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My Nightmare Interviews With Google

businessinsider.com

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Re: My Nightmare Interviews With Google

#91

Post by kscaldef »

ganley wrote: post #60

Oh, please. Perhaps they care about pedigree and GPA for new grads, but what else do they have to go on? I'm 40, and they didn't seem to care at all where I went to school nor what my grades were. The interview was challenging, but a lot of fun (the good kind of challenging), and certainly not a "nightmare."

I agree. Whenever I read one of these articles, I feel like I should post my own story of how I interviewed at Google and it was completely reasonable, if expectedly rigorous. I really only had two complaints: 1) they sent me to lunch with a guy who works on AdSense, and at the time I was working at Yahoo on their Content Match system, so we had a pretty awkward time trying to figure out what we could talk about without disclosing anything confidential, and 2) it took a really long time after my interviews for them to actually produce an offer (maybe 4 weeks or so), although their recruiter did give me regular updates of what was going on in the process.

FWIW, they did ask me for a lot of awfully detailed information about my current and past compensation packages and what other companies I was interviewing with. I mostly declined to provide that information, and they didn't push it.

Re: My Nightmare Interviews With Google

#92

Post by antirez »

Non critical thinking people are not worse as they can have other strong skills like immagination or creativity or ability to understand user feeling or simply a lot of taste. I think that with this kind of interview Google is creating a monoculture inside the company. The effects may be the fact Google has some problem pushing web services where technological strenght can not do a real difference.

Re: My Nightmare Interviews With Google

#93

Post by pyre »

greyman wrote: post #87
harpastum wrote: post #28

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I realize that she was under some pretty severe stress, but a marketing manager that thinks gmail earns ~$70,000 a day? Or that each user will click on seven ads a day? “Google places four ads per e-mail opened in Gmail. Advertisers get to pick their click-through rates, which can be as little as $0.05...Say each G-mail user opens seven new e-mails a day. They would see 28 ads. If they click on ¼ of those ads, then o…

From the Googler: “You lost me at the ‘only clicking on ¼ of the ads’ comment. Let’s move on.” Yes, indeed. Someone who has a slightest clue about the whole stuff just can't say 1/4 of users will click an ad in Gmail. I am sorry for her, but that is just so off...

I know it's anecdotal, but I've never clicked on an ad in gmail. (to be fair she said that all users will click on 1/4 of the ads presented to them, not '1/4 of users will click on an ad')

Re: My Nightmare Interviews With Google

#94

Post by ig1 »

tomsaffell wrote: post #40
jrockway wrote: post #30

Sounds like she is the "recite facts" type, rather than "quickly think critically" type. Google wants the second type of person, and it appears she is not that. So the interview process worked perfectly; she didn't get a job she wouldn't be good at, and Google doesn't have an employee that doesn't fit with them. I fail to see how this is a nightmare, other than that she'll have to work somewhere that makes her buy he…

Totally agree that she was not right for the job, but the process was a bit nightmare-ish : “That’s all. Good luck with your job search.” The phone clicked-- I was stunned. In my previous job I conducted a lot of interviews of an analytical style. Some people bombed so badly that is was clear well before the end that they wouldn't make the next round. In those cases, I used the remaining time to either talk to them a…

That's debatable. Many candidates would rather just end a failed interview early and do something they'd like with their time.

Re: My Nightmare Interviews With Google

#95

Post by dantheman »

rudd wrote: post #59
scscsc wrote: post #51

' “Say an advertiser makes $0.10 every time someone clicks on their ad. Only 20% of people who visit the site click on their ad. How many people need to visit the site for the advertiser to make $20?” I froze. The problem sounded easy but I didn’t want to cause an awkward silence trying to solve it. ' The problem only sounded easy? Isn't this what you learn in 3rd grade? When you can't do this stuff you shouldn't be…

Yeah, it's easy. When you deal with logic problems all day. Or if you're used to solving problems in your head. Personally, I solved it easily in my head. But, I had to read the problem the first time, then read it again slowly getting all the numbers into the proper places in my head. An interview is a stressful place, so easy things can get a lot harder.

She spent 5 minutes on it, 5 Minutes...

Re: My Nightmare Interviews With Google

#96

Post by ryanwaggoner »

anigbrowl wrote: post #74
harpastum wrote: post #28

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I realize that she was under some pretty severe stress, but a marketing manager that thinks gmail earns ~$70,000 a day? Or that each user will click on seven ads a day? “Google places four ads per e-mail opened in Gmail. Advertisers get to pick their click-through rates, which can be as little as $0.05...Say each G-mail user opens seven new e-mails a day. They would see 28 ads. If they click on ¼ of those ads, then o…

What surprises me is the reasoning path she took (ie estimating customer behavior). I'd have tried to guess how many servers they need for that (uuuuh...100,000?) and how much they cost a year ($1000 each, $100m?) and what's an acceptable profit margin (20%? So about $300,000/day in earnings). Then again you could figure Google makes about $5 billion a year in profit, say a tenth of that comes from gmail, and the pro…

To be honest, I think the approach she took is a lot more reasonable. The whole point of building a product business is that your revenue scales differently from your expenses. Your example has an implicit assumption that Google is somehow artificially regulating demand so they can keep their profit margin at 20%. The profit margin on Gmail could be 5% or 99%. Who knows?

Re: My Nightmare Interviews With Google

#97

Post by zck »

kalid wrote: post #29
presidentender wrote: post #6

Her last answer really did her in, I think. She said she was "wishing [the number of graduating seniors] was higher" since she was amid a job search. That would mean more competition for jobs. That indicates a lack of critical thinking skills.

I think the gmail answer would have sunk her too. Google is an advertising company -- 1/4 (25%) clickthrough on Gmail ads (not even search) is just crazy. People click search ads because they're looking for something, Gmail ads probably get an order of magnitude less click through (people aren't in gmail to find new things). For someone applying to an advertising company, she needs to know their basic business model…

>If she thought about her own usage, she'd realize that it was an insanely high number...

It's dangerous to generalize from yourself like that.

Re: My Nightmare Interviews With Google

#99

Post by jongraehl »

uuilly wrote: post #54
tomsaffell wrote: post #40

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Totally agree that she was not right for the job, but the process was a bit nightmare-ish : “That’s all. Good luck with your job search.” The phone clicked-- I was stunned. In my previous job I conducted a lot of interviews of an analytical style. Some people bombed so badly that is was clear well before the end that they wouldn't make the next round. In those cases, I used the remaining time to either talk to them a…

I totally agree. A company gains nothing by being dismissive. I've interviewed at about 20 companies in the last 10 years, not to mention VC / Angel pitches. Only Google left a foul taste in my mouth. As a CS guy I've had dozens of analytical interviews and have largely done well with them. But the guy who interviewed me from Google acted as if he was doing me a favor. He was curt from the first moment and would sigh…

He sounds like a jerk, but imagine how much it boosts his morale to feel so superior (even if unfairly so).

Re: My Nightmare Interviews With Google

#100

Post by nostrademons »

barrkel wrote: post #62
msg wrote: post #44

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Some parts of marketing are about judging the bang for your buck and allocating finite resources among the various options. It sounds like that's what they wanted.

On the other hand, specific data about actual click-through rates, number of users, number of ad impressions, etc. would be required input to any reasonable approach for such judgement. Data, that is, not guesses. Estimates without ballpark cultural knowledge are also just guesses. For my own part, never having bought Google ads, nor having displayed them, I would rather estimate no more than 1% of people would click…

You'll have hard data on your own products, but you can still only make guesses about your competitors' products, your complements, and other variables in the marketplace. Joining a company doesn't eliminate uncertainty, it just shifts the uncertainty from that company's numbers to everyone else's numbers.
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