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Google's interview system: it's not about solving the problem

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Re: Google's interview system: it's not about solving the problem

#51
post #40

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Why are manhole covers round, and similar brainteaser questions have been banned at Google for ~5 years at least. They're only the new normal if you're a decade behind the curve.

I joined Google at 2008, and these questions were already banned by then.

Same in 2006 when I joined. Yet the myth just never dies.

Re: Google's interview system: it's not about solving the problem

#52
post #29

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I had a google recruiter reach out a couple years back, and I asked for just some ballpark idea of salary range. No dice - they wouldn't discuss even a ballpark range until I'd flown and and given up a couple of days or my time for travel and interviews. I didn't followup.

If you are in California, the employer is now required by law to disclose salary range.

What law is this? I’ve only heard about the law that says employers are no longer allowed to ask candidates about salary history in California.

Re: Google's interview system: it's not about solving the problem

#53

For all the complaining here, Google's system actually works for Google, so i'm unsure why people expect something to change. The average interview score from a panel of interviews correlates very highly with performance at Google, interviewees report high satisfaction, etc. If those things changed, i'm sure Google would change it. But why would they change it otherwise?

i thought they said average score doesn’t correlate at all with how you do once you’re in? a lot of high performers only get in 2nd or 3rd time and barely.

I can't speak for whether that was true in the past. (If you really care i can bug people for historical data)

However, as of 2014 average interview score was very well correlated with job performance (I can't give you further exact details because they are still marked confidential and i can't find a paper or anything that has disclosed it).

Note very clearly the word average above ;) Individual interview scores are definitely not predictive of job performance.

Re: Google's interview system: it's not about solving the problem

#54
post #48

Earlier quoted context omitted.

To me OP seems to assume a competent, unbiased, and well meaning interviewer: always giving hints, knows exactly what they want, will field and answer questions comprehensively. At Google's scale with hundreds of thousands of interviews on the books, thousands of interviewers who like all human beings have good days, sick days, angry days, and depressed days, this will not always happen. What happens when its the int…

What happens is the hiring committee will disregard the interview report, and send feedback to the interviewer, saying "don't do that". (There are generally 4-6 interviewers on an interview panel, so if one interviewer does a bad job, there are other interviewers who will be providing signal to the hiring committee. A single bad interview report won't sink a candidate.) Google's interview training is pretty specific…

So self reporting by the interviewer?

Re: Google's interview system: it's not about solving the problem

#55
post #16

Why does everyone on HN seem to care so much about what Google does in interviews? We get it, no one likes weird off-topic brainteasers. Be a better engineer so you don't have to worry about having them on your resume and you'll be good.

Because, among other things, having it on your resume gets you an interview almost anywhere else.

Re: Google's interview system: it's not about solving the problem

#56

Earlier quoted context omitted.

i thought they said average score doesn’t correlate at all with how you do once you’re in? a lot of high performers only get in 2nd or 3rd time and barely.

I can't speak for whether that was true in the past. (If you really care i can bug people for historical data) However, as of 2014 average interview score was very well correlated with job performance (I can't give you further exact details because they are still marked confidential and i can't find a paper or anything that has disclosed it). Note very clearly the word average above ;) Individual interview scores are…

[deleted]

Re: Google's interview system: it's not about solving the problem

#57
post #29

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I had a google recruiter reach out a couple years back, and I asked for just some ballpark idea of salary range. No dice - they wouldn't discuss even a ballpark range until I'd flown and and given up a couple of days or my time for travel and interviews. I didn't followup.

If you are in California, the employer is now required by law to disclose salary range.

Great. So if you have ~6 years experience they will quote you a range of 150k-220k for say L4-L6 when your TC (base+bonus+rsu) might be anywhere between 200K-575K[1].

That doesn't sound like a particularly useful answer.

[1] https://www.teamblind.com/article/google-engineer---total-co...

Re: Google's interview system: it's not about solving the problem

#58
Yeah right - unless it's changed it was _only_ about solving the problem. Had an interview with them ~7 years ago, unfriendly, hard to understand interviewer asking about weighing boxes of pennies in minimum number of steps. I got it to 2, interviewer said "no, you can do it in 1" then refused to move forward. I had 10 years experience at that time and that was never discussed and also would not answer my questions about working at Google. Recruiter afterward ignored my follow up email.

So yeah, buzz off..

Re: Google's interview system: it's not about solving the problem

#59
I've interviewed three times in the last five or so years there, and I don't get the feeling the depth is as claimed in the article. Perhaps, it's also the interviewers not implementing it as intended.

If these points were indeed important, I'd expect feedback addressing them. All feedback I received was about doing well or not well on certain questions. No meta whatsoever.

I didn't make it for good reasons, but I feel there is a big chance part. I had one onsite interviewer in the first round who was difficult to deal with. He presented a problem I've never seen in my life, nothing close. He interrupted and gave hints in directions that didn't make sense to me, and didn't give me 5 minutes to think without him talking. The second attempt was fair. In the third, the first phone screen's interviewer was constantly typing on his keyboard while I talked, and it was so loud. No real conversation happening. He was just staring in his screen clacking away. I addressed it, but he kept typing loudly while I was talking. So annoying.

On the other hand, the recruiters were always very good.

At another company recruiting was a mess, and only knowing someone inside helped dealing with that, but the interviews were all great.

Re: Google's interview system: it's not about solving the problem

#60
Do people realize that there is no effective solution to this problem of hazing like interviews?

There are probably millions of High IQ people applying and vying to work at Google. Tomorrow Google could decide to add juggling competitions in interviews in addition to algorithm jargon and while it would lead to a lot more bitching from interviewers, it wouldn't matter to Google as they would still get their fill of qualified high IQ applicants.

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