u/jcl274 wrote (the comment Michael replied to):
Thanks for clearing that up. To be clear, I’m not trying to disparage or discourage people from joining Formation, but I think that these kind of threads pop up because Formation has had the image (or reputation?) of being a way to get referrals into FAANG. I’m curious how we got
u/michaelnovati replied · ★ FEATURED
I think a larger problem is that a small number of people joined during the hot market when a lot of people they spoke with at Formation were referred to FAANG and saw no reason why they wouldn't follow that path. They were in Formation long enough to get their skills up during the hot market and are in job hunting mode. Then things changed very suddenly, they currently have no path to FAANG (and few do), and they are frustrated, which I totally understand and sympathize with and a lot of people in this bucket are working with us productively to strategize about what to do.
There are two things in my opinion about the website though that people who are not at Formation have been referring to:
1. We have adjusted our website over months to the market. The overall structure hasn't changed at all, but it used to have one statement about 'high hit rate referrals' and another about 'getting referred directly to FAANG'. All of the statements are true - we focus on quality referrals and we have a deep AND wide network to make those and a track record of making those when they exist. But not all referrals are guaranteed interviews and not all Fellows even know their names were passed along. We have an opt-in resume book of people that is sent to recruiters. So we have reworded these sections to try be clearer.
2. Our "Network" tab has many people placed in FAANG who had referrals, and many people with zero experience who placed in FAANG who had referrals. These were indeed referrals that people might not have gotten easily elsewhere and people might want to follow the exact same path as somewhere there.
It's important to note that people always talk to an ex-FAANG recruiter 1-1 before joining, have ample room to ask questions, and have time to withdraw if they start, get access to the entire set of reference materials at Formation, and feel misaligned.
Internally, our largest focus is thinking about how to make sure the wrong people DON'T join and aren't trying to get people to join for referrals - as some have characterized doesn't make sense. If someone joins on an ISA and takes forever to place we lose so much money it makes absolutely zero sense - we're exploring removing ISAs entirely as an option because they make it so hard to operate a growing business.