• Rihab Lajmi left her role at Google and launched FAANG, an AI hiring platform.
• Lajmi has gone through dozens of interviews herself and interviewed 35 recruiters to learn what they're looking for.
• These are the five interview tips she recommends to job seekers.

This as-told-to essay is based on a conversation with Rihab Lajmi, a 26-year-old living in Germany. Her employment history has been verified by BI. It's been edited for length and clarity.

You may have heard of FAANG being used as an acronym for Facebook, Amazon, Apple, Netflix, and Google — and that's exactly what inspired the name of my company.

FAANG jobs are highly coveted and represent success in tech. So about six months ago, I quit my job as a Cloud space architect at Google to create an AI recruiting platform to help people land their dream jobs.

Our conversational AI recruiter "Buddy" conducts custom simulated video interviews for job applicants based on the company's preferences, culture, and technical needs. Our vision is to scale "Buddy" to become every job seeker's companion to prepare for job interviews.

By adopting this name, we aim to empower individuals to achieve their career aspirations, whether at FAANG or elsewhere. So far, we've interviewed over 35 recruiters to learn more about what they're looking for.

Before Google, I worked at Microsoft and went through dozens of interviews at other companies like Amazon. Through my own experience and from speaking with recruiters directly, these are my biggest takeaways on how to excel in an interview.

1. Request a champion call with the hiring manager

In many interview processes, the hiring manager won't show up until the final round of interviews. That person often has the final say so it's good practice to increase your visibility early on.

If you don't have a call scheduled with the hiring manager prior to the first interview, request it. This breaks the ice and helps them remember you later.

The call should be casual and you should start by introducing yourself. Then, you can ask about them and what they're looking for. This will also help you get more information as you go through the interview process.

2. Begin the interview with small talk

Starting with small talk may help the interviewer remember you later on. You can start by asking the interviewer questions about the company or you can try a less formal approach if they seem open.

A lot of the people I've worked with have been international so I often start with questions about where they're from and then mention my favorite dish from that region.

Make sure you read the room and don't let the small talk go on for too long. Some interviewers like to chat more than others so make sure to pay attention to verbal cues.

3. Be concise

People often look at interviews like an exam — don't go into it with that approach. While you should do your homework and prepare for the interview, it's important that you don't get bogged down by the details.

The person who is interviewing you will lose their focus if you talk too much. They also are assessing your ability to communicate so being concise can help you score higher or make a better impression.

4. Weave in your personality when answering questions

The company wants to get to know you as a person. So when it comes to behavioral questions, do your best to weave in stories and examples that highlight parts of your personality.

For example, if someone asks about a time you had to work through a conflict, don't put an emphasis on the problem or the solution. Instead, make sure you focus on how you went about solving the problem and how you communicated.

5. Don't follow up right after the interview

Don't follow up with a recruiter right after the interview and don't contact them more than twice. It could take a while to make the decision, especially if it's a competitive role, and if you appear overly eager you could lose leverage power with salary negotiation.

Do you work at Google? We want to hear from you. Email the reporter from a non-work email at aaltchek@insider.com.

• Clarence Thomas this week argued domestic abusers shouldn't be prevented from owning guns.
• His lone dissent in the 8-1 SCOTUS decision hinged on an originalist interpretation of the law.
• One legal expert told BI Thomas's ruling shows how "absurd" originalism can be.

Clarence Thomas this week offered the lone dissent in a Supreme Court decision that ultimately ruled that people with a history of domestic violence can be prevented from legally owning guns.

His lengthy disagreement with the ruling in United States vs. Rahimi hinged on an originalist interpretation of the law that Thomas, a staunch conservative, is known for.

Originalism is a legal framework based on interpreting constitutional law as it would have been understood at the time it was written nearly 250 years ago — before the invention of electric lighting, indoor plumbing, and steam-powered trains.

Once considered a fringe theory created in response to perceived overreach by a liberal court, this method of interpretation — popularized by the late Antonin Scalia in the late 1980s — argues that only a formal Amendment ratified by Congress should be able to alter how we interpret the Constitution's established rights and restrictions.

Legal experts who spoke to Business Insider said Thomas's latest decision highlighted how inconsistent and even ridiculous this method of interpretation can be.

"This is a case where, if you invalidate this statute on the basis of originalism, you go back in time and say, essentially, at the time of the original ratification of the Constitution, domestic violence was tolerated — and therefore, based on originalism, we need to invalidate the statute," John P. Gross, a professor at the University of Wisconsin Law School and director of the Public Defender Project, told Business Insider. "And that is, of course, an absurd, horrible result."

Gross noted that originalism raises questions like whether women should be allowed to sit on the Supreme Court, because the nation's founders wouldn't have allowed it then.

"A strict originalist view could be that we shouldn't have appointed women to the judiciary unless we get a formal Amendment saying women can be judges," Gross said. "So that's the kind of logical extension of originalism that leads to these truly absurd results. In that context, it's very difficult to defend originalism as a useful, meaningful way of interpreting the Constitution."

With originalism, 'you get absurd results, and people will think you are a nut'

Three legal experts told BI that Thomas is at least consistent in his framework for interpreting the law. However, this consistency in his thinking allows him to present arguments at odds with modern values that can sometimes contradict each other.

"This is a court that claims to be an originalist court and, if nothing else, these opinions establish that originalism is not a straightforward approach and does not lead to greater certainty, despite the claims that originalists make," Carolyn Shapiro, founder of Chicago-Kent College of Law's Institute on the Supreme Court of the United States, told BI.

Shapiro said originalism "can lead to different results depending on who is doing the analysis. It just simply does not provide the certainty that originalists claim."

Thomas' strict originalist interpretations in recent rulings, such as a unanimous decision in a trademark case earlier this month, have also begun to cause a fray among the other conservative justices. CNN reported Amy Coney Barrett, who identified as an originalist when she took the bench in 2020, accused Thomas in a recent opinion of having a "laser-like focus on the history" that "misses the forest for the trees."

Thomas' reliance on "history and tradition," Barrett wrote in a concurrence that the court's three liberal justices signed on to, "is wrong twice over."

Thomas being the lone dissent in the case involving domestic abusers carrying firearms shows how committed he is to his originalist framework, even when the other conservative justices on the court clearly see the risk to society if SCOTUS doesn't modernize its thinking, Gross said.

Gross noted that he expected the outcome the Supreme Court ultimately reached, though he was surprised Justice Samuel Alito, another strict originalist, didn't join Thomas' dissent.

"I think perhaps Alito's absence from this opinion suggests that even he realizes, as Justice Scalia did at some point, that if you keep pushing these ideas about originalism, you get absurd results — and people will think you are a nut," Gross told BI. "But Thomas is willing to go there. In terms of intellectual purity, great, I can't say the guy's wishy-washy, but even Alito's not part of it — because he doesn't want to be seen as a nut."

Representatives for the Supreme Court did not respond to a request for comment from Business Insider.

• Earlier this month, David Sacks posted an open letter on Twitter in support of Donald Trump. 
• In a scathing post on Thursday, LinkedIn cofounder Reid Hoffman took the letter apart line by line.
• Venture capitalist Sacks, Hoffman said, gets it wrong about Trump "on just about every count."

LinkedIn cofounder Reid Hoffman had some choice words for venture capitalist David Sacks after he endorsed Donald Trump earlier this month.

In an open letter posted on X on June 6, Sacks praised the former president's foreign policy and economic strategy and lambasted President Joe Biden's approach to "lawfare," accusing Biden of leveraging the justice system against his political opponent in this year's election.

Hoffman was having none of it, writing in a separate post on Threads that Sacks, in voicing his support for Trump, "got it wrong on just about every count."

"Since Silicon Valley mostly opposes Trump, he may have seen this as a 'contrarian' take that would fit his podcast brand," Hoffman wrote in an extended Medium post published the same day as his Threads remarks in response to Sacks' letter. "Sadly, rather than originality, Sacks' letter awkwardly regurgitates pro-Trump groupthink."

"Both of America's choices for President are old, but only one of them acts like an adult," Hoffman added.

Point by point, Hoffman dismantled Sacks' argument, pointing out that Trump became a convicted felon after being found guilty by a jury of his peers, comparing economic and crime data from the last two administrations, and accusing Sacks of echoing pro-Putin propaganda in his defense of Trump.

"The voters have experienced four years of President Trump and four years of President Biden," Sacks wrote in his letter. "In tech, we call this an A/B test. With respect to economic policy, foreign policy, border policy, and legal fairness, Trump performed better. He is the President who deserves a second term."

Hoffman sharply responded in his posts that Sacks "is reading the results backwards."

"In tech, we call this 'being wrong,'" Hoffman wrote.

Sacks hasn't responded at length to Hoffman's disapproval, though he did reply to a post on X critiquing Hoffman for taking two weeks to pen his rebuttal, simply adding the "100" emoji in agreement.

Sacks' support for Trump — and Hoffman's vocal condemnation for it — comes as a growing faction of Silicon Valley elites have voiced their support for the former president post-conviction.

It isn't the first time Hoffman has critically weighed in on the phenomenon. In an op-ed published in The Economist earlier this month, Hoffman blasted business leaders for supporting Trump, arguing that a Republican win in 2024 will be bad for the economy and could upend the legal system that American businesses rely on.

Hoffman and Sacks did not immediately respond to requests for comment from Business Insider.

• The Titanic wreckage site continues to be a big draw for the wealthy and adventurous.
• But experienced deep-sea explorers tell Business Insider there's nothing more to see there.
• Hot sea vents and deep-water coral reefs are under-explored and far more accessible, explorers say.

The Titanic may be one of the most popular and identifiable wreckage sites in the history of sea travel.

It also may be one of the most overrated, deep-sea explorers told Business Insider.

More than a century after the ocean liner sank to the bottom of the Atlantic, the Titanic has proven the staying power of its lore, not least in part due to James Cameron's 1997 film, which became the first billion-dollar box office success. The film reignited interest in the ship and created a fandom that lives strong to this day. Titanic-themed birthday, anyone?

Then, in 2023, five people died in OceanGate's Titan submersible during a dive to the wreckage site, once again placing the iconic ship at the forefront of the news cycle.

Despite the wreckage's thorough documentation and the recent fate of the OceanGate submersible, the wealthy and well-resourced continue to pour efforts to venture 12,500 feet into the ocean just to see the site of the 1912 sinking.

Passengers on the Titan paid up to $250,000 for a seat inside the submersible. Now, billionaire real estate investor Larry Connor said he will voyage to the Titanic.

Deep-sea explorers are left wondering: Why?

'People are trying to impress people'

"The wreck is well-documented," Karl Stanley, a submersible expert, told BI in a recent interview. "That's probably the best documented deep-water wreck there is."

Stanley, who owns a submersible tourism company, Stanley Submarines, was one of many colleagues who warned OceanGate's CEO Stockton Rush about the dangers of rushing to produce a vessel that could take people to the Titanic.

For him, the wealthy's desire to visit the shipwreck has less to do with a genuine passion for deep-sea exploration and more to do with namesake recognition.

"I think whatever market exists for tourism to the Titanic is extremely analogous to the kind of clientele that pays Sherpas to drag them up Mt. Everest," Stanley said, referring to the Nepalese ethnic group that dwells in the Himalayan mountains. Some climbers pay up to $15,000 per expedition to have a Sherpa guide, BI previously reported.

Since the early 1900s, more than 330 people have died on the mountain, and 107 of them were Sherpas, according to The Himalayan Database.

Stanley said there are more dangerous but less traveled mountains and shipwrecks that are less deep but better preserved, such as the HMHS Britannic, Titanic's sister ship, which lies in a relatively shallow grave of about 400 feet, near the Greek island of Kea.

"People are trying to impress people," he said.

Guillermo Söhnlein, the cofounder of OceanGate who left the company in 2013, agreed with Stanley.

While he doesn't want to discourage anyone's genuine passion for the iconic ocean liner, Söhnlein told BI in an interview that the Titanic "holds no interest for me whatsoever."

"One of the reasons I talked with Stockton all the time in the recent years is he would always call me before the expedition to see if I wanted to come to the Titanic," he said.

"And honestly, I never had any desire to go to the Titanic. I just don't see the appeal of it," Söhnlein said, "For me, personally, I think a big part of that is because I prefer exploration. And the Titanic has already been visited, it's been documented, its been filmed. James Cameron has done a phenomenal job on it."

Brine pools and unexplored blue holes

Stanley and Söhnlein said they're less interested in shipwreck sites overall and more keen on exploring the ocean's ecosystem.

"Hot sea vents, brine pools, and deep-water coral reefs would all be more interesting than a shipwreck and can be accessed by going 2,000-5,000 feet, not the 13,000 feet it takes to get to the Titanic," Stanley said.

Similarly, Söhnlein is interested in deep trenches and hydrothermal vents — something Rush was also passionate about, he said.

Söhnlein explained that they're "almost completely unexplored," "play key roles in our planetary dynamics," and "they likely hold thousands of undiscovered and unknown life forms."

Söhnlein's company, Blue Marble Exploration, recently announced it would venture into Dean's Blue Hole, a site in the Bahamas about 660 feet from the surface.

"Dean's Blue Hole is an enigma for geologists studying underwater caverns," Blue Marble Exploration's website says. "It is the largest of its kind in the world, and yet very little is known about it, including how it formed more than 15,000 years ago."

The company adds that it expects to find "human remains" of people who drowned in the blue hole "due to a variety of misfortunes."

It's unclear how many people died at the site. The most notable case occurred in 2013 when American freediver Nicholas Mevoli attempted to break a freediving record by reaching 72 meters in a single breath, The New York Times reported. Mevoli surfaced but died shortly after.

• A US Navy carrier strike group that's fought the Houthis for months is finally returning home.
• The Dwight D. Eisenhower Carrier Strike Group left the Middle East on Saturday, the Pentagon said.
• It will soon be replaced by the USS Theodore Roosevelt Carrier Strike Group.

The US Navy carrier strike group that's been battling the Houthis in the Red Sea is finally heading home after spending months in the region protecting shipping lanes from relentless attacks by the Iran-backed rebels.

The Dwight D. Eisenhower Carrier Strike Group left the Middle East on Saturday and will remain briefly in the US European Command area of responsibility before returning stateside. It will not see its deployment extended for a third time.

Its departure follows "more than seven months deployed in support of US regional deterrence and force protection efforts," Pentagon Press Secretary Maj. Gen. Pat Ryder announced in a statement.

The USS Theodore Roosevelt Carrier Strike Group, operating in the Indo-Pacific region, will soon head to the Middle East to replace the strike group.

The Eisenhower strike group — which consists of the aircraft carrier Ike and several other warships — originally deployed to the Eastern Mediterranean in October but was quickly redirected to the Middle East to defend shipping lanes from unrelenting Houthi attacks.

Since then, the Eisenhower strike group has intercepted scores of missiles and drones — both in the air and in the water — and also targeted the rebels directly in Yemen. These have been a mix of joint strikes alongside the British military and preemptive strikes designed to eliminate a threat before the Houthis can launch it.

"During its deployment, the IKE CSG protected ships transiting the Red Sea, Bab-el-Mandeb and the Gulf Aden, rescued innocent mariners against the unlawful attacks from the Iranian-backed Houthis, and helped to deter further aggression," Ryder said.

The reshuffling of American naval assets comes amid concerns over the long-term sustainability of the counter-Houthi operations. US intelligence suggested last month that the Houthi threat is likely to remain active for some time, and Defense Secretary Lloyd Austin had already extended the Eisenhower strike group's deployment twice.

During its time in the Red Sea, the strike group fired off more than 500 munitions, totaling some $1 billion, and sailed more than 55,000 miles. Its aircraft have also flown over 30,000 hours.

Despite the Eisenhower's presence, the Houthis continue to attack shipping lanes. The rebels have already struck multiple commercial vessels in June alone, including one with a naval drone for the first time since they began their campaign in the fall.

Ryder, meanwhile, said the Roosevelt strike group will leave the Indo-Pacific region next week upon completion of a scheduled exercise and sail for the Middle East "to continue promoting regional stability, deter aggression, and protect the free flow of commerce in the region."