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How to get a job at Google, interview questions & process

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Re: How to get a job at Google, interview questions & process

#61

Post by Psyonic »

bkhl wrote: post #36

Personally, I think Google's recruiting process can become very long and tedious. I interviewed with Google 4 months before my graduation and went through 6 different interviews (all technical) for two different positions. The HR person told me that she would like to schedule another hour for interviews and took my availability for next 2-3 weeks. I got no response back. I contacted the HR person again, and she told…

My experience was much smoother. A phone interview, a day of in-person interviews (5), and then the decision. The whole process took a month or so, but I wouldn't say I was strung along.

Re: How to get a job at Google, interview questions & process

#62

Post by brown9-2 »

code_duck wrote: post #60
ddodge wrote: post #11

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Exactly. The process is designed to reduce false positives. The downside is there will be some false negatives. It is not 100% accurate and it can take months to get through the process, but if we do it right we will be spending years together. So, it is worth the investment in time. Don

False negatives means you are wasting a talented person's time (on both sides) because your interview process sucks. From the stories I've heard, Google needs to work on reducing that.

How do you reduce false negatives without increasing the rate of false positives? Do you have any suggestions on how they can do this? The balance of standards of an interviewing process is a really tough problem. Surely the solution you'd suggest for them is more than just "be perfect"?

Re: How to get a job at Google, interview questions & process

#63

Post by megrimlock »

BrandonM wrote: post #51
harryh wrote: post #19

Earlier quoted context omitted.

False positives are way worse for most companies than false negatives. Interviews processes are generally designed around this principle.

I see lots of assertions to this effect. Is it really true? One point that no one seems to consider is that frustrating interview processes are a big contributor to smaller applicant pools; that is, a would-be good employee has applied a couple places, been filtered out by false negatives, and is thus disincentivized from even continuing to look for a better programming job. Personally, I don't like my current job bu…

> Why is it so unreasonable to bring people in on an intern-like trial basis?

We do that, in addition to an interview process biased towards false negatives. We still find it expensive to make hiring mistakes, enough that we are still circumspect about candidates.

Not only does it take a lot to build up someone new, it's emotionally costly to tell them at the end of the evaluation period that they didn't make the grade -- and still give them full support and a real chance the whole way, in case they can turn it around. It does happen; sometimes it just takes time for ambient culture values and priorities to sink in before people "get" what's important to succeed.

It's much harder to do this trial period with option to buy, than for interns who are going back to school, where the expectations and time frame are clear. It also seems that the most capable candidates aren't as interested in being hired on a trial basis, since they have other options willing to commit more fully to them.

These are a few reasons it doesn't work as well as you might hope.

(* note, not talking about google here)

Re: How to get a job at Google, interview questions & process

#64

Post by brown9-2 »

sabat wrote: post #25
ddodge wrote: post #11

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Exactly. The process is designed to reduce false positives. The downside is there will be some false negatives. It is not 100% accurate and it can take months to get through the process, but if we do it right we will be spending years together. So, it is worth the investment in time. Don

Don, IMHO, you're using the wrong techniques. Tests of random knowledge and focussing strictly on quick answers to logic problems will get you lucky left-brainers -- they're the ones who happened to know what command options are available for sed and awk, and are good linear thinkers. Google should be doing better than that -- much better.

I've had two rounds of interviews at Google and I would not characterize a single one of the individual interviews I experienced as requiring "random knowledge" or "quick answers to logic problems".

I think there is a real danger here of extrapolating the experiences of one or a few people to a statement on hundreds or thousands of interviews/interviewers. At the rate Google is interviewing candidates it should be expected that some interviewers are not good interviewers.

After doing a lot of research on the subject (to prepare for my own experience) I can say with some certainty that based on reports from people that actually went through the experience, interviewers asking for brainteasers or "random knowledge" are in the clear minority.

(At least for software engineering interviewing. The questions for product managers seem to be a whole other beast.)

Re: How to get a job at Google, interview questions & process

#65

Post by code_duck »

brown9-2 wrote: post #62
code_duck wrote: post #60

Earlier quoted context omitted.

False negatives means you are wasting a talented person's time (on both sides) because your interview process sucks. From the stories I've heard, Google needs to work on reducing that.

How do you reduce false negatives without increasing the rate of false positives? Do you have any suggestions on how they can do this? The balance of standards of an interviewing process is a really tough problem. Surely the solution you'd suggest for them is more than just "be perfect"?

I'm not an expert making the Google Bucks. If the people they hire are so triple-verified awesome, they should be able to figure this out.

Re: How to get a job at Google, interview questions & process

#66

Post by arghnoname »

harryh wrote: post #19
bnoordhuis wrote: post #8

I interviewed with Google for a SRE position earlier this year and their screening process sure is tedious: Lots of grilling on obscure UNIX trivia and data structures/algorithms but nothing on the broader picture, like how to write good, maintainable software. I like nerding about graph traversal algos as much as the next guy, but not for 90 minutes on the phone after a long day of work. I'm sure the screening proce…

False positives are way worse for most companies than false negatives. Interviews processes are generally designed around this principle.

This is asserted as a truism, and perhaps in Google's case it is, but if the difficulty in the hiring process dissuades enough people who have other options from applying I can see it hurting the job pool.

If you were to get 100 applicants, and you were only interested in hiring the top 5% (5 people), and 3 of the good people decided to accept decent jobs they could get without giving blood samples and their first born, and 20 of the less capable people decided not to bother (Incompetents don't know they are in competent and have less choices), then now you have 2 good people out of 77.

Now what if one of those two is a false negative?

Google is attractive enough that good people go through all the trouble anyway, but is this always true? Since we are able to fire people easily in this country, is a bad hire really so ruinous?

I don't actually know the answer to the question, but I am skeptical of your statement. Maybe the assumptions in my numbers are wrong (they almost certainly are), but what are the real numbers?

Re: How to get a job at Google, interview questions & process

#67

Post by zppx »

KaeseEs wrote: post #49
bnoordhuis wrote: post #8

I interviewed with Google for a SRE position earlier this year and their screening process sure is tedious: Lots of grilling on obscure UNIX trivia and data structures/algorithms but nothing on the broader picture, like how to write good, maintainable software. I like nerding about graph traversal algos as much as the next guy, but not for 90 minutes on the phone after a long day of work. I'm sure the screening proce…

Perhaps the position they were interviewing you for actually involved writing efficient software, and thus required thorough knowledge of the fundamentals of computer science (data structures and algorithms &c) and systems programming?

SRE (Site Reliability Engineers) according to Tom Limoncelli (a Google's SRE) is a kind of sysadmin, I doubt that this would ever be the case.

Re: How to get a job at Google, interview questions & process

#68

Post by btilly »

wrs wrote: post #48
petercooper wrote: post #22

This article focuses on the process for a vanilla (by Google standards) candidates but does Google place any value on or change the rules based on the stature of an applicant it hasn't headhunted? Let's say Nat Friedman or Alan Cox decides he wants to work at Google. He's not going to be fielding "balls on a bus" type questions, right? Or is he?

Well, if they made Ken Thompson do a C programming test before letting him check in... ( http://www.theregister.co.uk/2010/04/21/ken_thompson_take_ou... )

Um, that is readability. Everyone goes through it. Basically, "Do you know the Google style guide, and can you be trusted to know when code does or does not follow it?"

In a large code base it is important to have a consistent style. There are a million reasonable style choices. And knowing a tremendous amount about the C programming language tells us squat about whether you know what style choices Google has settled on.

I don't think Google's policy on this is unreasonable. (Disclaimer. I work at Google.)

Re: How to get a job at Google, interview questions & process

#69

Post by btilly »

BrandonM wrote: post #51
harryh wrote: post #19

Earlier quoted context omitted.

False positives are way worse for most companies than false negatives. Interviews processes are generally designed around this principle.

I see lots of assertions to this effect. Is it really true? One point that no one seems to consider is that frustrating interview processes are a big contributor to smaller applicant pools; that is, a would-be good employee has applied a couple places, been filtered out by false negatives, and is thus disincentivized from even continuing to look for a better programming job. Personally, I don't like my current job bu…

It is really true. As you would know if you'd been on a team that needed to fire the wrong hire.

As for why not to try people before you hire them, a lot of experienced people already have jobs. They aren't going to want to accept a "maybe yes, maybe no" position without a really strong incentive.

That said, a number of companies do have policies of liking to hire contractors, then make some of them permanent. This kind of works. But the best contractors they'll find generally are contractors from choice, and so aren't likely to want to make the transition.

Re: How to get a job at Google, interview questions & process

#70

Post by nandemo »

BrandonM wrote: post #51
harryh wrote: post #19

Earlier quoted context omitted.

False positives are way worse for most companies than false negatives. Interviews processes are generally designed around this principle.

I see lots of assertions to this effect. Is it really true? One point that no one seems to consider is that frustrating interview processes are a big contributor to smaller applicant pools; that is, a would-be good employee has applied a couple places, been filtered out by false negatives, and is thus disincentivized from even continuing to look for a better programming job. Personally, I don't like my current job bu…

Are those interviews so frustrating that you are willing to take 2 low-paying jobs instead?
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