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Poll: Have you ever applied to work at Google?

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Re: Poll: Have you ever applied to work at Google?

#91

Post by rhizome »

elliottcarlson wrote: post #46
byoung2 wrote: post #39

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I don't come from a CS background, am self taught but have over 12 years of professional experience behind me - I know what I am doing but can't rant of algorithms off the top of my head. During an interview when I couldn't answer a question about CS theory I drew on something I learned as an English major: the analogy. I said: "Imagine that you aren't a tech company hiring a developer. You are a band hiring a lead g…

That's a great analogy - but when the actual test relies on CS theory it becomes a problem - otherwise I haven't had any issues with jobs in the past (not that I haven't been rejected before, I just haven't had any issues landing a job in a reasonable amount of time).

You're describing the difference between theory and practice. It's one thing to ask an interviewee to write a bubble sort on the spot, quite another to explore the purpose of implementing a bubble sort in a given scenario. In other words, why would a test rely on CS theory rather than an ability to derive a solution regardless of orthodoxy?

Re: Poll: Have you ever applied to work at Google?

#92

Post by guyzero »

buro9 wrote: post #88
gaganbiyani wrote: post #53

I applied to Google and got rejected. Its a pretty interesting story so I thought I'd share: I applied through the traditional on-campus recruiting at UC Berkeley. Got past the first round of interviews on Berkeley's campus and then was taken to the Mountain View campus for 4 interviews and a bunch of events. That night, I got a call saying that the interviewers really liked me and recommended that I be hired. At mos…

Google's apparent academic focus is what puts me off. That and the doubt about whether interesting work is done outside of their main campus. I'm self-taught and have been programming and making software from scratch for 15 years and have been pretty successful at it. Recently I did an MSc in CompSci in my spare time and was pleased with a merit (natch, only scored 69% and missed the distinction). This was the first…

Interesting work is done outside of main campus, absolutely, 100%. Not every office works on every product, but every office has some pretty major stuff going on.

Re: Poll: Have you ever applied to work at Google?

#93

Post by rhizome »

ndl wrote: post #74
dadkins wrote: post #34

Earlier quoted context omitted.

"The reason for failing to be hired is invaluable feedback on your shortcomings, which are much harder to self-assess." Good luck trying to get any useful feedback from a Google or Facebook rejection. Often it's just random.

I applied for internships at both companies. Google actually mentioned in their rejection email that I should feel free to ask questions - so I did. No answer. With Facebook, I at least had a phone interview and could run post-mortem on what I might've messed up there. Google appeared to just toss my resume down a black hole. I later decided that really, I didn't want to be a programmer, I wanted to found a startup.…

I applied for internships at both companies. Google actually mentioned in their rejection email that I should feel free to ask questions - so I did. No answer.

I would love to hear about this being brought up by someone else in the interview itself. "What are some reasons Google would fail to answer questions that they themselves asked for?" In fact, I would make this one of the first questions asked. "I don't want to waste anybody's time, so..." I'm sure it would disarm any interviewer who entered the room readied with a "GOOG IS GOD" attitude.

Re: Poll: Have you ever applied to work at Google?

#94

Post by rhizome »

gmurphy wrote: post #8
byoung2 wrote: post #2

I used to go to a bar in Santa Monica (Warszawa) where the Google folks go every Friday for happy hour. The recruiters kept trying to get me to apply, but I never did. I get the impression that they want people with Engineering/CS backgrounds and here I am a programmer with an English degree. I bet I'd have a better chance of building a startup and selling it to Google so that I could work there than going through th…

I work at Google and I am an engineering-degree dropout who was referred by a music-degree dropout; we both now report to a VP who was a mathematics-degree dropout. That's not to say it won't be harder to get past resume screens and such, and a referral does help in these cases. Thetrumanshow is right that Google suffers when people like you don't apply.

Do you ever wonder if the dropout employees are being grouped together on purpose?

Re: Poll: Have you ever applied to work at Google?

#95

Post by GrooveStomp »

gjm11 wrote: post #6

I can't accurately use any of the options. I got an email from Google suggesting that I apply -- I think they found my name on a mailing list somewhere; at the time I had a job I didn't want to leave, but later on I got in touch, only to decide after getting through the initial phone screen that I didn't actually want to work there. (It would have meant either moving house or a lengthy commute; I'd just moved house a…

I'm in that boat. I had a phone interview with a recruiter (not an interview-interview) and then decided not to apply. I've taken the last few months to really brush up on some CS theory, but I'm finding that I don't really want to do that stuff all the time either.

I'm looking at starting up a small business, then if that fails (which it damn well won't), I can always look at working for Google (or whatever the next Google is) at that time.

Re: Poll: Have you ever applied to work at Google?

#96

Post by GrooveStomp »

netmau5 wrote: post #60

I'd loved to apply and to work there, but somehow I just don't feel "special" enough. I know their languages, I know their infrastructure (well, from GAE xp), I code at work and at home, I meet most of what they say they want in an applicant. There's just something about their persona that makes me think that there is too little of a chance to be picked, too little to even be worth the opportunity cost. It's irration…

You're not alone. In all the circles I know (minus one pal who's worked at Yahoo and now at Facebook - who actually rejected Google) applying to Google is a big deal, and most people are afraid to do it because it's such a big deal. I have one friend who got flown down to one of their California locations but didn't get hired. She said the process wasn't anything special, except for being asked the complexity of doing long division.

Re: Poll: Have you ever applied to work at Google?

#99

Post by bane »

buro9 wrote: post #88
gaganbiyani wrote: post #53

I applied to Google and got rejected. Its a pretty interesting story so I thought I'd share: I applied through the traditional on-campus recruiting at UC Berkeley. Got past the first round of interviews on Berkeley's campus and then was taken to the Mountain View campus for 4 interviews and a bunch of events. That night, I got a call saying that the interviewers really liked me and recommended that I be hired. At mos…

Google's apparent academic focus is what puts me off. That and the doubt about whether interesting work is done outside of their main campus. I'm self-taught and have been programming and making software from scratch for 15 years and have been pretty successful at it. Recently I did an MSc in CompSci in my spare time and was pleased with a merit (natch, only scored 69% and missed the distinction). This was the first…

"Google's apparent academic focus is what puts me off. That and the doubt about whether interesting work is done outside of their main campus. I'm self-taught and have been programming and making software from scratch for 15 years and have been pretty successful at it."

The academic focus puts lots of people off. I know absolutely incredible engineers with very good educations who wouldn't make it through the hiring process because they haven't been in a classroom in 20 years...ergo, their knowledge of easy-to-lookup trivia required to pass the gatekeepers isn't up to snuff.

I know one guy who walked out of a Google interview after they started in with the trivia stuff, his response was "are you kidding me with this?" Picked up his stuff and left. He felt it was extremely disrespectful and wouldn't have been a good selector for a successful employee anyway.

Re: Poll: Have you ever applied to work at Google?

#100

Post by eneveu »

I haven't yet applied, but might apply once I feel I'm good enough, if I haven't launched a startup by the time.

I went to one of the top French engineering schools, which, like most of these schools, is "generalist" (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Grandes_%C3%A9coles). This means I got to learn a lot about mechanic, electronic, chemistry, thermodynamic, entrepreneurship (and I am glad I did), but only started to learn about computer engineering during my last year (with a CS specialization). I'm a passionate web developer since almost 3 years, but I never got around to really dig into algorithms / data structures / OS internals... Hell, I've never written a line of C!

I plan to teach myself by reading books / watching the MIT online lectures, but keep postponing it, because it doesn't seem that useful to me in my day to day web programming job, where knowing the basics is enough for the (relatively) small datasets I have to manipulate. Plus, Java abstracts away the OS internals and most of the data structures: while I don't know how to write a linked list / tree / hash map, I know when it is appropriate to use each one of them.

Instead, I find myself focusing on best practices for my current language (Java), learning new languages (Scala, Ruby, Clojure), web programming, cryptography, user experience, and learning more about Linux tricks / sysadmin tasks. I think these skills are a lot more useful in today's programming environment, but my lack in more "classical" computer engineering skills has stopped me from applying to Google.

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