Our idea for the project is to create an APP/tool for maintaining accountability partnerships and helping people become a better version of themselves. As a start, we focus on students who are looking for Software Engineer, PM, or consulting Internships or Full-Time roles. Our project will be helping them with the job hunting process, including drafting a resume, practicing Leetcode, and even a mock interview. We would also probably create a community where people can help each other and share information.
The following is the estimation of the Market Size (TAM, SAM, SOM):
Total Available Market
- Students (undergraduate, graduate, new grads) worldwide applying for internships/entry-level roles
- India, Canada, UK, Singapore, South Korea, China, Taiwan, and Thailand
Served Available Market
- Undergraduate and Graduate students in the US applying for internships/entry-level jobs (18.99 M total college students, and also approximate by *30% (the rate of Stanford students who might be interested in consulting, software engineering, or product management roles, and this yields 5.7M students)
Segmented Obtainable Market
- Stanford students (undergraduate, graduate, new grads) applying for consulting, software engineering, or product management internships/entry-level roles (16,914 total undergraduate and graduate students. Around 20% of Stanford undergrad are CS major in 2019 [1], we can approximate our SOM by all students*30%, and it’s around 5000 students )
- Most likely: CS, Symbolic Systems, MS&E, Econ, Math, and Data Science majors
[1] CS in Crisis: Is Stanford doing enough to respond to capacity and inclusion challenges?, Stanford Daily, retrieved from https://stanforddaily.com/2019/02/19/cs-in-crisis-is-stanford-doing-enough-to-respond-to-capacity-and-inclusion-challenges/
Interview
I interviewed two people for our topic, backgrounds as listed:
- Interviewee 1 (EE, looking for full-time SWE)
- Interviewee 2 (EE, looking for full-time SWE)
We tried to figure out the relevance of socializing style and working style, and from the two interviews I had, the two are less relative. The two people I interviewed both enjoy relaxing alone a little bit more, compared to hanging out with friends, and they both prefer to prepare interviews alone mostly because there are lots of how-to for preparing interviews available online. The whole SWE interview process is: (1) resume screening, (2) preparing Leetcode, (3) online assessment, (4) code interview, (5) behavioral interview (not necessarily). Especially preparing Leetcode, both of them prefer to do it at their own pace and found it stressful if do it with other accountability partners.
“The stress of preparing Leetcode with others overweights the benefits of growing together.” — Interviewee 2
Still, they had study groups to share information to deal with information asymmetry, especially on recruiting information. They found sharing job openings, interview questions, and info sessions helpful. Compared to LinkedIn, the first-hand information freshly comes from others experiences at same time is more useful.
“The whole interview process is information asymmetric. For example, there are sometimes internal positions not shown in public and only can know privately. There is also no way to clearly know when and what company opens a new position. It is helpful by sharing info in a group.” — Interviewee 1
“Though I prefer preparing code interviews myself, I still find sharing info with others helpful as I can know the progress of others for my reference. I can know which company opens more positions and when, and what are the interview questions.” — Interviewee 2
As for who they found for preparing the whole interview, Interviewee 1 mentioned she does not care how close she is with the accountability partner, and she cares more about the personality of one. If the accountability partner is more proactive, she feels more comfortable and more willing to grow together. If one is fussier about trivial things and doesn’t want to be put at a disadvantage, she wouldn’t enjoy the accountability partnership at all. On the other hand, Interviewee 2 prefers finding her college mates or close friends to prepare together.
I also found that preparing code interviews with people applying for similar positions is more beneficial.
“I didn’t prepare Leetcode a lot with my accountability partners as they were applying for CV and ML, and I was applying general SWE or embedded. The programming language and question type are different — I use C++ to practice Leetcode and they use Python.” — Interviewee 1
One other main difficulty of the two interviewees is their concern about language proficiency; both of them are EFL students. When doing the interviews, they sometimes found it difficult to follow or convey their thoughts smoothly and replying business emails after the interviews. However, having mock interviews with others helps.
“With more and more practice, I become less nervous when doing an interview. I have mock interviews with my friends and it helps me gain more confidence while interviewing.” — Interviewee 2
Currently, they both use Excel to track their own interview process because it is simple and a platform they already know how to use. I mentioned if there is an APP/tool to help them track their interview process and a better way to connect with accountability partners, whether they will use it.
“I would not use it if it is on a new platform that I am not familiar with, as it might be complicated to use and take time to get started.” — Interviewee 2
“I would not pay for it and use it because I am just going with the flow and would not make more effort on finding accountability partner and maintain the relationship. ” — Interviewee 1
