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Google: My interview experience

gilvegliach.it

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Re: Google: My interview experience

#91

Post by eropple »

cmahler7 wrote: post #65
ender7 wrote: 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

There's no such thing as a non-subjective (the word you're looking for here is "objective", I think) and fair interview. That's part of why it's so difficult. Everybody has a bad day--interviewers and interviewees. Some people can talk out a problem better than they can whiteboard, others the reverse. It is a wheelbarrow full of conflating factors and there's no magic bullet for it.

The tendency for engineering types to believe in "objective" processes for damned near anything that isn't measured with calipers is one of the bigger weaknesses in this field.

Re: Google: My interview experience

#93

Post by eropple »

drewg123 wrote: post #35

Xoogler here: If you want to work for Google, my advice is to try again when you get a chance. IMHO, getting an offer is about 50% the luck of the draw as to what questions you get, and what interviewer you get. If you were close this time, you might get an offer next time. If it makes you feel any better, people who I knew were smarter and better coders than me got declined, yet somehow I got hired. BTW, I thought s…

There's definitely a lot of randomness in any Big Tech Company interview process; I don't think Google is particular in that regard. I'm at roughly 50/50 in offers/rejections from companies in that tier (the Googles, Amazons, Facebooks, Twitters, etc.) and I don't feel like my performance varied very much between interviews.

Re: Google: My interview experience

#94

Post by CommieBobDole »

Artlav wrote: post #85

> In this model, the sourcer discovers a talent > The talent is then picked up by a recruiter Am i the only one who trips over such terminology of calling a hired worker "talent" and finds that it feels like it's manipulative, PC or doublespeak? What meaning does the word "talent" have in casual English?

It's jargon from show business (movies, music, TV, stage, etc)- the "talent" is generally the performers or maybe just the star.

I don't think it's insulting, but it may be manipulative; it implies that the potential hire is a star performer and/or brings something unique to the role.

Re: Google: My interview experience

#95

Post by hocuspocus »

Terr_ wrote: post #32
bmpafa wrote: post #8

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I had the same experience with Amazon--dinged with no feedback. Normally I'm a sucker for irony, but when they sent me an auto email a few weeks later asking _me_ for feedback (ie, a survey on the hiring process), I didn't find it immediately funny.

Bonus annoyance: After rejection, get 15 contacts from Amazon recruiters in the next 5 months. Those made me wonder if it wasn't for the best.

All from uncoordinated business divisions! And I've heard it also happens when you got an offer (while waiting for your visa/relocation).

I'm not hating on Amazon but their recruiting process is by far the sloppiest of all big tech companies.

Re: Google: My interview experience

#96

Post by mining »

gil_vegliach wrote: post #53
tyingq wrote: post #50

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I wonder if google had to reinterview their existing employees, in a blind study... How many rounds of interviews before they eliminated most of their staff?

Once upon a time, a hiring committee was presented some feedbacks and had to come to a yes/no decision for some candidates. All them were rejected. It turned out that the feedbacks were of the hiring committee's members, from when they got hired.

This is good if you assume that there's a desire to improve the quality bar over time.

Re: Google: My interview experience

#97

Post by dsacco »

ThrowawayR2 wrote: post #67
kstenerud wrote: post #36

Better than my interview experience. Sailed through the phone interview, went in person for the day long interview. Most were no problem except for one that took longer than it should have. And then... Nothing. Radio silence. No emails. No answered emails. I had ceased to exist. After that colossal waste of time, I decided to only work remote.

> Nothing. Radio silence. No emails. No answered emails. I had ceased to exist. Actually, that seems to be the standard behavior for rejected candidates these days, at least in my personal experience. (I've seen some references calling it the "California no", suggesting that the practice is widespread.) It's really kind of annoying.

> the "California no"

Never heard that before. That's going to be my new go-to phrase for this though.

Re: Google: My interview experience

#98

Post by shshhdhs »

codnee wrote: post #84
shshhdhs wrote: post #83

Earlier quoted context omitted.

"If we didn't get lucky enough to hire you, someone else will quite soon." The OP did get hired -- he mentioned that in his first paragraph.

"The OP did get hired -- he mentioned that in his first paragraph." The OP was hired by Amazon, "we" refers to Google in this case.

I was referring to the"someone else" not the "we".

Re: Google: My interview experience

#99

Post by Operyl »

ryandrake wrote: post #69
akinalci wrote: post #22

Earlier quoted context omitted.

"Just try again in a year" is a good option when you're young. But it gets less attractive as you get older, especially if it means abandoning an interesting project or senior role you accepted after "Company X" rejected you. There are too many good opportunities out there to get hung up on any one company.

I've lost track of the number of times I've gone through the interview wringer at Google. It sounds like a great place to work, which is unanimously confirmed by a number of people I know who work there, but I'm no longer going to go out of my way looking for the chance. Prepping and going through the process is like a second full-time job. And so unnecessary. Think about it--it's Google. They should have enough data…

I could only imagine the legal shit show that'd occur if they tried to do that, however amusing and novel the idea may be.

Re: Google: My interview experience

#100

Post by steelframe »

ryandrake wrote: post #72
employee8000 wrote: post #27

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…

I have a very hard time with accents. I've done a couple of phone interviews where I hardly understood a single thing the candidate said. In those cases I usually write my question verbatim in the shared document and focus on the code the candidate produces. It has probably hurt the chances of at least one or two interviewees.
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