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A Wretched Google Interview Experience

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Re: A Wretched Google Interview Experience

#101

Post by throwaway86 »

nitid_name wrote: post #97
throwaway86 wrote: post #82

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It's not any better if you get hired. Google recruiters will tell you whatever you want to hear, including things that are not necessarily true. I was assured that a minor issue in my background would not be an issue multiple times (I have email proving this), then Google hired me and let me work for more than two months. I got comfortable, I moved to Mountain View, began real honest work and set about making an impa…

What sort of background thing are you talking about? Criminal? Civil?

Criminal, and that is the extent that I will follow up. I will also reiterate "minor".

Re: A Wretched Google Interview Experience

#102

Post by csbrooks »

mattzito wrote: post #34

An acquaintance of mine applied for a product management job, did two interviews in NY that went fine, then was flown out to MTV for a series of interviews. When this person got there, two of the people they were supposed to meet with were traveling on business and hadn't notified the recruiter. A third was out sick. The supposed-to-be fourth, now first interview walked into the room and said, "Look, I don't have any…

This made more sense after I figured out MTV was Mountain View, not Music Television. O_o

Re: A Wretched Google Interview Experience

#104

Post by typon »

cromwellian wrote: post #12

I think this is very unfortunate. I've seen a lot of good candidates get rejected for no obvious reasons. The lack of communication seems driven I think by the sheer deluge of the number of resumes/interviews going on at Google, and what appears to be, a reliance on temps and contractors as part of the process. I had a friend who interviewed at Google, who is an excellent software engineer I've worked with for years,…

> Given the sheer size of Google

Microsoft has more employees and the three times I interviewed with them (and got accepted) it was a great experience, with perfect communication from their recruiters and interviewers. The one time I interviewed with Google (and got accepted, but I rejected them for MS) I pretty much went through a similar experience as the blog post, although the interviews themselves weren't bad, just the recruiting process.

So yea, size isn't an excuse.

Re: A Wretched Google Interview Experience

#105

Post by JonFish85 »

potatolicious wrote: post #80
JonFish85 wrote: post #31

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Why don't more people walk out of interviews? Especially if someone set you up to fail, quite literally: interviewing for the wrong job. It's a waste of my time, it's a waste of your time as a company. On top of that, if you're going to throw out dickish comments like the article states (paraphrase: "ask your friend, he'll know the answer"), I wouldn't stick around. Is that the atmosphere at the company? Agree or dis…

Because then your interviewer does a hatchet-job on you in a feedback form and you get shitlisted from interviewing at Google forever. That's the problem with large companies. There are companies where I would just walk out of an abusive interview, because the brokenness represents their whole company. Then you have massive, mega, ultra-sized companies like Google where even though this particular team is beating you…

That's definitely a fair point, especially about bigger companies. Personally, I value my reputation (real-life, not with whatever HN points says) very, very highly, so I'd imagine doing something like I described would be an excellent way to really leave a stain on your resume.

Re: A Wretched Google Interview Experience

#106

Post by aliston »

Google sucks. I had a pretty similar experience interviewing there. Strange, late interviewers. One guy who barely spoke English and another who literally asked one question, then said nothing for the rest of the "interview." Then, a pointless "feedback" call in which they told me they "can't provide feedback on specific candidates." Overall, just a really poor experience. F- 'em, move on.

Re: A Wretched Google Interview Experience

#107

Post by thetrb »

mattzito wrote: post #34

An acquaintance of mine applied for a product management job, did two interviews in NY that went fine, then was flown out to MTV for a series of interviews. When this person got there, two of the people they were supposed to meet with were traveling on business and hadn't notified the recruiter. A third was out sick. The supposed-to-be fourth, now first interview walked into the room and said, "Look, I don't have any…

And they can do all of that just because everybody still wants to work at Google. Let's say the have 100 applicants for a position, out of which 10 are qualified for it. Then they can still screw 9 of them and hire the one person that for one reason or the other had the luck of interviewing with the right people and talking to the right recruiters.

Re: A Wretched Google Interview Experience

#108

Post by at-fates-hands »

keithpeter wrote: post #45
JonFish85 wrote: post #31

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Why don't more people walk out of interviews? Especially if someone set you up to fail, quite literally: interviewing for the wrong job. It's a waste of my time, it's a waste of your time as a company. On top of that, if you're going to throw out dickish comments like the article states (paraphrase: "ask your friend, he'll know the answer"), I wouldn't stick around. Is that the atmosphere at the company? Agree or dis…

I am not a programmer. The OP mentioned that in a number of the scheduled interviews that he had face to face, the interview finished quickly, and the interviewer talked about working at Google. Does this strike anyone else as 'palliative interview'?

Nice catch.

I was actually going to bring this up. I have a lot of friends who are interview pros. They say if an interviewer decides earlier on you're not going to get hired, they basically fold up their sheets and ask non-related general questions to pass the rest of the time.

Re: A Wretched Google Interview Experience

#109

Post by VLM »

speeder wrote: post #71

Heh. I interviewed with Amazon once, I reached only the phone part and failed (most part for my own reason... I fumbled a lot) But I was really bothered, that they setup "X" to interview me, and when I got the call, it was "Y" because "X" travelled, and that "Y" was not related to the position I applied at all, AND was a newbie at Amazon and thus failed to answer the questions I had about it, AND did not knew any lan…

"did not knew any languages I knew"

I was the surprise interviewer in the exact same scenario (well, not at Amazon, but same general idea) and was later cross examined, mostly by HR, about how well I thought he'd be able to help me if I came to him. The HR cross examination about his ability was all touchy-feely questions not technical (did what he say sound nice, not, did what he say make logical sense when passed thru the well known engineer BS filter). Position had one of those estimates of 25% helping other people with problems and group work, and he would have been hanging out near me although somewhat different kind of work, so it seemed fair for me to ask him noob questions about his expertise, just to see how he would talk to someone on the team from a different background. He was an expert in C++ if I recall correctly.

All went pretty well with me, although they didn't hire him (donno why)

The part of the story that was weird is I was an old-timer at that employer not a noob. Why they'd assign a noob to evaluate indicates either extreme trust or extreme desperation WRT the noob. Or he was playing you. If you really needed a question answered HR would take care of it.

Re: A Wretched Google Interview Experience

#110

Post by zxer »

Me1000 wrote: post #74
freework wrote: post #44

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I did a phone interview with Google last week. I was given the exact same counter problem as mentioned in the article. I can verify that I was not asked to sign any NDA at any point.

Phone screenings do not require signing an NDA (just a "we explicitly ask you not to share the questions you're asked"), but if they bring you on site you will be asked to sign one.

Except when not. When I was interviewing they didn't make me sign one. They rejected me for the original position, but later occasionally called me with some alternate options. These calls usually went like:

- We would be interested in having you at/as ... but before the specifics, you signed an NDA, right?

- No, I have not.

- Oh, then good luck, bye.

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