How I (almost) got an internship at Google • Hacker News Board

Re: How I (almost) got an internship at Google

#11

Post by bogdan2412 » Tue, Mar 29, 2011, 8:37 PM UTC

I'm surprised by the rapid succesion of the interviews. When I applied for an internship at Google, I think the entire process lasted about three months until I got a final acceptance email. Only had 2 technical phone interviews spread over a month period and they were both decisive (aka if you failed the first one, you didn't get in the second one).

This was quite a contrast to my Facebook experience, where I had a contract signed after I think 3 weeks. :)

I'm really quite surprised that binary search is considered difficult, have you ever tried to implement quick sort? I can write AVLs with less bugs than quick sort.

Re: How I (almost) got an internship at Google

#12

Post by andrewmunn » Tue, Mar 29, 2011, 8:38 PM UTC

elbenshira wrote: post #3

My story: After my technical phone interviews, I got "accepted" as an intern, meaning I was in the Intern Pool of Rot, where I waded and waited for a team to fish me out. I waded and waded for a couple of months, hoping for a kind suitor. The HR woman always told me that she was "optimistic" about my prospects, so I rejected offers from other companies. Then a really cool opportunity came, and I accepted that offer b…

Unfortunately, this has happened to many friends of mine. I much prefer the way Microsoft, Amazon, Facebook, and Zynga do their recruiting. However, if Google actually does accept you, it's a steller experience.

Re: How I (almost) got an internship at Google

#13

Post by marvin » Tue, Mar 29, 2011, 8:40 PM UTC

I wouldn't bother applying. Why the hell would you want to work a company that runs you through the gauntlet like this, only to give you the chance that maybe you'll get hired? I mean, this is obviously a really skilled guy who has lots of prospects.

Why are Google so popular anyway? I genuinely don't get it and would love to know from someone who has specific knowledge. Do they pay better than everyone else? Work on more interesting problems? Better perks, work environment, more status? I can understand it from the perspective of someone who joined years ago, when you got stock options and didn't have to do a full circus performance in order to get in, but not any longer.

The experience would have to be twice as good as the alternatives before I willingly submitted to this kind of process. A long process of interviews like the ones I have heard about hints at more pain and no autonomy once you actually join.

For an _internship_? If you're turning down other offers for the _chance_ to work at Google, you're selling yourself short and not getting full market value.

Re: How I (almost) got an internship at Google

#14

Post by webspiderus » Tue, Mar 29, 2011, 8:41 PM UTC

elbenshira wrote: post #3

My story: After my technical phone interviews, I got "accepted" as an intern, meaning I was in the Intern Pool of Rot, where I waded and waited for a team to fish me out. I waded and waded for a couple of months, hoping for a kind suitor. The HR woman always told me that she was "optimistic" about my prospects, so I rejected offers from other companies. Then a really cool opportunity came, and I accepted that offer b…

i had an identical experience just a month ago - took 2 months to hear feedback on the technical interviews, followed by a whole bunch of nothing. compared to other offers i had, google moved by far the slowest

Re: How I (almost) got an internship at Google

#15

Post by michaelpinto » Tue, Mar 29, 2011, 8:43 PM UTC

elbenshira wrote: post #3

My story: After my technical phone interviews, I got "accepted" as an intern, meaning I was in the Intern Pool of Rot, where I waded and waited for a team to fish me out. I waded and waded for a couple of months, hoping for a kind suitor. The HR woman always told me that she was "optimistic" about my prospects, so I rejected offers from other companies. Then a really cool opportunity came, and I accepted that offer b…

Somewhere in that pool of rejected interns is the next Bill Gates...

Re: How I (almost) got an internship at Google

#16

Post by clawr » Tue, Mar 29, 2011, 8:46 PM UTC

elbenshira wrote: post #3

My story: After my technical phone interviews, I got "accepted" as an intern, meaning I was in the Intern Pool of Rot, where I waded and waited for a team to fish me out. I waded and waded for a couple of months, hoping for a kind suitor. The HR woman always told me that she was "optimistic" about my prospects, so I rejected offers from other companies. Then a really cool opportunity came, and I accepted that offer b…

The process isn't too different now. My first interview (on campus) was mid January of this year. About a month later (mid February) I had another technical interview, after which I was put into the pool of possible interns. Then in mid March I had a "host interview" with my eventual manager, which resulted in an offer. A two month intern hiring process, when other companies make decisions within a week of the interview, seems arrogant (i.e., they don't think they need too be quick because people want to work at Google). FWIW my recruiter was very friendly, and she explained that she had a pool of about 30-40 intern candidates she was managing.

Re: How I (almost) got an internship at Google

#17

Post by brown9-2 » Tue, Mar 29, 2011, 8:47 PM UTC

elbenshira wrote: post #3

My story: After my technical phone interviews, I got "accepted" as an intern, meaning I was in the Intern Pool of Rot, where I waded and waited for a team to fish me out. I waded and waded for a couple of months, hoping for a kind suitor. The HR woman always told me that she was "optimistic" about my prospects, so I rejected offers from other companies. Then a really cool opportunity came, and I accepted that offer b…

I think you'd have to try pretty hard to consciously design a worse intern recruitment process than this.

Re: How I (almost) got an internship at Google

#18

Post by bad_user » Tue, Mar 29, 2011, 8:48 PM UTC

     given two full hours and any high-level language 
     (including pseudocode) only 10 percent of professional
     programmers implemented binary search correctly, 
     according to Jon Bently.

Wow!

I'm not particularly intelligent and I'm not in the top 10% -- but I could implement an in-place quick-sort in C in 10 minutes that my interviewer could run with only a minor fix (forgot a semi-colon), and I even described the parallel version with OpenMP (although there I got the syntax slightly wrong). This was for my interview at Adobe, when I got hired by them a couple of years ago; went on to other things since then.

By that logic that should place me in the top 1 percent ... but so are my ~ 100 friends that are also software developers from my city, and statistically speaking, something smells like shit in those statistics thrown around.

Maybe binary search, when discovered, used to be a hard to understand problem, but now it is taught from high-school. And sure there are lots of idiots out there, but many of those idiots also believe they are in the top 10%, because some statistic told them so.

So cut the crap and build stuff. Only by that metric you can prove yourself.

-- EDIT --

I'm not referring or addressing the article's author directly. I'm also not saying that you SHOULD be able to implement binary search, or quick-sort or whatever metric du-jour -- in interview conditions. I get it that you may be stressed by eyes watching you, or that you may be bitten by edge-cases other people haven't noticed for years.

I'm referring more to these metrics flowing around -- like, if you read HN you're in the top 5%, if you read this stupid blog you're in the top X%, if you can implement binary search ... etc, etc...

We are software developers, mathematicians, computer scientists -- surely we understand selection bias and should be able to recognize bullshit, even if it doesn't appeal to our ego.

Re: How I (almost) got an internship at Google

#19

Post by ernestipark » Tue, Mar 29, 2011, 8:50 PM UTC

bad_user wrote: post #18

given two full hours and any high-level language (including pseudocode) only 10 percent of professional programmers implemented binary search correctly, according to Jon Bently. Wow! I'm not particularly intelligent and I'm not in the top 10% -- but I could implement an in-place quick-sort in C in 10 minutes that my interviewer could run with only a minor fix (forgot a semi-colon), and I even described the parallel v…

Don't be so pompous. Most people know how to implement it, it's not a difficult concept. It's just that there are edge cases and intricacies of implementation that yield bugs.

Re: How I (almost) got an internship at Google

#20

Post by ernestipark » Tue, Mar 29, 2011, 8:51 PM UTC

elbenshira wrote: post #3

My story: After my technical phone interviews, I got "accepted" as an intern, meaning I was in the Intern Pool of Rot, where I waded and waited for a team to fish me out. I waded and waded for a couple of months, hoping for a kind suitor. The HR woman always told me that she was "optimistic" about my prospects, so I rejected offers from other companies. Then a really cool opportunity came, and I accepted that offer b…

My gf is in that rotting pool now. Killed the interviews, but hasn't found a right team yet.