Best way to differentiate self from other students at tech companies?

Great question. Best way to differentiate yourself is to get involved in as many volunteering and internship opportunities as you can. Getting real world experience and working on real problems will help you stand out. This will also help you build a portfolio of projects that you can reference when interviewing with potential employers.

The point in the following that I'm sharing comes from my own personal experience when I first started and also from the countless number of people around me that I saw in my career

• setting up your own website,
• doing some side projects and having them on github,
• volunteering in tech meetups you're interested in
• understand data structures and doing online coding challenges
• practice, practice, practice answering coding challenges for interviews
• asking others working in the companies you're interested in to review your resume
• networking, reaching out to folks working in the companies you are interested in and asking for their advice on what to focus, if you want to apply to that specific company and whether they can put you in touch with recruiters
• internships in different tech companies

As a current intern in the tech industry, I've seen that having and applying diverse skillsets can make you stand out during the recruiting process and as an employee. Being able to do so can make you an asset to multiple teams and allow you to get involved in different types of projects and learn new skills. Make sure to be proactive and always seek for new opportunities to learn and get involved.

Hello Kiat,

The best way to differentiate from others is to do the extra mile, there are some work that needs to be done per process, but there is always something additional that you can develop to improve current methodologies, for example you could think about how to make your work in an easy way, this is call innovation, in tech companies we´re looking for truly innovatiors that help make things easy to our customer and to our employees of course.

One of the best ways to stand out is to be involved in volunteer work. Helping people with physical or intellectual problems access and learn about technology is tremendously rewarding for you and gives you greater insight into how people in general interact with technology. This insight will help you understand how to make your projects more accessible and useful.

This is a great question! In technology, employers want to see what you can do. This means doing software development and making the applications available on the web. Over time, you will have a nice portfolio that employers can review easily. This also allows you to do passion projects that are not directly related to your school work.

Working in a technology company you will wear many hats and there is usually plenty of opportunities to work with other teams. A way to differentiate is to take on something that is not part of your job description but you feel is needed within the company. Perhaps you can bridge gaps between different departments that typically do not interact. Or you could organize volunteer opportunities and invite people that work in different departments that typically don't work together.