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Google Has a Secret Interview Process and It Landed Me a Job

thehustle.co

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Re: Google Has a Secret Interview Process and It Landed Me a Job

#42
post #34

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> Wow, it's like they're fully aware of how poor many of their interviewing procedures have been over the years, and instead of making them more employee-friendly to compete with the rest of the industry, they'd rather just punish the employees instead. I know, anecdote, but: I went through the Google interview process not too long ago. It was stellar. None of the other places I interviewed at could even come close t…

My experience was not so stellar. Interviewer tagged me and I thought I'd go along with it for the fun. I'm a systems engineer not a developer so YMMV. First stage interviewer put me through a basic aptitude test ("what is netstat?", "what's the expected output of dig?") which was fine and I answered them all with a fair degree of correctness but the questions quickly went on to different programming languages, and w…

As someone who did a lot of interviewing at Google I can say your interviewer didn't do his job and that definitely should not be the usual experience.

That said how are questions about "netstat" and the "expected output of dig" programming questions?

Also for anyone planning to join Google as a sysadmin you should note that even Google's sysadmins do a fair amount of code since Google loves automation. Python will probably figure fairly prominently in your job.

Re: Google Has a Secret Interview Process and It Landed Me a Job

#43
post #16

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> Second, they tell every applicant that openly discussing the interview process (esp blogging about it) will get you disqualified/blacklisted from any future positions at google. Wow, it's like they're fully aware of how poor many of their interviewing procedures have been over the years, and instead of making them more employee-friendly to compete with the rest of the industry, they'd rather just punish the employe…

I honestly think their process is pretty good (at least it was for me). There are no bullshit questions and they are honest in their feedback/telling you what you should and should not expect. A lot of people are pissed because they didn't get in and feel it's google's fault for having a 'broken interview process'. But reality is that google is one of the most profitable/successful companies in the world and gets vot…

"A lot of people are pissed because they didn't get in and feel it's google's fault for having a 'broken interview process'. "

I think that's a mischaracterization of what people dislike about Google's interview process. People dislike that it takes a very long time for Google to follow up and that the process wastes a lot of their time.

Yes Google is profitable and a lot of people want to work there but that doesn't mean their interview process is great too.

Re: Google Has a Secret Interview Process and It Landed Me a Job

#44
post #20

While this is a great idea from Google I would be concerned that the Google recruiter would also receive a list of my search history queries which do not always include programming topics at all ;-) Interesting thought though, will Google check my search history if I apply with a known Gmail adress?

Assuming it is limited to programming topics, what if you accidentally pasted something very private while searching something programming related.

...then you end up in one of Peter Norvig's Google search history haikus: http://www.codersatwork.com/peter-norvig.html

Re: Google Has a Secret Interview Process and It Landed Me a Job

#45
post #34

Earlier quoted context omitted.

My experience was not so stellar. Interviewer tagged me and I thought I'd go along with it for the fun. I'm a systems engineer not a developer so YMMV. First stage interviewer put me through a basic aptitude test ("what is netstat?", "what's the expected output of dig?") which was fine and I answered them all with a fair degree of correctness but the questions quickly went on to different programming languages, and w…

But how could this have been a more stellar experience for you? Should they have given you a consolidation price? Job interviews are a business transaction (after all you are there because you want their money). Not hiring you is fair game and once they have decided/committed to pass on the opportunity it wouldn't be rational to waste money by continuing a pointless discussion.

> But how could this have been a more stellar experience for you?

Are you joking? Did you even read their post. The guy literally called and asked the same set of questions twice, then didn't follow through with what they said they would do.

I cannot believe you're even asking "how could this have been a more stellar experience for you?" the gall.

Re: Google Has a Secret Interview Process and It Landed Me a Job

#46
I have a serious question : If google uses a person's search results internally to determine that they are a person of interest for hiring, whose to say they aren't using a similar process to strip Intellectual property from searches as it relates to projects they are working on?

i.e : They are internally working on self driving cars and, in particular, are looking for ways to integrate algorithm 'X' in their solution. So, google decides to setup a special filter for searches related to certain profiles that search for 'X and self driving ....Results get fed to the group conducting the work. In effect, allowing them to internally see what 'profiles of interest' are up to as it relates to Google's flagged area of interest.

It would appear that this could easily be made 'legal' under the premise that the individuals are anonymized. However, it does give google a unique advantage in being able to see 'what everyone is up to'.

The fact that they are already using people's specialized searches for flagging them for interviewing makes me strongly believe they are already internally snagging people's searches/clicked links to give them advantage on projects.

I think everyone should take a pause and consider the implications of this as they are quite damning.

Re: Google Has a Secret Interview Process and It Landed Me a Job

#47
post #6

Are they only doing this if your IP belongs to a well known university? I'm sure lots of people here are googling programming topics everyday, and I'd assume it would've come up before this.

No, my buddy just got this while googling node.js stuff from a starbucks.

Re: Google Has a Secret Interview Process and It Landed Me a Job

#48
post #16

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> Second, they tell every applicant that openly discussing the interview process (esp blogging about it) will get you disqualified/blacklisted from any future positions at google. Wow, it's like they're fully aware of how poor many of their interviewing procedures have been over the years, and instead of making them more employee-friendly to compete with the rest of the industry, they'd rather just punish the employe…

> Wow, it's like they're fully aware of how poor many of their interviewing procedures have been over the years, and instead of making them more employee-friendly to compete with the rest of the industry, they'd rather just punish the employees instead. I know, anecdote, but: I went through the Google interview process not too long ago. It was stellar. None of the other places I interviewed at could even come close t…

To counter your anecdote here is mine: during the interview my plane back had been switched by Google from something like 6 pm to 11-12. The interview was over before 4 and it had been at Youtube (very close to the airport) so I got to spend more than 8 hours at the airport before my 12 hours multi-connected flight. Literally the worst experience I have ever had during an interview.

Re: Google Has a Secret Interview Process and It Landed Me a Job

#50

Earlier quoted context omitted.

But how could this have been a more stellar experience for you? Should they have given you a consolidation price? Job interviews are a business transaction (after all you are there because you want their money). Not hiring you is fair game and once they have decided/committed to pass on the opportunity it wouldn't be rational to waste money by continuing a pointless discussion.

I mean, not parent commenter, but I'd expect, y'know, the recruiter to actually remember giving the exact same preliminary interview to the same candidate a week earlier.

Was it the same interviewer? Maybe there are 10 interviewers going off the same script.

Interviewer 1 called OP and asked questions. Then it was lunch time and he forgot to put result in the CMS.

So the same guy popped up a week later to Interviewer 2. He was reading off the same script, so of course his questions are the same. Not his fault, or Google's per say - Interviewer 1 happened to forget a step. (Which is sad, but we all make mistakes!)

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