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How I Embarrassed Myself in My Interview With Google

globalnerdy.com

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Re: How I Embarrassed Myself in My Interview With Google

#41

Post by ilyanep »

AccordionGuy wrote: post #36
ilyanep wrote: post #34

I doubt that you were rejected (even if you were, which it seems like you don't know) based on needing to be prompted about select, and getting syntax wrong, especially for a non-dev position and in a phone screen. If I were doing a phone screen, I'd honestly be probing more for whether you know how code works in general, and if you knew what select was (i.e. when I prompted you, your response wasn't "uh...what's sel…

I didn't sign any agreements of any sort, and the question was about as generic as "FizzBuzz" that I wasn't giving away anything. If it's a problem, I can make it right by editing the article.

I guess that's fair enough. I'm just personally squeamish about sharing most interview details this publicly, but perhaps you're right.

Re: How I Embarrassed Myself in My Interview With Google

#42

Post by alexgartrell »

yongjik wrote: post #31
toomuchtodo wrote: post #26

Earlier quoted context omitted.

(Non snark ahead) Could this be why working at Google is no longer the prize it once was? And why developers would rather go to Facebook, Twitter, Dropbox, et al?

(Completely idiotic response ahead) Umm, really? Every day I see thousands of developers who would rather work in Google than Facebook... :) (Non snarky response) I dunno. I joined Google in 2008, and as far as I know Google was always like that. So, unless you claim developers have preferred Facebook etc. to Google for more than 5 years now, it's probably not related to the interview process.

I chose Facebook over Google two years ago (despite a more lucrative offer from Google), because I wanted to go where I could have more of an impact. The interview processes are nearly identical. One of my go-to questions was a question I got asked at Google, actually.

Re: How I Embarrassed Myself in My Interview With Google

#43

Post by AccordionGuy »

mortdeus wrote: post #15
AccordionGuy wrote: post #6

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Yup, it's serious. I'm don't know for certain that I've been ruled out of a follow-up interview, but I got that vibe by the end.

Do you have any open source projects? The first thing i'm looking for as a developer when I visit your websites is a link to any code you have written. Which as far as I can tell doesnt exist? A programmer without a portfolio of source code is like a painter without a portfolio paintings. I assume Google scouts are usually looking to hook the exceptionally rare "Monet" and "Picaso" software engineers swimming around…

The position is for a developer advocate, so the best thing for me to show is my work along those lines, which is quite well-documented in the Global Nerdy blog. Whether at Tucows, Microsoft, b5media, Shopify and even the consultancy I recently left, my work is shown there.

Re: How I Embarrassed Myself in My Interview With Google

#44

Post by mgkimsal »

I didn't get as far as a full interview, but an internal recruiter reached out to me and we chatted for about 20 minutes or so for a specific position she was trying to fill. It was no better than a standard recruiter, really - I was expecting more.

"So, I found your resume... blah blah blah, you say you've done XYZ, blah blah blah, send me a copy of your resume."

WTF?

I said "um... you're google - don't you already have all my information?" a bit jokingly, and she laughed a bit. I then told her I wasn't at my computer, but if she Binged my name, my site would come up, and she could grab a resume from there. A few mumbles later, I got "OK, got it! I'll get back with you in a couple days with the answers to those questions!" I'd asked a couple questions about the job. That was early August - no followup. As unprofessional as any other hack recruiter imo. I guess I shouldn't have expected more, but I did.

tldr: I told Google to Bing me.

Re: How I Embarrassed Myself in My Interview With Google

#45

Post by nerfhammer »

integraton wrote: post #4

Is this a serious article? Iterating over a hash slightly wrong when writing code in a google doc during an interview is such a stupid, trivial thing to be judged on, whether it's you or someone else doing the judging. It's clear from the "My lame attempt" example that the basic concepts are understood, and if he's written a series of articles about the Enumerable module then he probably knows it better than the majo…

Even if he got it slightly wrong, the more fundamental problem is sample size.

CRUMB : BREAD :: (A) ounce : unit (B) splinter : wood

How much confidence would you have in a version of the SAT that was reduced to just one question which determined the entire score?

It's exactly analogous to tech interviewing. It's like saying, oh he couldn't even get that analogy right! He can't do analogies. Same thing with giving people one programming question. Much less nitpicking that one question...

So we are forced to go on lots of interviews and just hope that we happen to quickly grok the one or two problems they give us -- so we'll look "perfect" in that short period of time. which is eventually almost certain given enough interviews. but you can't be super confident to pass any particular interview you might have had your hopes on.

Re: How I Embarrassed Myself in My Interview With Google

#46

Post by taralx »

mgkimsal wrote: post #44

I didn't get as far as a full interview, but an internal recruiter reached out to me and we chatted for about 20 minutes or so for a specific position she was trying to fill. It was no better than a standard recruiter, really - I was expecting more. "So, I found your resume... blah blah blah, you say you've done XYZ, blah blah blah, send me a copy of your resume." WTF? I said "um... you're google - don't you already…

To be fair, it was reasonable for her not to assume that whatever she found on a search would be up-to-date. Some people also like to tailor their resumes for the recipient.

Re: How I Embarrassed Myself in My Interview With Google

#47

Post by peferron »

yongjik wrote: post #23
mortdeus wrote: post #15

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Do you have any open source projects? The first thing i'm looking for as a developer when I visit your websites is a link to any code you have written. Which as far as I can tell doesnt exist? A programmer without a portfolio of source code is like a painter without a portfolio paintings. I assume Google scouts are usually looking to hook the exceptionally rare "Monet" and "Picaso" software engineers swimming around…

As a Google Engineer, I can assure you that nobody who interviews you will give a damn about your code in github. Unless you're James Gosling or someone at that level. (But then again I don't think they interviewed James Gosling in the same way they interviewed me, so the point is moot.) Google interviewers are interested in how well you can code (or design a solution) in a whiteboard for 45 minutes. I'm not claiming…

I'm glad to know that. I tend to spend my extra time doing company work, which cannot always be open-sourced; for example, a few months ago I wrote a small Go project, which is going to end up on the company intranet and wouldn't make much sense on Github. Look at my Github profile and it's empty; but put me in front of a whiteboard and ask me to write something in Go and now we can talk.

I'll start doing stuff on Github when I genuinely feel like it (probably soon, I have a few pending personal projects that would make sense there), but recently it feels too much like you should do stuff on Github because it's going to impact your future. Similar to how you should get a college degree, should nurture your LinkedIn profile (not sure anyone cares about that anymore), and so on. Bleh.

Re: How I Embarrassed Myself in My Interview With Google

#48

Post by elnate »

hackinthebochs wrote: post #20
mortdeus wrote: post #15

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Do you have any open source projects? The first thing i'm looking for as a developer when I visit your websites is a link to any code you have written. Which as far as I can tell doesnt exist? A programmer without a portfolio of source code is like a painter without a portfolio paintings. I assume Google scouts are usually looking to hook the exceptionally rare "Monet" and "Picaso" software engineers swimming around…

Everyone loves to say this, but this is just not how it goes in the real world. It is just bad advice for people to focus so much on this one aspect when in reality it will only help you land interviews with people that regularly read HN.

What would your advice be?

Re: How I Embarrassed Myself in My Interview With Google

#49

Post by hackinthebochs »

elnate wrote: post #48
hackinthebochs wrote: post #20

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Everyone loves to say this, but this is just not how it goes in the real world. It is just bad advice for people to focus so much on this one aspect when in reality it will only help you land interviews with people that regularly read HN.

What would your advice be?

I'm certainly no expert at hiring or getting hired so don't take my opinion at face value, but since my opinion seems to be somewhat unique around here I think it has value for that reason.

But advice really depends on the context of the person: what they've done, what degrees they have, what type of job they're looking for, etc. But to address the type of people the "show me the code" response is geared towards: instead of a github profile I would say build actual products.

Code in isolation is hard to understand, even to the point where its nearly useless. But having a couple of full blown web applications that do something useful shows all an employer needs to know (even if they have 0 users). Everyone can understand actual sites that look polished and professional, and shows that this person will bring value to the company (whether from a business perspective or from being a competent programmer). Good coding practices can be taught or enforced through process, but being able to construct an actual non trivial product is what employers really want.

How the code actually looks is less important than what it does. Of course, feel free to put the code on github if you want, there are some interviewers that might consider that a bonus. But for most people its too much effort to make any practical sense out of what they're seeing. Just a repository of code without any context doesn't help.

Re: How I Embarrassed Myself in My Interview With Google

#50

Post by mgkimsal »

taralx wrote: post #46
mgkimsal wrote: post #44

I didn't get as far as a full interview, but an internal recruiter reached out to me and we chatted for about 20 minutes or so for a specific position she was trying to fill. It was no better than a standard recruiter, really - I was expecting more. "So, I found your resume... blah blah blah, you say you've done XYZ, blah blah blah, send me a copy of your resume." WTF? I said "um... you're google - don't you already…

To be fair, it was reasonable for her not to assume that whatever she found on a search would be up-to-date. Some people also like to tailor their resumes for the recipient.

to be fair, they had more than a week to go google me and see that the resume was the latest one. there are exactly 2 people with my name on the planet, and only one does much of anything on the internet (me).

"Do you have a more recent resume available? The one I have looks like was last updated in 2007" would be far more respectful - it would show you're looking at it, parsed it out, and are giving the other person a chance to polish things up if they want.

"HEY! I just found your resume! .... Send me your resume!"

"Waiter... I was just looking at your menu... things look really good. Could you please bring me your menu?"

It just sounds stupid.

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