You might be spending too much time networking — and not enough time preparing for interviews, tech workers say

Ask a tech worker what got them hired, and many will say it was much more than networking.

In interviews with Business Insider, tech professionals from companies including Amazon, Google, and Nike said networking helped them land interviews, but preparation and communication helped them turn those opportunities into offers.

These workers — including engineers, data scientists, product managers, and designers — landed jobs in a more selective hiring environment, amid cost-cutting, economic uncertainty, and growing investments in AI.

Here’s what six tech workers believe worked for them. (Their responses have been edited for length and clarity.)

The code is table stakes. Communication gets you hired.

Sreeja Apparaju is a machine learning engineer at Snap. She’s 24 and lives in New York.

Communication. Even in coding interview rounds, being able to reason out loud through your design decisions matters enormously; something as simple as articulating the tradeoffs between two data structures can completely change how an interviewer perceives you. The code is table stakes; how you think about it is what differentiates candidates.

Engineers often treat communication as optional or secondary, but in practice it’s one of the highest-leverage skills you can have. Projects are never successful in isolation; you’re constantly aligning with product managers, data scientists, designers, and other engineers. Being able to explain your reasoning, ask the right clarifying questions, and disagree productively is what makes you someone people want to build with.

I treated getting hired at Amazon like a project

Priyanka Devi Ramesh is a business intelligence engineer at Amazon. She’s 30 and lives in Virginia.

I definitely think it was the work and time I put in — more than usual — specifically for this interview. I told myself: getting an interview call from a FAANG company is no joke, so how do I convert this into an offer?

I looked up every interview experience I could find online, identified the common themes people mentioned, and focused my prep there first. Then I dug into the unique things people brought up. I connected with folks already working at Amazon in the same role on LinkedIn and asked them: What did you do to prepare? How have things changed since you interviewed? Have you been on an interview panel — and if so, what do you look for in candidates today?

Investing time more strategically is what made the difference. I’d never prepared that way before, and it’s what ultimately helped me crack the interview.

Resumes get you to the table. Conviction gets you hired.

Mike Kostersitz is a senior director, product management at Nike. He’s 60 and lives in Oregon.

Passion, an appetite for unfamiliar territory, and visible excitement about building something.

Resumes get you to the table. What gets you hired is conviction, that you’ll run toward the ambiguous problem rather than away from it, and that you’ll bring people with you when you do.

I lead with story, and I think that comes through in interviews: the ability to take a tangle of context and turn it into a direction people can act on. That’s harder to fake than a track record, and in my experience it’s what hiring managers are actually listening for.

I can explain technical work to non-technical people

Sarthak Gupta is a data scientist at Amazon. He’s 29 and lives in Seattle.

The interpersonal side. The resume covers the technical part: I know the tools, I can build the pipelines, I can ship the work. What actually moved the needle was being able to translate that work for people who aren’t technical. Reporting up to leadership, communicating with stakeholders who don’t share the vocabulary, building trust across teams.

Plenty of people can do the technical work. Fewer can explain why it matters to someone whose job doesn’t depend on knowing how it works, and that’s usually what unlocks the next project, the next budget, the next opportunity.

The hiring manager used the same analogy I did

Tanvi Pisal is a UX designer working as a contractor for Apple via Red Oak Technologies. She’s 29 and lives in San Jose.

When I was interviewing for my current job, my hiring manager found my case study presentation and skills to be very aligned with the company and team’s guidelines.

To point out a specific instance: He was explaining what design systems mean as a “single source of truth” and how he thinks the LEGO pieces analogy works best for it. My presentation literally had LEGO pieces where I explained how I built design systems using that same analogy.

Luck found me after I put myself out there

Prerit Pathak is a security engineer at Google. He’s 27 and lives in New York City.

I believe taking initiative got me hired — attending conferences, learning from mentors within the security industry and applying to and getting rejected from a few companies while learning from all of them.

I am a huge proponent of “failing forward.” When you find and create opportunities for yourself, luck finds you.

Do you have a story to share about how you’re navigating a career crossroads? If so, please reach out to the reporter via email at jzinkula@businessinsider.com, or via Signal at jzinkula.29.