ones just not doing quality work? And interestingly my acquaintance is having the opposite problem where they are willing to train but are having to work very hard to find good CS grads in the EU.
I was looking mostly for companies in Scandinavia, NL and Germany through LinkedIn, or just big names. Some companies had easy apply, others sent you to their website.
I have been told by people in r/cscareerquestionsEU that I may be too expensive due to master's but the "absence" of experience to make me unemployable.
The fact that I was good enough for a FAANG company, but unhirable to almost everyone else is a bit beyond me.