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

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

#101

Post by wpietri »

unoti wrote: post #89
stephancoral wrote: post #87

Earlier quoted context omitted.

What is absolutely baffling to me is that companies assign coding tests as a pre-qualifier for the usual whiteboard interview despite the coding test being a far more adequate measure of the abilities of an engineer. I've had interviewers tell me that my coding samples went above and beyond what they usually receive (exhaustive docstrings, tests that make sense) and yet rather than discuss, say, how my code worked or…

> What is absolutely baffling to me is that companies assign coding tests as a pre-qualifier for the usual whiteboard interview despite the coding test being a far more adequate measure of the abilities of an engineer. A coding test doesn't tell you how well a candidate can collaborate. Can you toss them an idea, and have them successfully expand it and put it to use? Can you give them a couple of half ideas, and the…

> A coding test doesn't tell you how well a candidate can collaborate.

My solution for this is a pair programming interview:

http://www.quora.com/What-are-the-best-programming-interview...

Like a whiteboard I'm there for everything that happens and can judge collaborative ability. And like a coding test, I'm seeing what people really do.

I may also do some whiteboard work, as being able to talk over an idea is also part of the job. But that's not in the "please do something arbitrary that you will never have to do in real life" vein. I try to make the whiteboard work as much like real work as possible.

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

#102

Post by yongjik »

dframe wrote: post #46

I have a serious question : If google uses a person's search results internally to determine that they are a person of interest for hiring, whose to say they aren't using a similar process to strip Intellectual property from searches as it relates to projects they are working on? i.e : They are internally working on self driving cars and, in particular, are looking for ways to integrate algorithm 'X' in their solutio…

You vastly overestimate the amount of human intelligence that can be gathered from looking at search queries.

Working for search quality, two things I quickly learned from watching a lot of random sample queries are:

(1) People like porn.

(2) People can't spell.

In other words, if you are working for algorithm "X", and if you gather one hundred random queries mentioning X, a lot of them will be along the lines of: "python library X", "CLR ch 12 X solution", "knuth X 1985", "given figure 12 what is the amortized time complexity of X" (or some other exact copy-paste of a homework problem).

People don't type "Amortized time complexity of X can be improved when f and g are monotonically increasing" into a search box.

Besides, exactly who's going to use the result? Imagine you meet a Googler who has PhD in Algorithm X, working for a super secret project, and tell them "You know, I found random guys on the internet searching for X and I thought their disjointed query terms might teach you a thing or two about how to use Algorithm X."

(Not to mention that almost everyone will view it as a gross breach of ethics.)

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

#103

Post by brianwawok »

dijit wrote: post #85
brianwawok wrote: post #50

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Was it the same interviewer? Maybe there are 10 interviewers going off the same script. Interviewer 1 called OP and asked questions. Then it was lunch time and he forgot to put result in the CMS. So the same guy popped up a week later to Interviewer 2. He was reading off the same script, so of course his questions are the same. Not his fault, or Google's per say - Interviewer 1 happened to forget a step. (Which is sa…

it was the same guy, we'd spoken before on Linkedin.

Hah then shame on him ;)

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

#104

Post by tzs »

I'm pretty sure my Google search history would give a completely misleading idea of my technical abilities. Anyone else here feel the same? (I mean for your own abilities, not mine).

At work, I'm using Perl 95+% of the time, with infrequent spurts of PHP and JavaScript. Occasionally some Python might be thrown in, and very rarely some Java.

Because I'm only in those languages infrequently I sometimes forget some basic syntax, or mix it up with syntax from one of the other languages from that list. I end up Googling newbie things like "write array literal in php" or "concatenate strings in javascript".

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

#105

Post by Terr_ »

nappy-doo wrote: post #25
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.

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

I expect it's more about violating a corporate-policy than violating customer-privacy.

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

#106

Post by tptacek »

tzs wrote: post #104

I'm pretty sure my Google search history would give a completely misleading idea of my technical abilities. Anyone else here feel the same? (I mean for your own abilities, not mine). At work, I'm using Perl 95+% of the time, with infrequent spurts of PHP and JavaScript. Occasionally some Python might be thrown in, and very rarely some Java. Because I'm only in those languages infrequently I sometimes forget some basi…

Newbies don't search for things like "array literal", for whatever it's worth.

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

#107

Post by joesmo »

jrockway wrote: post #76
joesmo wrote: post #63

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I'd hardly call it proper. You're asked to code some stupid problems in a Google Doc (which is extremely bad at handling code), while the other person's waiting around on the other line impatiently, asking stupid questions like 'how can you make this faster?' If that's a proper interview, I'd hate to see what's improper. At the very least, they should give you quiet time to work alone. I don't expect to be working wh…

You're upset that a job interview for a programming job requires you to program?

Without proper tools in an environment I can't think in with someone literally breathing down my neck (or on the other side of the phone line). Yeah, I am upset because I can't think in those conditions and neither can most people.

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

#108

Post by patio11 »

dframe wrote: post #46

I have a serious question : If google uses a person's search results internally to determine that they are a person of interest for hiring, whose to say they aren't using a similar process to strip Intellectual property from searches as it relates to projects they are working on? i.e : They are internally working on self driving cars and, in particular, are looking for ways to integrate algorithm 'X' in their solutio…

Pretend multiplication is unknown to Google then write out the series of search queries which teaches Google multiplication. If you cannot complete this exercise sensibly, then you're worried about nothing. Spoiler alert: you're worried about nothing.

If one really wanted to worry about Google using search queries against the interest of searchers, one would probably ask "Do they loop search queries into either search quality against the interest of particular webmasters, or do they loop them into advertising pricing against the interest of particular advertisers?" The answer to both of which is "Yes."

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

#109

Post by jrockway »

joesmo wrote: post #107
jrockway wrote: post #76

Earlier quoted context omitted.

You're upset that a job interview for a programming job requires you to program?

Without proper tools in an environment I can't think in with someone literally breathing down my neck (or on the other side of the phone line). Yeah, I am upset because I can't think in those conditions and neither can most people.

The pressure is a little higher than real life, but the problem is easier. The phone interview questions are things like "write atoi()", not "write a database system to handle 4000 transactions per second per entity group with globally-consistent reads across three continents", which is the kind of work you might be interviewing for.

I think success at a phone interview question is a good positive signal. That's all you can get in interviews, signals.

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

#110

Post by dfc »

dijit wrote: post #34
discardorama wrote: post #26

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> 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…

My experience was not so stellar. Interviewer tagged me and I thought I'd go along with it for the fun. I'm a systems engineer not a developer so YMMV. First stage interviewer put me through a basic aptitude test ("what is netstat?", "what's the expected output of dig?") which was fine and I answered them all with a fair degree of correctness but the questions quickly went on to different programming languages, and w…

He "tagged" you?
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