Ha Anh, a final-year Computer Science major at Brown University, an esteemed Ivy League institution in the US, was informed that she was hired by Microsoft as a software engineer several months ago. 

Born in 2002, Ha Anh is set to join the company this summer after graduation.

"I started preparing for this from my freshman year, having to send hundreds of internship applications over three years," Ha Anh explains.

“I began preparing for this process when I entered the first year at university. I sent hundreds of letters applying for an internship position over three years,” Anh said.

Before obtaining a seat at Brown University and winning a full scholarship, Ha Anh was a student at the Hanoi-Amsterdam High School for the Gifted in Vietnam and studied in China for two years under a UWC (United World Colleges) scholarship. During this time, she considered pursuing economics and art.

However, in the summer before she entered the university, she realized that the major did not fit her true passion and she decided to study Computer Science instead. 

In her freshman year, she worked as a teaching assistant for various courses, practiced coding, and joined her school's game development and virtual reality clubs.

Due to her limited skills and experience, Anh returned to Vietnam after her first year to intern at a local company. 

"Most seniors advised me to intern early to accumulate experience, but it is really difficult to land an internship in the US when you are just a freshman," she said.

It wasn't until her sophomore summer that Anh applied for internships in American companies. 

She mostly searched for information on LinkedIn, sending out over 200 applications but receiving just one response, from an HR officer at Uber. She was hired to the company after an interview.

Anh then became a software engineer intern. She worked on developing an internal assisting tool to provide data about trips, customers, and drivers. 

When working for a professional company for the first time, Anh felt overwhelmed but she gradually grasped the company's operational processes and project stages.

"I realized that some of the university knowledge didn’t match job requirements, such as debugging code, and there were a lot of things I had to learn on my own," Ha Anh recalled.

Returning to school after the internship, she realized that she needed to diversify her skills by expanding her knowledge across different fields. 

Thanks to the experience when working for Uber, Anh received more internship offers in subsequent applications, including one from Apple. She underwent a three-stage interview process to test logical thinking, coding, and scenario handling.

While applying for major tech firms, Anh noted that running a personal project would be a privilege. For example, when applying for Apple, she presented her self-coded "water physics simulation" project, which left a good impression on recruiters.

As a software engineer intern at Apple, she worked on image-related features for several products. Within 15 weeks, Anh worked for a project on enhancing 3D video and photo viewing experiences using Vision Pro glasses through AI applications.

Her time at Apple was intensive. Sometimes she had to work 12-13 hours a day. It was very challenging, but it helped her acquire new skills and programming languages to meet job demands.

In August 2024, when companies began their recruitment season, Anh applied for around 80 full-time positions at large companies. Though she had not graduated from university, she was able to reach the final interview round at some companies.

"Each company has its unique interview style and culture. It's normal to fit well in one company, but not another," Anh said, adding that she did not feel disappointed when a company did not hire her.

When applying for Microsoft, she had to take a two-hour online test related to logical thinking and coding. After that, she was interviewed by a manager and two engineers to assess her knowledge.

"They were particularly interested in candidates' passion for their work, ambition, determination, and eagerness to learn," Anh recalled.

Thanks to early preparation and experience, she passed the rigorous recruitment rounds of Microsoft even before graduating from university.

"Receiving the job offer from Microsoft, I was very surprised. I felt relieved as I no longer needed to worry about a job after graduation," the girl said.

Thuy Nga