A hilariously bad phone interview with Google • Hacker News Board

Re: A hilariously bad phone interview with Google

#31

Post by HerraBRE » Wed, Apr 20, 2011, 10:22 AM UTC

mkrecny wrote: post #20

joezydeco wrote: post #18

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Yeah this reeks of a headhunter trying to scrape up resumes to present to Google.

Any yet the individual claimed to be an engineer at Google

From my (admittedly outdated) knowledge of the Google recruiting process (I worked there as an engineer and interviewed about 100 people), this was almost certainly NOT an engineer.

Google isn't going to waste an engineer's time going through a predefined script of multiple choice questions over the phone.

These calls are called pre-screens and are usually done by non-technical, dedicated recruiters - frequently contractors.

Re: A hilariously bad phone interview with Google

#32

Post by brown9-2 » Wed, Apr 20, 2011, 12:27 PM UTC

crenelle wrote: post #6

phlux wrote: post #3

Heh. I appear to be blacklisted from google. I interviewed 4 years ago over a 3 month period, after which they said they were excited to send me an offer. The next day, they called me back and said, no, they were not going to be giving me an offer. Recently, I applied for a position I thought I was perfect for - and the google recruiter contacted me asking to talk about the position. He asked if I had ever applied to…

How much exposure do you have on the net? Often someone will pull the plug on a process because they found some social chatter with your name on it that they didn't like, whether or not you were actually involved or not.

Do you have a source for this?

Re: A hilariously bad phone interview with Google

#33

Post by brown9-2 » Wed, Apr 20, 2011, 12:30 PM UTC

mkrecny wrote: post #20

joezydeco wrote: post #18

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Yeah this reeks of a headhunter trying to scrape up resumes to present to Google.

Any yet the individual claimed to be an engineer at Google

Your article states it was a recruiter - are you sure about this?

My experience with Google interviews is nothing as ridiculous as what you had, really just sounds like a bad apple.

Re: A hilariously bad phone interview with Google

#34

Post by wesleyb » Wed, Apr 20, 2011, 9:21 PM UTC

I had a full loop with Google last year. It was awful. The guys were really aggressive and incredibly offensive, reminding me time and time again that they hated the company I worked for. Which is fine if it's your personal opinion, but don't invite me to your offices only to insult my employer. Kinda silly, really.

I can't help but wonder that maybe the interview process is broken. Can you really gauge how effective a dev is based on his might at solving a few programming problems on a whiteboard?

I've seen the strongest candidates in this field end up being the worst devs (bad team players, no design docs, not adhering to spec, crap unmaintanable code), and vice versa. Which makes me wonder. Anyone using any interesting techniques out there other than the standard "here's a tricky problem, now solve it"?

Re: A hilariously bad phone interview with Google

#35

Post by blah123 » Thu, Apr 21, 2011, 8:33 PM UTC

My onsite interview with Google was very fair. It was an all-day event. The engies asked very tough questions and expected you to come up with the answer in about 30 minutes (45 minutes max but you need time to ask/interact).

I didn't make it. But I don't feel their engies are assholes (well may be a couple in my 5 interviews). I have a feeling like they don't care how you interact/approach to solve the issue. If you cannot solve it you fail! There is no partial credit whatsoever. This could turn out to be great if you have canned solutions.