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My Google Interview Experience

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Re: My Google Interview Experience

#71

Post by RuggeroAltair »

jemfinch wrote: post #59
RuggeroAltair wrote: post #35

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I don't think this is true at all. I'm not saying that they will never hire an extra person in case they find two truly exceptional people (exceptional as in they feel like they really are missing out sending one home, not just that they are good programmers), but I'm sure that most of the times the hiring mechanism is quite compartmented. If you interview with a specific group/organization, they need some people to…

"I'm sure that most of the times the hiring mechanism is quite compartmented...It's not like the people who interview you are interviewing you for the entire Google." Absolutely, utterly incorrect. This has all been covered publicly by Peter Norvig[0]. Quoth he, "Another hiring strategy we use is no hiring manager. Whenever you give project managers responsibility for hiring for their own projects they'll take the be…

This is from 2006, 6 years ago. If you work at Google maybe you can say more about your experience.

But what I know for sure it's not like that necessarily anymore, since I talked to many people about their interviews at google and I know some googlers as well that confirmed what I said (which is the reason I wrote it). Even when I talked to google myself, it was for an individual group, not the entire company (in my case, unlike my friends, it wasn't a software engineer position, though).

Also, and I can tell you this with 1000% certainty, even though they like to say sometimes the opposite, the people I know told me that Google instead has hired more commonly than you can think people that are sub-standard, it's not the normal usual thing, but it has indeed happened.

Also, the recruiters I met, had no clue about what a person with a certain specific Resume could have done in the company. They told me that they often decide whether or not to commit about trying to get a person interviewed based on if they believe they will get hired for a specific position (since that is how they get paid), not necessarily based on who they think is a good general candidate.

Now, I'm not saying that this is a rule, but even if you look at the positions posted now on the company website, they are so detailed and specific that it would make no sense to interview a person at the company level.

It can happen at the new grad level, but I doubt it happens on a common basis. I could be wrong, but I just speak by what I heard first hand.

Of course if with project you mean a specific individual project than I agree, but the company now it's rather big, there is many organizations and stuff that probably don't even know what the others do (still comments from Googlers). This is quite normal since Google can be compared to a campus, in any University nowadays you can be in the same department and do research in a field that is completely unknown to the person sitting next to you in the office since they might work on a different field and it takes years to actually start understanding something about it.

Re: My Google Interview Experience

#72

Post by codeonfire »

It's amazing people still want to work at Google. You don't have to be an employee at a certain place to do amazing things or good work. And wouldn't you rather work in an inclusive, supportive environment? Yeah, they pay a lot and have slippy slides and colorful bikes. However, If you do good work the money will come to you and the google types will stay at google.

Re: My Google Interview Experience

#73

Post by codeonfire »

alecthomas wrote: post #57
herval wrote: post #52

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Since the interview process doesn't include any sort of personal question or assessments other than one's ability to memorize algorithms and such, How do you measure "culture fit"?

Culture fit is judged by the candidates personality. Some of the signs of bad culture fit are arrogance, lack of curiosity, or a combative attitude. These kinds of traits usually becomes apparent during general conversation in the interview. (I am an ex-Googler)

From most interview accounts, arrogance and combativeness are a very large part of google's culture.

Re: My Google Interview Experience

#74

Post by pagekalisedown »

codeonfire wrote: post #72

It's amazing people still want to work at Google. You don't have to be an employee at a certain place to do amazing things or good work. And wouldn't you rather work in an inclusive, supportive environment? Yeah, they pay a lot and have slippy slides and colorful bikes. However, If you do good work the money will come to you and the google types will stay at google.

There's so many exciting start-ups out there right now, why would you chose to go to Google?

Re: My Google Interview Experience

#75

Post by Drbble »

eta_carinae wrote: post #31
lutorm wrote: post #23

Earlier quoted context omitted.

As far as releasing interview scores goes, that isn't going to happen for good reason. This is true, but it sure would be helpful if they could give qualitative feedback like "the impression was that you were strong in a and b, but weak in x and y." That doesn't seem like too much to ask. (In fact, if he had good rapport with the recruiter I'm surprised that they didn't give that much information.)

> This is true, but it sure would be helpful if they could give qualitative feedback like "the impression was that you were strong in a and b, but weak in x and y." That doesn't seem like too much to ask Sadly, even this kind of feedback exposes the company on a legal front. There is a lot of precedent coming from rejected candidates who ended up suing the company because of this kind of feedback. The only sane thing…

My company's was sued by a candidate because we offered him coffee and he glommed onto that as religious discrimination. There is no legal exposure from giving feedback. Some people will sue if they want, and some people will discriminate (and deserve to be sued).

Google reads your private email to "improve the product for you", why don't they want you reading their interview feedback so you can give them a better experience?

Re: My Google Interview Experience

#76

Post by Drbble »

jonnyba wrote: post #66
lutorm wrote: post #37

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Given how things work in the US, I guess that might be true. But on what grounds does someone get sued for saying "we don't think you know enough about template metaprogramming"? (that's less frivolous than getting sued for saying "we don't have a position for you at the moment", that is, since you don't need a reason to sue.)

A week later, the candidate discovers that the company instead hired someone else that happens to knows absolutely nothing about template metaprogramming. Except that person is whiter / younger / less married than said candidate.

What does metaprogramming have to do with that complaint though? It is trivial to generate lawsuit without regard to feedback. Watch:

Does Google have family leave? --6 weeks, paid.

Did I get the job? --No

Because I plan to have kids??? See you in court!

Re: My Google Interview Experience

#77

Post by Drbble »

codeonfire wrote: post #73
alecthomas wrote: post #57

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Culture fit is judged by the candidates personality. Some of the signs of bad culture fit are arrogance, lack of curiosity, or a combative attitude. These kinds of traits usually becomes apparent during general conversation in the interview. (I am an ex-Googler)

From most interview accounts, arrogance and combativeness are a very large part of google's culture.

I haven't seen Google worse than similar companies on that front. Interviewing is stressful for everyone. Remember that Google hires engineers and makes them interview. It doesn't hire people for interviewing talent. (But they probably should choose an train interviewers more carefully, and so should the rest is of the industry. )

Re: My Google Interview Experience

#78

Post by Drbble »

codeonfire wrote: post #72

It's amazing people still want to work at Google. You don't have to be an employee at a certain place to do amazing things or good work. And wouldn't you rather work in an inclusive, supportive environment? Yeah, they pay a lot and have slippy slides and colorful bikes. However, If you do good work the money will come to you and the google types will stay at google.

Google is an inclusive, supportive environment, and though. The vast majority of hires (but perhaps not no-hires, of which there are more voices) say Google is the best job they ever had.

Google employees and management aren't perfect, but they aren't dumb. They know that Google is competitive with startups, and wins in many cases.

Re: My Google Interview Experience

#79

Post by Drbble »

lallysingh wrote: post #61
killedbydeath wrote: post #18

Not sure if this helps, but as an interviewer I found "masters in computer science from a within top 50 state university in US" to be very weak signal of programming skills. Many candidates from schools which I would consider to be top 20 (like USC) even could not even get past a simple programming question a la "fizzbuzz" test. I would probably trust 5-10 US schools, but it seems for many American universities Maste…

2 years isn't enough time to learn how to program. Then again, I'm not really sure you can reliably make programmers with a substantial degree of success. In my undergrad CS program, we had 300 freshman at the start, and I graduated with 29 others at the end. For people with a CS undergrad, an MS program is quite good. They shore up on depth and theory that they didn't get while working on their programming chops in…

A terminal masters degree by itself is a signal for the ability to write a pair of $20K checks. The requirements for a masters are far less rigorous than the requirements for a bachelors at the same institution.

Re: My Google Interview Experience

#80

Post by nosequel »

My primary question after reading all the comments is; have you ever gotten feedback on an interview? I've worked a lot of jobs and been on a ton of interviews and I have never gotten feedback, so I don't even slightly expect it. My biggest expectation is the company giving me a "yes" or "no" in a reasonable time frame.

My friend just interviewed at Google and had a much different experience. He had one call and one onsite and got an offer after that. He isn't from a top school, more middle-of-the-road, but he is smart as hell.

This brings me to a point: It really sucks to say this, but sometimes we aren't as smart as we think we are and sometimes we aren't good enough for a job. Coming out of an interview saying that you did well, but didn't get the offer leaves yourself an excuse that maybe you were just unlucky or that someone just didn't like you for some weird reason, whatever it is. In reality, you probably didn't do well in the interview compared to other candidates and you aren't good enough for the job (on THAT day). It doesn't mean you don't try again, but giving yourself and excuse is an excape that really doesn't help you improve. I've been rejected on an interview and I learned more from that experience than any acceptance I've gotten.

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