Shiv Pratap Singh asked me a bunch of questions about the Facebook internship application. I can't be 100% sure about the application specifics, but 95% certain based on my past experiences.

Shiv: I am in 2nd year in my college and next semester I will be looking for internships. I saw from your linkedin profile you interned at FB. I gave FB Hacker Cup first time and qualified upto 2nd round. Can you help me for that in any way?

Keshav: FB likes people who are active in CP and perform well. Just submit your resume on their website. If you know anyone in FB (same college, etc), contact them and tell them you submitted your resume. But you don't need to do more than that. Just need to submit resume and tell someone inside the company to make sure it gets looked at. If they come to your campus, that would be the better place to do it.

Shiv: So, you also performed in hackercup to get internship? I have 1856 rating on CF just -44 from purple. I think my CP skills are good because CodeNation organized their Internship challenge for 3rd/4th years and I am in 2nd year so I falsely registered and I got call from them. But my main concern is for FB and google like companies. My elder brother is in google but i know no one from FB. In my campus FB came only once and that time recruited my seniors on good package but after that never. (they came 4 years ago)

Keshav: I think once you get to yellow, you are pretty solid. I don't know what their cutoff is, but that would be my guess. (cutoff for interview, not for internship) And no. I didn't give Hackercup. For me it was mostly IOI + MIT.

Shiv: Did you apply or FB contacted you?

Keshav: They come to MIT every year, and that's when I applied. They love IOI medalists though. Specially if doing college in USA. They called up my roommate because he didn't apply. He got Gold in IOI.

Shiv: Suppose someone who did internship at FB London gives referral for me then will I be eligible for getting internship at that location only? i.e. will the location of FB office be predetermined?

Keshav: No, you can choose any location when you apply.

Shiv: What was turning point in your journey of CP? What did you do or practice or how you changed your strategy that you found yourself at high level? I want to be red and what do you recommend I do to help me in my skills and internship?

Keshav: For me red was all about being fast. I could solve the problems in half a day. But not in 1.5 hours. After implementing the same thing so many times, I got faster at seeing it quicker, and implementing it quicker (and in simplest way possible). Just keep practicing and solving more problems.

Shiv: Thanks !!!