Google’s recruiting system is famously brutal. Many workers think it’s failing • Hacker News Board

Re: Google’s recruiting system is famously brutal. Many workers think it’s failing

#61

Post by taurath » Fri, Oct 08, 2021, 7:20 PM UTC

paxys wrote: post #41

Google has hired ~100,000 people in the last decade. They have probably interviewed 30M+. Broad generalizations like "their interview process is failing" are pointless. You don't build a $2T company with a broken hiring process. This keeps coming up but is worth repeating – the goal of any large company's recruiting process isn't necessarily to hire the best possible candidates 100% of the time. There are always trad…

Chill out a little. What makes these threads explode is that many many people have spent weeks or months of their lives preparing for an interview at Google - it can create a lot of reasonable resentment especially when one feels they haven’t been given a fair shake - and by many accounts even Google recognizes that there’s an element of luck involved even when the person is good.

Re: Google’s recruiting system is famously brutal. Many workers think it’s failing

#62

Post by Jasper_ » Fri, Oct 08, 2021, 7:20 PM UTC

kevingadd wrote: post #25

Before finally getting hired there I interviewed with Google at least 3 times (hard to remember), on a referral each time (for a different team, from a different person). Incidentally, doing an interview for any role puts you on a secret 6+ month lockout, so it turns out that if you're interested in working at Google you shouldn't interview unless you're absolutely sure you want that role and can ace the interview. A…

This was the same for me. I'm an engine / graphics programmer with experience on console, looking for work after the studio I was at shut down. Google decided to match me up with a team working on an Android app, because it was "Graphics", and it resulted in maybe the worst phone call I've ever had in my life: any time I asked about technical questions, they just said they didn't have to worry about that part since they were using stock Google libraries. They were working on a application that displayed 3D models, so I asked about their art pipeline, which elicited the answer "what's an art pipeline, I've never heard that term before" from the project manager. It was clear that my skills weren't valued, and at times it seemed like they didn't even want any additional team members.

None of the people who interviewed me are still at Google.

Re: Google’s recruiting system is famously brutal. Many workers think it’s failing

#63

Post by adwn » Fri, Oct 08, 2021, 7:21 PM UTC

kongin wrote: post #52

tylerhou wrote: post #36

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> repeated division/modulo operations that would likely be much slower in practice. … but that’s exactly how conversion to string works, so handrolling an algorithm would likely be around the same speed. I don’t know enough about the question, but it’s possible that the interviewer wanted to test this specifically. I’ve had interview questions which were literally “implement itoa.” In this case where itoa was part of…

>… but that’s exactly how conversion to string works, so handrolling an algorithm would likely be around the same speed. https://github.com/lattera/glibc/blob/master/stdio-common/_i... It's all bit-shifts, bit-masks and a lot of other hacks to get the maximum performance out of the system you're compiling the code on. Could I write something with better performance on my system? Yeah, after a week to run tests and wr…

An optimizing compiler will turn div-by-constant and mod-by-constant into multiplications and bitshifts. For example, the Rust compiler: https://play.rust-lang.org/?version=stable&mode=release&edit... (select "Show assembly" on the top-left button).

    pub fn divmod10(x: u32) -> (u32, u32) {
       (x / 10, x % 10)
    }

generates

    mov ecx, edi
    mov eax, 3435973837
    imul rax, rcx
    shr rax, 35
    lea ecx, [rax + rax]
    lea ecx, [rcx + 4\*rcx]
    sub edi, ecx
    mov edx, edi
    ret

Re: Google’s recruiting system is famously brutal. Many workers think it’s failing

#64

Post by pengaru » Fri, Oct 08, 2021, 7:21 PM UTC

dolni wrote: post #53

pengaru wrote: post #45

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Usually such a question is used not to fail you for not having the specific answer, but to observe your ability to reason about it and collaborate with the interviewer on pursuing the desired answer. What questions you ask, what resources you consult, experiments you perform, creativity you demonstrate, openness to alternatives, etc. If you just fixate on your specific first solution and choose to dig in and argue ov…

> Usually such a question is used not to fail you for not having the specific answer, but to observe your ability to reason about it and collaborate with the interviewer on pursuing the desired answer. What questions you ask, what resources you consult, experiments you perform, creativity you demonstrate, openness to alternatives, etc. Trivia questions like that are absolutely awful for demonstrating any of what you'…

You're right, just like you were in the failed interview.

Re: Google’s recruiting system is famously brutal. Many workers think it’s failing

#65

Post by usrusr » Fri, Oct 08, 2021, 7:23 PM UTC

commandlinefan wrote: post #31

johnwheeler wrote: post #8

I don't get it. University tests are brutal too and have the expectation the student will devote large amounts of time and energy. It seems like a job interview is fair game for the same, no? I feel like this is a very bruised ego here. I'm not saying any interview process is perfect, and I think a lot of them are very, very bad at accessing the capabilities and value someone provides, but same for University.

I always wonder the same thing... either an interview process is so brutal that they would end up not hiring anybody (so they'd eventually relax it), or it's just the "right" amount of brutal, and people who are complaining about it are experiencing a bit of sour grapes. And don't get me wrong, I've interviewed for jobs and felt lousy about getting rejected and tried to convince myself that it was "their loss" even t…

With brush tests you might easily end up hiring someone who excels at your tests and nothing else. Overfitting can be a problem even with subjects that don't actively try to adapt, and for Google they most certainly do (I read the "please take some months to prepare" suggestions as a clear indication that they want a level playing field wrt adaption, kind of cheap to leave that problem to be solved applicants)

In the long run you might end up with better results if you don't even try to identify the one optional choice and only focus on weeding out false positives, leaving the rest to a diceroll.

(I'd be surprised if what happens at Google wasn't a weird compromise Frankenstein of both)

Re: Google’s recruiting system is famously brutal. Many workers think it’s failing

#66

Post by nicoffeine » Fri, Oct 08, 2021, 7:27 PM UTC

johnwheeler wrote: post #8

I don't get it. University tests are brutal too and have the expectation the student will devote large amounts of time and energy. It seems like a job interview is fair game for the same, no? I feel like this is a very bruised ego here. I'm not saying any interview process is perfect, and I think a lot of them are very, very bad at accessing the capabilities and value someone provides, but same for University.

Everyone at a university is taking the same test with the same expectations, usually to some national or international standard for that field of study. Each FAANG has their own set of tests that are not standard or internally consistent, even for the same job.

This is the cost of fighting professional standards for the industry as a whole. I'm not necessarily for that, but I don't know what the sensible alternative is to inter-corporate pissing matches and job titles that are practically meaningless. Nobody who knows how to build a house or fix a car is going to spend months playing puzzle games about those topics. They are just going to find an opportunity to do the work they enjoy somewhere else.

Edit: to remove unrelated rant.

Re: Google’s recruiting system is famously brutal. Many workers think it’s failing

#67

Post by kongin » Fri, Oct 08, 2021, 7:29 PM UTC

adwn wrote: post #63

kongin wrote: post #52

Earlier quoted context omitted.

>… but that’s exactly how conversion to string works, so handrolling an algorithm would likely be around the same speed. https://github.com/lattera/glibc/blob/master/stdio-common/_i... It's all bit-shifts, bit-masks and a lot of other hacks to get the maximum performance out of the system you're compiling the code on. Could I write something with better performance on my system? Yeah, after a week to run tests and wr…

An optimizing compiler will turn div-by-constant and mod-by-constant into multiplications and bitshifts. For example, the Rust compiler: https://play.rust-lang.org/?version=stable&mode=release&edit... (select "Show assembly" on the top-left button). pub fn divmod10(x: u32) -> (u32, u32) { (x / 10, x % 10) } generates mov ecx, edi mov eax, 3435973837 imul rax, rcx shr rax, 35 lea ecx, [rax + rax] lea ecx, [rcx + 4\*rc…

It's still not as efficient since you're breaking on base 10 digit boundaries, not base 2, the most efficient encoding will be base 3, but alas we don't have ternary computers.

Re: Google’s recruiting system is famously brutal. Many workers think it’s failing

#68

Post by dolni » Fri, Oct 08, 2021, 7:29 PM UTC

johnwheeler wrote: post #8

I don't get it. University tests are brutal too and have the expectation the student will devote large amounts of time and energy. It seems like a job interview is fair game for the same, no? I feel like this is a very bruised ego here. I'm not saying any interview process is perfect, and I think a lot of them are very, very bad at accessing the capabilities and value someone provides, but same for University.

The point of attending a University is that at the end of it, the University confers upon you a degree that asserts your knowledge in the relevant field of study. That degree is valid forever; the University doesn't later get to take it back if you're actually a buffoon. You receive the credential, it has value, and its conferral is guaranteed as long as you complete the requirements of the degree.

By contrast, interviews are extremely condensed and an interview doesn't guarantee you a job in the same way that completing degree requirements guarantees a degree. Employers also have the option of firing you later.

Re: Google’s recruiting system is famously brutal. Many workers think it’s failing

#69

Post by praptak » Fri, Oct 08, 2021, 7:31 PM UTC

lordnacho wrote: post #48

I reckon that coding as part of an interview is really just to make sure the person isn't a total fraud. There's that guy who for some reason thinks he can nab a high paid job by blagging it, and then there's the guy who thought he was a coder but it turns out that writing some VBA macros isn't quite the same thing. Those kinds of people will be found out immediately if you ask for a FizzBuzz type question, and that…

Chatting carries the risk of hiring for the "talking about X" skill rather than "X" skill.

Re: Google’s recruiting system is famously brutal. Many workers think it’s failing

#70

Post by xtracto » Fri, Oct 08, 2021, 7:32 PM UTC

cosmotic wrote: post #39

When I last interviewed they sent out a huge pile of PDFs that said "think out loud" and "explain your thought process". During the interview, I explained every solution I'm not considering and why. The interviewers appear to have interpret this as 'candidate thought this would be a possible solution' and kept steering me back to the optimal solution, which I was on my way to explaining. This resulted in interview fe…

> When I last interviewed they sent out a huge pile of PDFs that said "think out loud" and "explain your thought process"

I hated those type of interviews when I used to interview (as an interviewee) for programming positions. I am the kind of person that cannot multitask at all: I sometimes even have to close my eyes when I am thinking something before saying it.

Nowadays I am on the other side being the interviewer for programming positions. I make it really clear at the beginning of the coding part: Feel free to shut up and think, focus on writing the code you'll write, and we will talk about it once you have finished.