Hacker News Board Hacker News, browsed like a classic message board
Live data from Hacker News

Google Has a Secret Interview Process and It Landed Me a Job

thehustle.co

Post reply on HN
Print view View original

21–30 of 111 posts

Re: Google Has a Secret Interview Process and It Landed Me a Job

#21

Post by forgottenpass »

x00gler123 wrote: post #10

So first of all this is not "a secret" at all and you don't need to be "special" to do it. And of course you don't get targeted personally but they do an automated/anonymous match on your search history. It's just one of many inbound HR/recruiting funnels and it was featured in an internal newsletter that went out to all of Eng some time ago. Second, they tell every applicant that openly discussing the interview proc…

>So first of all this is not "a secret"

>Second, they tell every applicant that openly discussing the interview process (esp blogging about it) will get you disqualified/blacklisted

...but it was on an internal newsletter, so that makes it public?

Re: Google Has a Secret Interview Process and It Landed Me a Job

#22

Post by drewg123 »

x00gler123 wrote: post #10

So first of all this is not "a secret" at all and you don't need to be "special" to do it. And of course you don't get targeted personally but they do an automated/anonymous match on your search history. It's just one of many inbound HR/recruiting funnels and it was featured in an internal newsletter that went out to all of Eng some time ago. Second, they tell every applicant that openly discussing the interview proc…

This guy says he was able to skip the technical phone screen, which is pretty non-standard as far as I remember. So it seems there is something a bit special about this process.

Re: Google Has a Secret Interview Process and It Landed Me a Job

#23

Post by calcsam »

x00gler123 wrote: post #10

So first of all this is not "a secret" at all and you don't need to be "special" to do it. And of course you don't get targeted personally but they do an automated/anonymous match on your search history. It's just one of many inbound HR/recruiting funnels and it was featured in an internal newsletter that went out to all of Eng some time ago. Second, they tell every applicant that openly discussing the interview proc…

Friend of the author. The posted date was his first day at Google.

Re: Google Has a Secret Interview Process and It Landed Me a Job

#24

Post by nxb »

x00gler123 wrote: post #19
nxb wrote: post #16

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> Second, they tell every applicant that openly discussing the interview process (esp blogging about it) will get you disqualified/blacklisted from any future positions at google. Wow, it's like they're fully aware of how poor many of their interviewing procedures have been over the years, and instead of making them more employee-friendly to compete with the rest of the industry, they'd rather just punish the employe…

I honestly think their process is pretty good (at least it was for me). There are no bullshit questions and they are honest in their feedback/telling you what you should and should not expect. A lot of people are pissed because they didn't get in and feel it's google's fault for having a 'broken interview process'. But reality is that google is one of the most profitable/successful companies in the world and gets vot…

I'd just note -- both total-profit and profit-per-employee are REALLY terrible ways to predict employee happiness. Just look at some of those rankings. They're a really mixed bag of both exploitive and great employers. I mention this because I always hear inexperienced people from small towns using those metrics, in isolation, to rank their employer choices. It's such a bad approach.

I'd even argue that highly-negative profit, pre-profitability employers can be far better for tech employees.

- High profit = the company's major problems are already figured out, they already have a money-making machine, they don't desperately need you and in fact you may be a liability who could break their already profitable machine. They could fire nearly everyone and possibly continue making bags of cash for a very long time.

- Highly negative in profit = they desperately need someone to solve their problems fast, which in tech product companies is often by making some new tech. Without you, they're nearly guaranteed to end up very screwed.

Re: Google Has a Secret Interview Process and It Landed Me a Job

#25

Post by nappy-doo »

hias wrote: post #20

While this is a great idea from Google I would be concerned that the Google recruiter would also receive a list of my search history queries which do not always include programming topics at all ;-) Interesting thought though, will Google check my search history if I apply with a known Gmail adress?

No.

Editing to add: One of the quickest ways to get fired at Google is to violate someone's privacy.

Re: Google Has a Secret Interview Process and It Landed Me a Job

#26

Post by discardorama »

nxb wrote: post #16
x00gler123 wrote: post #10

So first of all this is not "a secret" at all and you don't need to be "special" to do it. And of course you don't get targeted personally but they do an automated/anonymous match on your search history. It's just one of many inbound HR/recruiting funnels and it was featured in an internal newsletter that went out to all of Eng some time ago. Second, they tell every applicant that openly discussing the interview proc…

> Second, they tell every applicant that openly discussing the interview process (esp blogging about it) will get you disqualified/blacklisted from any future positions at google. Wow, it's like they're fully aware of how poor many of their interviewing procedures have been over the years, and instead of making them more employee-friendly to compete with the rest of the industry, they'd rather just punish the employe…

> Wow, it's like they're fully aware of how poor many of their interviewing procedures have been over the years, and instead of making them more employee-friendly to compete with the rest of the industry, they'd rather just punish the employees instead.

I know, anecdote, but: I went through the Google interview process not too long ago. It was stellar. None of the other places I interviewed at could even come close to how well Google's process went. Take that FWIW.

Re: Google Has a Secret Interview Process and It Landed Me a Job

#27

Post by x00gler123 »

hias wrote: post #20

While this is a great idea from Google I would be concerned that the Google recruiter would also receive a list of my search history queries which do not always include programming topics at all ;-) Interesting thought though, will Google check my search history if I apply with a known Gmail adress?

Even the engineers that actually work on googles production systems can't access other peoples gmail/whatever accounts (that is technically _and_ policy-wise). Certainly not any random recruiter. How do you imagine this would work? Thousands of google employees that can just look into their boyfriends email?

They make it pretty clear that event the higher ups/etc will never ever look into specific private accounts and anybody attempting to do so will be fired on the spot.

Re: Google Has a Secret Interview Process and It Landed Me a Job

#29

Post by drcross »

drewg123 wrote: post #22
x00gler123 wrote: post #10

So first of all this is not "a secret" at all and you don't need to be "special" to do it. And of course you don't get targeted personally but they do an automated/anonymous match on your search history. It's just one of many inbound HR/recruiting funnels and it was featured in an internal newsletter that went out to all of Eng some time ago. Second, they tell every applicant that openly discussing the interview proc…

This guy says he was able to skip the technical phone screen, which is pretty non-standard as far as I remember. So it seems there is something a bit special about this process.

If you can't pass a technical phone screen with a drone from HR reading a list of Q/A's you're going to have bigger trouble down the line.

Re: Google Has a Secret Interview Process and It Landed Me a Job

#30

Post by [deleted] »

discardorama wrote: post #26
nxb wrote: post #16

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> Second, they tell every applicant that openly discussing the interview process (esp blogging about it) will get you disqualified/blacklisted from any future positions at google. Wow, it's like they're fully aware of how poor many of their interviewing procedures have been over the years, and instead of making them more employee-friendly to compete with the rest of the industry, they'd rather just punish the employe…

> Wow, it's like they're fully aware of how poor many of their interviewing procedures have been over the years, and instead of making them more employee-friendly to compete with the rest of the industry, they'd rather just punish the employees instead. I know, anecdote, but: I went through the Google interview process not too long ago. It was stellar. None of the other places I interviewed at could even come close t…

[deleted]
Post reply on HN