8 ms·

So first of all this is not "a secret" at all and you don't need to be "special" to do it. And of course you don't get targeted personally but they do an automa

So first of all this is not "a secret" at all and you don't need to be "special" to do it. And of course you don't get targeted personally but they do an automated/anonymous match on your search history. It's just one of many inbound HR/recruiting funnels and it was featured in an internal newsletter that went out to all of Eng some time ago. 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. So if you have posted this before your first day and didn't discuss it with your recruiter/hr person at the G, it was probably not a very smart move. PS: It really isn't too hard to get into their interview process. If you create a github account and push some code one of their recruiters will probably approach you after a while. You can also just send them your CV and I am pretty sure you get the same process/treatment as anybody else.

technofiend 11y ago
LOL. I was wondering how long before a response like this showed up. "Formerly" secret-ish process, and who told you you could tell? That didn't take long. :-)
throwaway9009 11y ago
Although this may not be a secret anymore and it is a recruiting funnel - this gives many lacking a STEM or mid/top/elite CS background an opportunity to prove themselves. This seems like a great way to get noticed and bypass many of the unconscious biases instilled into engineering recruitment through training and experience.
- GVIrish 11y ago
  Wouldn't Google still filter people based on their education and experience? This programming test could get someone a call but doesn't Google still only hire college graduates with a STEM or CS background (for technical roles)?
  - throwaway9009 11y ago
    Not necessarily. There are engineers without the prerequisite STEM or CS background, as well as folks without any degree. Even coding bootcamps. Talent is talent.
nxb 11y ago
> 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 employees instead. Right in line with Google's reputation.
- x00gler123 11y ago
  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 voted "top employer" year after year. A lot of people want to work for them, so they can afford to be picky in the interview process; but that doesn't mean anything is broken. Quite the opposite actually. As per the secrecy; I reckon they want to keep part of their process secret so that people don't try to game it. At the scale they are operating (millions of applications per year) you obviously need some standardized tech testing for the first interview rounds (where no engineer is present yet) and if everybody just posted their questions and answers online you could kind of forget about that.
  - nxb 11y ago
    I'd just note -- both total-profit and profit-per-employee are REALLY terrible ways to predict employee happiness. Just look at some of those rankings. They're a really mixed bag of both exploitive and great employers. I mention this because I always hear inexperienced people from small towns using those metrics, in isolation, to rank their employer choices. It's such a bad approach. I'd even argue that highly-negative profit, pre-profitability employers can be far better for tech employees. - High profit = the company's major problems are already figured out, they already have a money-making machine, they don't desperately need you and in fact you may be a liability who could break their already profitable machine. They could fire nearly everyone and possibly continue making bags of cash for a very long time. - Highly negative in profit = they desperately need someone to solve their problems fast, which in tech product companies is often by making some new tech. Without you, they're nearly guaranteed to end up very screwed.
forgottenpass 11y ago
>So first of all this is not "a secret" >Second, they tell every applicant that openly discussing the interview process (esp blogging about it) will get you disqualified/blacklisted ...but it was on an internal newsletter, so that makes it public?
drewg123 11y ago
This guy says he was able to skip the technical phone screen, which is pretty non-standard as far as I remember. So it seems there is something a bit special about this process.
- drcross 11y ago
  If you can't pass a technical phone screen with a drone from HR reading a list of Q/A's you're going to have bigger trouble down the line.
  - super_mario 11y ago
    Google phone screen isn't with a recruiter. It's 3 one hour long phone interviews with engineers where you program solutions to problems in a shared google document. Some of the questions you get asked are absolutely non-trivial and will take you an hour to solve.
    - x00gler123 11y ago
      What you are describing is one of the proper phone screens with engineers. Before that they will sometimes do another round of screening that is just a HR person reading standard questions and checking if you got the correct answers (most of these questions have numeric or very specific answers that are binary correct/wrong and can be checked by a layperson)
      - joesmo 11y ago
        I'd hardly call it proper. You're asked to code some stupid problems in a Google Doc (which is extremely bad at handling code), while the other person's waiting around on the other line impatiently, asking stupid questions like 'how can you make this faster?' If that's a proper interview, I'd hate to see what's improper. At the very least, they should give you quiet time to work alone. I don't expect to be working while someone else is talking to me, asking me questions, or breathing down my neck, but apparently this is a required skill at Google and most other places that use such idiotic "interviewing" techniques. I'm certain they are losing out on a lot of great talent simply because of this.
calcsam 11y ago
Friend of the author. The posted date was his first day at Google.
coldtea 11y ago
>So first of all this is not "a secret" at all and you don't need to be "special" to do it. And of course you don't get targeted personally but they do an automated/anonymous match on your search history. Yeah, and there were no magical unicorns involved, what a dissapointment. That said, I think all these premises are wrong. Clearly this was indeed a secret. It wasn't publicly announced to be happening, only appeared to selected individuals. Second, you do need to be special. Special doesn't mean to have some mutated X gene, just that it doesn't apply to everybody, but only those matching specific criteria. In this case you have to have the skills to be able to trigger the process (with matching query results) and then complete the puzzles. That would leave 99.99 of the population out. As for the fact that "you don't get targeted personally but they do an automated/anonymous match on your search history", in the end you do get targeted personally (if you succeed), and obviously even people who get targeted personally "from the start" are first targeted by automated matches between tons of candidates. I don't think some recruiter just pops up a name out of the blue because they personally know them.
- burgerdev 11y ago
  > Clearly this was indeed a secret. This is from January: http://jacquerie.github.io/google-foobar-post-mortem/ http://jacquerie.github.io/google-foobar-post-mortem/

technofiend 11y ago

LOL. I was wondering how long before a response like this showed up. "Formerly" secret-ish process, and who told you you could tell? That didn't take long. :-)

throwaway9009 11y ago

Although this may not be a secret anymore and it is a recruiting funnel - this gives many lacking a STEM or mid/top/elite CS background an opportunity to prove themselves. This seems like a great way to get noticed and bypass many of the unconscious biases instilled into engineering recruitment through training and experience.

GVIrish 11y ago
Wouldn't Google still filter people based on their education and experience? This programming test could get someone a call but doesn't Google still only hire college graduates with a STEM or CS background (for technical roles)?
- throwaway9009 11y ago
  Not necessarily. There are engineers without the prerequisite STEM or CS background, as well as folks without any degree. Even coding bootcamps. Talent is talent.

nxb 11y ago

> 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 employees instead. Right in line with Google's reputation.

x00gler123 11y ago
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 voted "top employer" year after year. A lot of people want to work for them, so they can afford to be picky in the interview process; but that doesn't mean anything is broken. Quite the opposite actually. As per the secrecy; I reckon they want to keep part of their process secret so that people don't try to game it. At the scale they are operating (millions of applications per year) you obviously need some standardized tech testing for the first interview rounds (where no engineer is present yet) and if everybody just posted their questions and answers online you could kind of forget about that.
- nxb 11y ago
  I'd just note -- both total-profit and profit-per-employee are REALLY terrible ways to predict employee happiness. Just look at some of those rankings. They're a really mixed bag of both exploitive and great employers. I mention this because I always hear inexperienced people from small towns using those metrics, in isolation, to rank their employer choices. It's such a bad approach. I'd even argue that highly-negative profit, pre-profitability employers can be far better for tech employees. - High profit = the company's major problems are already figured out, they already have a money-making machine, they don't desperately need you and in fact you may be a liability who could break their already profitable machine. They could fire nearly everyone and possibly continue making bags of cash for a very long time. - Highly negative in profit = they desperately need someone to solve their problems fast, which in tech product companies is often by making some new tech. Without you, they're nearly guaranteed to end up very screwed.

forgottenpass 11y ago

>So first of all this is not "a secret" >Second, they tell every applicant that openly discussing the interview process (esp blogging about it) will get you disqualified/blacklisted ...but it was on an internal newsletter, so that makes it public?

drewg123 11y ago

This guy says he was able to skip the technical phone screen, which is pretty non-standard as far as I remember. So it seems there is something a bit special about this process.

drcross 11y ago
If you can't pass a technical phone screen with a drone from HR reading a list of Q/A's you're going to have bigger trouble down the line.
- super_mario 11y ago
  Google phone screen isn't with a recruiter. It's 3 one hour long phone interviews with engineers where you program solutions to problems in a shared google document. Some of the questions you get asked are absolutely non-trivial and will take you an hour to solve.
  - x00gler123 11y ago
    What you are describing is one of the proper phone screens with engineers. Before that they will sometimes do another round of screening that is just a HR person reading standard questions and checking if you got the correct answers (most of these questions have numeric or very specific answers that are binary correct/wrong and can be checked by a layperson)
    - joesmo 11y ago
      I'd hardly call it proper. You're asked to code some stupid problems in a Google Doc (which is extremely bad at handling code), while the other person's waiting around on the other line impatiently, asking stupid questions like 'how can you make this faster?' If that's a proper interview, I'd hate to see what's improper. At the very least, they should give you quiet time to work alone. I don't expect to be working while someone else is talking to me, asking me questions, or breathing down my neck, but apparently this is a required skill at Google and most other places that use such idiotic "interviewing" techniques. I'm certain they are losing out on a lot of great talent simply because of this.

calcsam 11y ago

Friend of the author. The posted date was his first day at Google.

coldtea 11y ago

>So first of all this is not "a secret" at all and you don't need to be "special" to do it. And of course you don't get targeted personally but they do an automated/anonymous match on your search history. Yeah, and there were no magical unicorns involved, what a dissapointment. That said, I think all these premises are wrong. Clearly this was indeed a secret. It wasn't publicly announced to be happening, only appeared to selected individuals. Second, you do need to be special. Special doesn't mean to have some mutated X gene, just that it doesn't apply to everybody, but only those matching specific criteria. In this case you have to have the skills to be able to trigger the process (with matching query results) and then complete the puzzles. That would leave 99.99 of the population out. As for the fact that "you don't get targeted personally but they do an automated/anonymous match on your search history", in the end you do get targeted personally (if you succeed), and obviously even people who get targeted personally "from the start" are first targeted by automated matches between tons of candidates. I don't think some recruiter just pops up a name out of the blue because they personally know them.

burgerdev 11y ago
> Clearly this was indeed a secret. This is from January: http://jacquerie.github.io/google-foobar-post-mortem/ http://jacquerie.github.io/google-foobar-post-mortem/