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Google: My interview experience

gilvegliach.it

71–80 of 164 posts

Re: Google: My interview experience

#71
post #12

For those of you not familiar with what a "2.7" means on the Google hiring scale, the rough scale is: 1 - I will resign if Google hires this person. 2 - I don't think this person should be hired, but I could be convinced otherwise. 3 - I think this person should be hired, but I could be convinced otherwise. 4 - This person should definitely be hired. (interviewers can use decimal scores)

4.0 is more like: I'll give up my job to get this person hired, she (or he) is that good.

Re: Google: My interview experience

#72

At google, I was given some code that manipulated some bits and the interviewer, in inexplicably terrible English, kept asking me what the purpose of this code was for. He has a very thick Eastern European accent which was not understandable and I don't know how he was able to get into interviews. I could tell it was doing some sort of overflow detection but other than that I had no idea. I hadn't done anything with…

Thick accidents and borderline language proficiency is even worse on phone screens, where interviewers always seem to sound like they are talking through a sheet of plastic placed over the phone. I've lost count of the number of times I've had to get someone to repeat their question over and over and over on (not Google) phone screens. Once did a phone screen with an exec who I'm pretty certain was conducting it from his handsfree in an open-top convertible car (clearly heard traffic noise). I've always wondered how many opportunities I've missed out on due to poor audio quality.

Re: Google: My interview experience

#73
post #56
post #44

Earlier quoted context omitted.

This should never ever happen. How long ago was this? I work at Google. I can try to follow up for you.

If you mean communication over the process, don't worry, I got the "regretfully decline to proceed"-type phone call afterwards. What I meant is that I can't recall any feedback like "personable, but algorithms needs work" or "code too messy" or "couldn't answer domain questions" etc. Just a general "sorry, please try again later." To be fair, this was a verbal conversation from 7 months ago, so it may be there was so…

I see. I misread your comment, because there was another comment which said they never heard back from Google after their onsite.

In that case it's true, you generally don't get any feedback after you interview at big tech companies. I would recommend to do a mock interview to prepare and get honest feedback.

Re: Google: My interview experience

#74
post #5

As always, remember that even technical interviews like this one have an incredible amount of random chance built into the hiring process. This is especially true at a big company like Google (where I work and do interviews). Do they happen to have positions open right now? Did you happen to get asked questions that clicked with you? Was the hiring committee feeling grouchy that day? Did you get an especially harsh i…

You think a company like Google would be able to implement a non-subjective and fair interview. Their current process must cost them a lot of talent

> Their current process must cost them a lot of talent reply

They optimize to reduce false positives. They're completely fine with false negatives. They don't have any shortage of talented engineers willing to interview there.

That last bit is why I think it's quite silly for smaller/unknown startups to be copying Google's interview process, as seems to be the trend.

Re: Google: My interview experience

#75
post #39

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Hi, I work at Google. I am sorry for this. This should never happen. How long ago was this? I can try to follow up on your behalf.

Reading people's accounts of interviewing at Google, I would never apply, and I won't cash in on the recommendations I could get from some ex/Googlers I know. Reading the submission, look how many times the candidate has to "ping" people just to keep the ball rolling. In my mind, I'd end up working with a bunch of sycophants who are willing to do that sort of thing, the same sort of people who got a thrill out of the…

> I would never apply

I guess you'll never know what (if anything) you've missed.

> I'd end up working with a bunch of sycophants who are willing to do that sort of thing

You are implying bad intentions where none are likely to exist.

Google is a very large company, and 0.001% of candidates are bound to have suboptimal interview experience by sheer bad luck (and it's likely that you see their horror stories more than you see "I interviewed at Google, had a good experience, got hired, and now work on cool stuff with incredible coworkers" kinds of stories).

Re: Google: My interview experience

#76
post #25

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I agree with the noise of the process. Actually, the whole experience was a good one for me, maybe I didn't express it in the post? Anyway, I got a job in Amazon UK at the end, so not too bad.

"not too bad"? Understatement of the year! ;) Congratulations on the job.

Thanks :)

Re: Google: My interview experience

#79
post #39

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Hi, I work at Google. I am sorry for this. This should never happen. How long ago was this? I can try to follow up on your behalf.

Reading people's accounts of interviewing at Google, I would never apply, and I won't cash in on the recommendations I could get from some ex/Googlers I know. Reading the submission, look how many times the candidate has to "ping" people just to keep the ball rolling. In my mind, I'd end up working with a bunch of sycophants who are willing to do that sort of thing, the same sort of people who got a thrill out of the…

I had a great experience interviewing at Google and most people do. Google has millions of applicants per year, some of them are bound to have a bad experience.

Re: Google: My interview experience

#80
post #5

As always, remember that even technical interviews like this one have an incredible amount of random chance built into the hiring process. This is especially true at a big company like Google (where I work and do interviews). Do they happen to have positions open right now? Did you happen to get asked questions that clicked with you? Was the hiring committee feeling grouchy that day? Did you get an especially harsh i…

The randomness factor is a huge problem for Google and similar SV companies.

I'd be happy to take a chance on a Google interview. What I'm not going to do is take 3 or 4 days of my very limited vacation time to jump through Google's hoops, along with spending weeks of time reviewing obscure algorithms I haven't touched since college, and will probably never use again.

Honestly, I think if the H1B and other loopholes these companies use were tightened up, the interview process for engineers would quickly approach the respectful negotiations common with other professional industries (law, medicine, finance, etc).

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