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I recently had a telephone interview with Google for a systems engineering position. I'm not incredibly impressed by their process of finding talent. Backgrou

I recently had a telephone interview with Google for a systems engineering position. I'm not incredibly impressed by their process of finding talent. Background: I provided the hiring guy with architecture diagrams of some pretty large scale systems that I had designed: database clusters with 1TB of RAM and 72TB of disk, 10GbE network, etc. I not only designed, I also implemented these systems, so I'm a pretty senior architecture engineer with 18 years of solid UNIX/Linux, SAN storage, and networking experience. Long story short, I missed a very basic question "what does setting the sticky bit on a directory do?" I blanked because I wasn't expecting to answer basic sysadmin questions, and hadn't honestly set the sticky bit on a directory for several years. So, they sent me a nicely worded email that after careful consideration, we don't have a position that matches you, etc. The hiring process at Google is really messed up. I gather that the only qualifications they are really looking for are: 1. Fresh college graduates that memorized man pages. 2. Willing to work 80 hour weeks. 3. Don't care about salary because we're not going to pay much. I mean seriously, you don't turn down a senior architecture engineer with 18+ years of experience because he blanked on a stupid memorization question that can be googled in 10 seconds.

btilly 17y ago
Within Google we've noticed that the people who complain about the process are most often the ones who don't get in. How do you know that the basic question is what sank you? Is it possible that the interviewer didn't like the architectures that you came up with? Or perhaps you left the impression that you would not like to find yourself in a hands on position where you have to do things like set the sticky bit? (Based on this post I'd get that impression myself. But everyone here is hands on. "Architecture Astronaut" is not a job type we want to encourage.) But whatever the cause, I absolutely guarantee that all three of the qualifications that you think we have are wrong. Because I am none of the three and managed to get hired.
- eru 17y ago
  > Within Google we've noticed that the people who complain about the process are most often the ones who don't get in. Self-selection (in both directions)?
- endtime 17y ago
  >Within Google we've noticed that the people who complain about the process are most often the ones who don't get in. Well, yeah. New employees aren't going to want to start off on a bad foot, so they won't say anything. But I have several friends who've been hired by Google and they all told me they found the recruiting process to be extremely frustrating and, at times, insulting. Their experiences are really no different than mine (I applied for an APM internship a couple years ago, and passed two rounds of interviews and submitted an essay before being turned down, so you guys must have been at least a little interested in me).
  - prospero 17y ago
    I've just gone through the process (succesfully), and while it dragged on longer than seemed necessary, I didn't find it insulting. What exactly happened?
    - timr 17y ago
      Part of what I found insulting when I went through it: I could have been interviewing for kitchen staff, for all the information I was given. I was being screened intensely on relatively arbitrary criteria by relatively unpleasant people (as far as I could tell!), but I could get no assurance from anyone that I was interviewing for a position that I would find interesting, or even that I would be working with people whom I liked. When you interview with Google, you're operating on faith that the interminable, silly process will result in a position that makes you happy. But there's rarely any assurance that you'll get a job that you enjoy, or even that you'll work with people that you don't find extremely annoying. This sort of interview process works better for inexperienced people than it does for more senior employees, who tend to want luxuries like career growth and cultural fit.
      - illumin8 17y ago
        Exactly. I found that they couldn't even give me a job description. They just told me some hand waving statement like "we have a number of open positions in several engineering departments and we look at your qualifications and match you to one." In addition you interview with a bunch of sometimes friendly, yet sometimes extremely condescending engineers. Some of the engineers I interviewed with were very respectful and corteous, while others acted as if I were wasting their time. In general, I got the impression that Google is full of huge egos and that I should feel lucky if I had the opportunity to work there. No other company would act like this toward potential employees. In any case, another disadvantage to working at Google is that they are getting involved in so many businesses, almost any side project is likely to become their property. The company I work at now is great because as long as I don't compete with their vertical, I can start any business I want on the side.
- rue 17y ago
  Sr. Architect Astronaut Cowboy Millionaire.
- privacy_token 17y ago
  I'll disagree on the notion that Google's hiring practices don't allow a small error to derail the entire process. Basically, within Google we haven't noticed any of the problems around our hiring practices enough to solve them. The problems are clear; unfocused interview loops leading to poor feedback, much too long process between phone screen and receiving approval from MTV, a focus on hiring those good at interviewing and not those good at engineering (hiring scores do not correlate with performance scores), and ignoring experience by offering salaries or positions significantly below candidate's current levels in the industry. We end up being a place which is great for college hires and those getting their first chance, e.g. moving from test to dev, but not for experienced hires. And the effect is larger in some groups than others, but the senior engineers on my floor are mainly those without motivation to advance their careers and move on, even to internal projects.
  - btilly 17y ago
    Let's walk through the criticisms you make. unfocused interview loops leading to poor feedback Yes, and it sounds like that is an issue they are trying to address that. much too long process between phone screen and receiving approval from MTV Absolutely. I am an outlier there. I took over a year from initial interview to hire thanks to the hiring freeze. I'd like to see us A/B test different interview formats to figure out how much of the process we can remove without hurting the performance of the people we hire. a focus on hiring those good at interviewing and not those good at engineering (hiring scores do not correlate with performance scores) This is not so simple. There is a skill to impressing people, and everyone has trouble limiting its impact on interviews. My impression is that Google does much better than most. For instance how many times have you heard someone say that their impression was really good, but when they went through the notes the person wasn't as good as they seemed. That is a case where someone's interview skills didn't have its usual impact. The best anyone has managed do with any hiring process is to filter out the vast majority of bad people. Successfully ranking the best is pretty much impossible. The toy model I offer at http://bentilly.blogspot.com/2010/02/what-is-intelligence.html http://bentilly.blogspot.com/2010/02/what-is-intelligence.ht... is a pretty good explanation of why. Just replace TST with "interview skills", INT with "actual performance" and IQ with "hiring scores". Since both actual performance and ability to interview affect your interview results, being really selective winds up with people who are good at both, and not those whose performance is truly exceptional. ignoring experience by offering salaries or positions significantly below candidate's current levels in the industry. This I'll actively disagree with. Google is in a strong negotiating position. They would be amiss to their shareholders to not negotiate well. Particularly since the ability difference between "got in solidly" and "just missed the cut" is rather small. But even so, if you're good at negotiating, the salary drop is much less. And there are various kinds of incentives that make your overall compensation significantly more than just your salary. Besides, whenever you put people into a different kind of job than they have had before, you run a real risk that they will prove not to be a good fit. A drop in compensation is only appropriate in that situation. And Google's environment is different enough that lots of people wind up in that situation. (For instance I'm an SRE. That's a Google role that you don't find elsewhere.)
- illumin8 17y ago
  I upvoted you because I appreciate the feedback. Just to let you know, 3 years ago I interviewed with Google, made it through the recruiter phone screen, the second "technical phone screen", and flew to Mountain View to do the in-person interview. The entire process took about 3 months, and at the end of it all, I was told: "At this point, we're going to be pausing on the recruiting for this position and therefore will not be scheduling any additional candidates for this role. Because the company is in a major push to meet certain software hiring numbers soon, the majority of our operations positions are slowing down at this point. I really appreciate your patience and flexibility with us. I'll be keeping your information here on file and once things begin to move again, AND if you're still interested in us, I'll be in contact." This was back in 2007, now they contact me in 2010, and I don't even make it past the initial phone screen. The interview process at Google is probably one of the worst I have been through. I understand you want to put everyone on the spot and make them write code on a white board right in front of you, without any access to a computer, compiler, tab completion, or any of the niceties of a modern IDE, but please: If you're a software engineer interviewing system engineers, don't expect them to regurgitate code verbatim without errors every time. I can write a quick Perl or shell script when needed but I don't live in an IDE all day long and I don't think of every solution as a software solution. Sometimes a good hardware solution can fix bad software. I do it every day, over-engineering hardware to accommodate bad code. But seriously, if anything, I'm overqualified for a position there and perhaps that is the problem. Google just comes off as a company that wasted a lot of my time in their hiring process. I'm happy to work in my corporate job and pull in $200K/yr. as a senior systems engineer. Google probably wouldn't pay me that much anyway.
- nobody-big 17y ago
  I wouldn't hold Google up as a platonic ideal of hiring. It's a big company and who you draw as an interviewer matters. It's quite possible that random chance sank the parent commenter and not anything he did. On average the quality of the Google hiring process may be high but it is far from consistent. They've hired some people I consider incompetent. My own interview process was horrible. A friend of mine (who is awesome) had a challenging interview process and they hired him anyway because they liked the way he thought (that's how it is supposed to work!). They seem to hire good people on average. But they are not infallible.
- chromatic 17y ago
  Is it sour grapes to complain that on multiple occasions that Google recruiters have contacted me unsolicited? That they've told me that "A Googler recommended you for an open position?" That they couldn't identify the person or the position or the reason for the recommendation? That they knew nothing about me or what I know or have done and can do? That they promised to ask the recommender for more details and talk to me again? That they've disappeared for several weeks and then said "Let's just go through the normal interview process and figure out where to put you?" At least the much maligned headhunters (sorry, "IT Recruiters") are more honest about their intentions. This has happened multiple times, every one unsolicited. I'm sure it'll happen again in 12 to 18 months.

btilly 17y ago

Within Google we've noticed that the people who complain about the process are most often the ones who don't get in. How do you know that the basic question is what sank you? Is it possible that the interviewer didn't like the architectures that you came up with? Or perhaps you left the impression that you would not like to find yourself in a hands on position where you have to do things like set the sticky bit? (Based on this post I'd get that impression myself. But everyone here is hands on. "Architecture Astronaut" is not a job type we want to encourage.) But whatever the cause, I absolutely guarantee that all three of the qualifications that you think we have are wrong. Because I am none of the three and managed to get hired.

eru 17y ago
> Within Google we've noticed that the people who complain about the process are most often the ones who don't get in. Self-selection (in both directions)?
endtime 17y ago
>Within Google we've noticed that the people who complain about the process are most often the ones who don't get in. Well, yeah. New employees aren't going to want to start off on a bad foot, so they won't say anything. But I have several friends who've been hired by Google and they all told me they found the recruiting process to be extremely frustrating and, at times, insulting. Their experiences are really no different than mine (I applied for an APM internship a couple years ago, and passed two rounds of interviews and submitted an essay before being turned down, so you guys must have been at least a little interested in me).
- prospero 17y ago
  I've just gone through the process (succesfully), and while it dragged on longer than seemed necessary, I didn't find it insulting. What exactly happened?
  - timr 17y ago
    Part of what I found insulting when I went through it: I could have been interviewing for kitchen staff, for all the information I was given. I was being screened intensely on relatively arbitrary criteria by relatively unpleasant people (as far as I could tell!), but I could get no assurance from anyone that I was interviewing for a position that I would find interesting, or even that I would be working with people whom I liked. When you interview with Google, you're operating on faith that the interminable, silly process will result in a position that makes you happy. But there's rarely any assurance that you'll get a job that you enjoy, or even that you'll work with people that you don't find extremely annoying. This sort of interview process works better for inexperienced people than it does for more senior employees, who tend to want luxuries like career growth and cultural fit.
    - illumin8 17y ago
      Exactly. I found that they couldn't even give me a job description. They just told me some hand waving statement like "we have a number of open positions in several engineering departments and we look at your qualifications and match you to one." In addition you interview with a bunch of sometimes friendly, yet sometimes extremely condescending engineers. Some of the engineers I interviewed with were very respectful and corteous, while others acted as if I were wasting their time. In general, I got the impression that Google is full of huge egos and that I should feel lucky if I had the opportunity to work there. No other company would act like this toward potential employees. In any case, another disadvantage to working at Google is that they are getting involved in so many businesses, almost any side project is likely to become their property. The company I work at now is great because as long as I don't compete with their vertical, I can start any business I want on the side.
rue 17y ago
Sr. Architect Astronaut Cowboy Millionaire.
privacy_token 17y ago
I'll disagree on the notion that Google's hiring practices don't allow a small error to derail the entire process. Basically, within Google we haven't noticed any of the problems around our hiring practices enough to solve them. The problems are clear; unfocused interview loops leading to poor feedback, much too long process between phone screen and receiving approval from MTV, a focus on hiring those good at interviewing and not those good at engineering (hiring scores do not correlate with performance scores), and ignoring experience by offering salaries or positions significantly below candidate's current levels in the industry. We end up being a place which is great for college hires and those getting their first chance, e.g. moving from test to dev, but not for experienced hires. And the effect is larger in some groups than others, but the senior engineers on my floor are mainly those without motivation to advance their careers and move on, even to internal projects.
- btilly 17y ago
  Let's walk through the criticisms you make. unfocused interview loops leading to poor feedback Yes, and it sounds like that is an issue they are trying to address that. much too long process between phone screen and receiving approval from MTV Absolutely. I am an outlier there. I took over a year from initial interview to hire thanks to the hiring freeze. I'd like to see us A/B test different interview formats to figure out how much of the process we can remove without hurting the performance of the people we hire. a focus on hiring those good at interviewing and not those good at engineering (hiring scores do not correlate with performance scores) This is not so simple. There is a skill to impressing people, and everyone has trouble limiting its impact on interviews. My impression is that Google does much better than most. For instance how many times have you heard someone say that their impression was really good, but when they went through the notes the person wasn't as good as they seemed. That is a case where someone's interview skills didn't have its usual impact. The best anyone has managed do with any hiring process is to filter out the vast majority of bad people. Successfully ranking the best is pretty much impossible. The toy model I offer at http://bentilly.blogspot.com/2010/02/what-is-intelligence.html http://bentilly.blogspot.com/2010/02/what-is-intelligence.ht... is a pretty good explanation of why. Just replace TST with "interview skills", INT with "actual performance" and IQ with "hiring scores". Since both actual performance and ability to interview affect your interview results, being really selective winds up with people who are good at both, and not those whose performance is truly exceptional. ignoring experience by offering salaries or positions significantly below candidate's current levels in the industry. This I'll actively disagree with. Google is in a strong negotiating position. They would be amiss to their shareholders to not negotiate well. Particularly since the ability difference between "got in solidly" and "just missed the cut" is rather small. But even so, if you're good at negotiating, the salary drop is much less. And there are various kinds of incentives that make your overall compensation significantly more than just your salary. Besides, whenever you put people into a different kind of job than they have had before, you run a real risk that they will prove not to be a good fit. A drop in compensation is only appropriate in that situation. And Google's environment is different enough that lots of people wind up in that situation. (For instance I'm an SRE. That's a Google role that you don't find elsewhere.)
illumin8 17y ago
I upvoted you because I appreciate the feedback. Just to let you know, 3 years ago I interviewed with Google, made it through the recruiter phone screen, the second "technical phone screen", and flew to Mountain View to do the in-person interview. The entire process took about 3 months, and at the end of it all, I was told: "At this point, we're going to be pausing on the recruiting for this position and therefore will not be scheduling any additional candidates for this role. Because the company is in a major push to meet certain software hiring numbers soon, the majority of our operations positions are slowing down at this point. I really appreciate your patience and flexibility with us. I'll be keeping your information here on file and once things begin to move again, AND if you're still interested in us, I'll be in contact." This was back in 2007, now they contact me in 2010, and I don't even make it past the initial phone screen. The interview process at Google is probably one of the worst I have been through. I understand you want to put everyone on the spot and make them write code on a white board right in front of you, without any access to a computer, compiler, tab completion, or any of the niceties of a modern IDE, but please: If you're a software engineer interviewing system engineers, don't expect them to regurgitate code verbatim without errors every time. I can write a quick Perl or shell script when needed but I don't live in an IDE all day long and I don't think of every solution as a software solution. Sometimes a good hardware solution can fix bad software. I do it every day, over-engineering hardware to accommodate bad code. But seriously, if anything, I'm overqualified for a position there and perhaps that is the problem. Google just comes off as a company that wasted a lot of my time in their hiring process. I'm happy to work in my corporate job and pull in $200K/yr. as a senior systems engineer. Google probably wouldn't pay me that much anyway.
nobody-big 17y ago
I wouldn't hold Google up as a platonic ideal of hiring. It's a big company and who you draw as an interviewer matters. It's quite possible that random chance sank the parent commenter and not anything he did. On average the quality of the Google hiring process may be high but it is far from consistent. They've hired some people I consider incompetent. My own interview process was horrible. A friend of mine (who is awesome) had a challenging interview process and they hired him anyway because they liked the way he thought (that's how it is supposed to work!). They seem to hire good people on average. But they are not infallible.
chromatic 17y ago
Is it sour grapes to complain that on multiple occasions that Google recruiters have contacted me unsolicited? That they've told me that "A Googler recommended you for an open position?" That they couldn't identify the person or the position or the reason for the recommendation? That they knew nothing about me or what I know or have done and can do? That they promised to ask the recommender for more details and talk to me again? That they've disappeared for several weeks and then said "Let's just go through the normal interview process and figure out where to put you?" At least the much maligned headhunters (sorry, "IT Recruiters") are more honest about their intentions. This has happened multiple times, every one unsolicited. I'm sure it'll happen again in 12 to 18 months.