9 ms·

Google Hiring Committee Stories

82 points by brlewis 17y ago

amichail 17y ago
Human nature being what it is... one has to wonder: is there a sadistic element to these technical interviews?
- aristus 17y ago
  I would say no. Or rarely. High-pressure work breeds a certain humor (eg ER medics) that can be mistaken for callousness.
  - amichail 17y ago
    Couldn't high-pressure work also lead to sadism as a way to relieve that pressure?
    - aristus 17y ago
      Yes, but rarely, in my experience. That kind of behavior is ultimately self-defeating.
  - scott_s 17y ago
    I'm reading Homicide by David Simon right now (yes, Simon also created a tv show by the same name). The banter of the homicide detectives is a clear example of this, too. It's just one way we (by which I mean humans) cope when faced with constant, high stress situations.
- neilk 17y ago
  Yes and no. I would say that most Googlers would genuinely prefer that the candidate succeed. And Google has interview training that is supposed to help the interviewer put the candidate at ease, and get a fair result. But as you say, it's human nature. People who are defensive about their Googlerhood, or just lazy about interviewing, usually ask unfair questions. Ridiculous 'aha' puzzlers, for example. And my personal pet peeve, asking the candidate to solve a problem that you just solved a couple of days ago (perhaps after several days of collaboration and research).
  - jey 17y ago
    > And my personal pet peeve, asking the candidate to solve a problem that you just solved a couple of days ago (perhaps after several days of collaboration and research). I think these types of questions lead to some of the best discussions between interviewer and interviewee. The interviewee should realize that they aren't expected to just pull a perfect solution right out of thin air -- instead the point is to have a dialogue with the interviewer so that the interviewer can see how you think and communicate. And having a couple of big hard problems that the interviewee doesn't have enough information for an immediate solution is a good approach: you can see what kinds of questions the interviewee asks, how he tries to attack it, and the interviewer can provide information and nudges along the way, having all the background information fresh in his head.
    - brg 17y ago
      In my reading of interview feedback, too many interviewers don't understand that the candidate shouldn't be expected to pull a perfrect solution right out of the air. Often too much criticism is feedback is placed on the fact that the candidate went through three or so iterations and too much emphasis is placed upon the fact that the candidate's initial solution was quadratic or worse. This really should reflect strong analytical thinking.
    - neilk 17y ago
      I suppose that could happen in the best circumstance. But in my experience, there are two things wrong with the "here's a problem I solved last week" question: - the scenario is way too specific. Say you have some unusually pathological database that was developed in house, and you need to query it using a proprietary wire format that only your company uses. And you discover some kind of trick that sort of works. This is a TERRIBLE question to ask a candidate, but I've seen it done. The candidate is fighting in the dark, trying to grasp the outlines of the problem, for the full ten minutes. - asking about stuff you did last week leads to the interviewer comparing themselves with the interviewee. A fair-minded person can see there might be other approaches. Most people are proud of their own solutions though, and won't accept alternative answers. It's better, psychologically, to use a problem you aren't personally invested in.
ajju 17y ago
As with all committees, Google's hiring committees seem to fail at one important metric: speed. I know a lot of smart kids who didn't end up at Google because it took them two or three months to hear back about their interview results and by the time they had already accepted another offer. I like erring on the side of caution and tough interviews, but there has to be a faster way of doing that. At companies where a manager is hiring for her team, once she has found a good candidate she will want to hire them quickly. There is a sense of urgency. It seems to me that one side effect of not having hiring managers is that this sense of urgency is lost and so no one is really motivated to push for getting back to individual candidates on time.
- oliveoil 17y ago
  So the really smart people find a job in the meantime, the not as smart are DOA for the interviewers/committees. I've always suspected the majority of engineers actually got in together with a business Google had acquired rather than being hired directly. At least it looks much easier.
  - btilly 17y ago
    A lot of the people Google goes after are people who are not actively on the job market. Being slow does not hurt as much with that group. We do try to expedite the process if we think someone is actively looking, but it is a cumbersome process and can only be expedited so much. :-(
    - endtime 17y ago
      While of course there are limits to how fast you can get back to candidates, you should know that from "we'd like to schedule a first-round interview" to "we do/don't have a position for you", Microsoft is about 5 times faster than you, and Amazon is about 15 times faster. That's the case for or internships, anyway, to which my experience is limited. I've heard it's pretty much the same story for full time positions.
      - 17y ago
brown9-2 17y ago
Has anyone read Piaw's book? http://books.piaw.net/guide/index.html http://books.piaw.net/guide/index.html
- wololo 17y ago
  yes - it's good! i kind of wish it were longer.
  - piaw 17y ago
    Thanks for the kind words! If there are additional topics you think should have been covered but weren't, please let me know.
- shalmanese 17y ago
  I have, and unlike the previous poster, I appreciated how short it was. I'm so used to books packing in a lot of fluff to appear fatter and better value for money. This book is thin but it's dense with information.
  - piaw 17y ago
    Now that's a compliment. Thanks!
rix0r 17y ago
As I'm in Google's hiring process right now, it was interesting to read this story. It does make me a little nervous though, as I'd really like to work there but it seems the chance of rejection is really high and I didn't get the impression that I did exceptionally well on the interviews.
- durin42 17y ago
  I've heard it said (and experienced myself) that the hiring system at Google is designed to favor false negatives in order to reduce the risk of false positives. I know of plenty of cases where the first (and sometimes even second) trip through the hiring machine at Google rejected someone who now is happily employed there.
eplanit 17y ago
At one time, decision-making by Bureaucracy and Committees was considered a weakness and failing of large corporate institutions -- a negative, to be succinct. I guess it's different when you're a Committee member. Or, maybe its just another reality that Google has changed (yes, I'm being sarcastic). This writer, being a member of such a process and committee, is unsurprisingly very self-congratulatory about how it works, and seems quite enamored of himself and his committee-mates. "And then I told this really clever joke, and we all laughed....". I'm not learning much here except that Google has achieved a Cult following within its ranks. I say that in congratulation to Google - they're doing it better than M$ did in the 1980s.
- deleted 17y ago
  [deleted]
- elblanco 17y ago
  Ha! I made the candidate so nervous he peed in his pants! No way were we going to hire him after that! I don't think I was particularly harsh. Just wanted to see what it would take to make them cry. Because that's exactly the kind of people we are looking for at Google. Because it mirrors the work environment so well! High-five to me!
  - shalmanese 17y ago
    I know the author IRL and he's one of the nicest people I know. He's also incredibly whip-smart and, I suspect, the reason why it's so unnerving interviewing with him is that he can surgically hone in on your exact areas of weakness and gaps in your knowledge. People who have survived all these years on pretty lines of bullshit and puffed up records will find the interview process harrowing. People who are smart, humble & enthusiastic should do fine.
    - ardit33 17y ago
      I think that shows that the author may be a poor interviewer (at least on a first glance). It is the job of the interviewer to make the interviewee to feel at ease, and relaxed as much as possible. Some people get very nervous in interviews, and panic a bit, and some of them can be very good engineers. It seems the author's "surgically honing", is more of a "look at me, I know more than you do", ego stroking type of thing. Since I do interview people often (not google, but another top company on the valley), I make sure to make people at ease. When I was younger and stupid, my first instinct was to find the interviewee weakness and 'hone' on them. Looking back, that was plain stupid. It helped me make myself feel good than actually do any good to the process. I gained later on some insight on my behavior once I was on the other side. Since then I made sure to be really really fair and unbiased on the questions I ask. You need to find both strengths and weaknesses of a candidate, but make sure not to trigger a panic induced 'coder's block'. Otherwise you failed as a interviewer.
vinhboy 17y ago
Besides knowing someone who will recommend you, how exactly do you even get an interview?
- mortenjorck 17y ago
  The best way I know is to work on something innovative that gets some press.
- felixc 17y ago
  You fill out an application and send in a resume. Works surprisingly well.
  - timcederman 17y ago
    Only if you went to the 'right' school or previously worked for the 'right' company. There are a lot of screens prior to a human reading your resume, and without a recommendation, you have a slim chance of a callback.
  - j_baker 17y ago
    It hasn't worked surprisingly well for me. I've been told by several people that Google's hiring department is a black hole.
- angelbob 17y ago
  They troll LinkedIn a fair bit -- Google recruiters ask after me a couple of times a year.
  - spudlyo 17y ago
    I too have been getting pinged by google recruiters from LinkedIn about once a quarter. I ignore them. I'm highly annoyed by what I consider to be bullshit interview questions, it's likely I'll never interview there.
    - illumin8 17y ago
blueag 17y ago
Google is the Borg now.
zavulon 17y ago
"Lucas's feedback for the candidate started with, "I spent the first five minutes of my interview calming the candidate down after his interview with Piaw..." When the others got to this part of the feedback there was a lot of laughter. I think that was the moment I realized that Bogdan and I would get along, because he high-fived me across the table." You're a douchebag. I don't think I'm breaking HN etiquette, because I would have no problem saying it to the guy's face.

82 points by brlewis 17y ago

amichail 17y ago

Human nature being what it is... one has to wonder: is there a sadistic element to these technical interviews?

aristus 17y ago
I would say no. Or rarely. High-pressure work breeds a certain humor (eg ER medics) that can be mistaken for callousness.
- amichail 17y ago
  Couldn't high-pressure work also lead to sadism as a way to relieve that pressure?
  - aristus 17y ago
    Yes, but rarely, in my experience. That kind of behavior is ultimately self-defeating.
- scott_s 17y ago
  I'm reading Homicide by David Simon right now (yes, Simon also created a tv show by the same name). The banter of the homicide detectives is a clear example of this, too. It's just one way we (by which I mean humans) cope when faced with constant, high stress situations.
neilk 17y ago
Yes and no. I would say that most Googlers would genuinely prefer that the candidate succeed. And Google has interview training that is supposed to help the interviewer put the candidate at ease, and get a fair result. But as you say, it's human nature. People who are defensive about their Googlerhood, or just lazy about interviewing, usually ask unfair questions. Ridiculous 'aha' puzzlers, for example. And my personal pet peeve, asking the candidate to solve a problem that you just solved a couple of days ago (perhaps after several days of collaboration and research).
- jey 17y ago
  > And my personal pet peeve, asking the candidate to solve a problem that you just solved a couple of days ago (perhaps after several days of collaboration and research). I think these types of questions lead to some of the best discussions between interviewer and interviewee. The interviewee should realize that they aren't expected to just pull a perfect solution right out of thin air -- instead the point is to have a dialogue with the interviewer so that the interviewer can see how you think and communicate. And having a couple of big hard problems that the interviewee doesn't have enough information for an immediate solution is a good approach: you can see what kinds of questions the interviewee asks, how he tries to attack it, and the interviewer can provide information and nudges along the way, having all the background information fresh in his head.
  - brg 17y ago
    In my reading of interview feedback, too many interviewers don't understand that the candidate shouldn't be expected to pull a perfrect solution right out of the air. Often too much criticism is feedback is placed on the fact that the candidate went through three or so iterations and too much emphasis is placed upon the fact that the candidate's initial solution was quadratic or worse. This really should reflect strong analytical thinking.
  - neilk 17y ago
    I suppose that could happen in the best circumstance. But in my experience, there are two things wrong with the "here's a problem I solved last week" question: - the scenario is way too specific. Say you have some unusually pathological database that was developed in house, and you need to query it using a proprietary wire format that only your company uses. And you discover some kind of trick that sort of works. This is a TERRIBLE question to ask a candidate, but I've seen it done. The candidate is fighting in the dark, trying to grasp the outlines of the problem, for the full ten minutes. - asking about stuff you did last week leads to the interviewer comparing themselves with the interviewee. A fair-minded person can see there might be other approaches. Most people are proud of their own solutions though, and won't accept alternative answers. It's better, psychologically, to use a problem you aren't personally invested in.

ajju 17y ago

As with all committees, Google's hiring committees seem to fail at one important metric: speed. I know a lot of smart kids who didn't end up at Google because it took them two or three months to hear back about their interview results and by the time they had already accepted another offer. I like erring on the side of caution and tough interviews, but there has to be a faster way of doing that. At companies where a manager is hiring for her team, once she has found a good candidate she will want to hire them quickly. There is a sense of urgency. It seems to me that one side effect of not having hiring managers is that this sense of urgency is lost and so no one is really motivated to push for getting back to individual candidates on time.

oliveoil 17y ago
So the really smart people find a job in the meantime, the not as smart are DOA for the interviewers/committees. I've always suspected the majority of engineers actually got in together with a business Google had acquired rather than being hired directly. At least it looks much easier.
- btilly 17y ago
  A lot of the people Google goes after are people who are not actively on the job market. Being slow does not hurt as much with that group. We do try to expedite the process if we think someone is actively looking, but it is a cumbersome process and can only be expedited so much. :-(
  - endtime 17y ago
    While of course there are limits to how fast you can get back to candidates, you should know that from "we'd like to schedule a first-round interview" to "we do/don't have a position for you", Microsoft is about 5 times faster than you, and Amazon is about 15 times faster. That's the case for or internships, anyway, to which my experience is limited. I've heard it's pretty much the same story for full time positions.
    - 17y ago

brown9-2 17y ago

Has anyone read Piaw's book? http://books.piaw.net/guide/index.html http://books.piaw.net/guide/index.html

wololo 17y ago
yes - it's good! i kind of wish it were longer.
- piaw 17y ago
  Thanks for the kind words! If there are additional topics you think should have been covered but weren't, please let me know.
shalmanese 17y ago
I have, and unlike the previous poster, I appreciated how short it was. I'm so used to books packing in a lot of fluff to appear fatter and better value for money. This book is thin but it's dense with information.
- piaw 17y ago
  Now that's a compliment. Thanks!

rix0r 17y ago

As I'm in Google's hiring process right now, it was interesting to read this story. It does make me a little nervous though, as I'd really like to work there but it seems the chance of rejection is really high and I didn't get the impression that I did exceptionally well on the interviews.

durin42 17y ago
I've heard it said (and experienced myself) that the hiring system at Google is designed to favor false negatives in order to reduce the risk of false positives. I know of plenty of cases where the first (and sometimes even second) trip through the hiring machine at Google rejected someone who now is happily employed there.

eplanit 17y ago

At one time, decision-making by Bureaucracy and Committees was considered a weakness and failing of large corporate institutions -- a negative, to be succinct. I guess it's different when you're a Committee member. Or, maybe its just another reality that Google has changed (yes, I'm being sarcastic). This writer, being a member of such a process and committee, is unsurprisingly very self-congratulatory about how it works, and seems quite enamored of himself and his committee-mates. "And then I told this really clever joke, and we all laughed....". I'm not learning much here except that Google has achieved a Cult following within its ranks. I say that in congratulation to Google - they're doing it better than M$ did in the 1980s.

deleted 17y ago
[deleted]
elblanco 17y ago
Ha! I made the candidate so nervous he peed in his pants! No way were we going to hire him after that! I don't think I was particularly harsh. Just wanted to see what it would take to make them cry. Because that's exactly the kind of people we are looking for at Google. Because it mirrors the work environment so well! High-five to me!
- shalmanese 17y ago
  I know the author IRL and he's one of the nicest people I know. He's also incredibly whip-smart and, I suspect, the reason why it's so unnerving interviewing with him is that he can surgically hone in on your exact areas of weakness and gaps in your knowledge. People who have survived all these years on pretty lines of bullshit and puffed up records will find the interview process harrowing. People who are smart, humble & enthusiastic should do fine.
  - ardit33 17y ago
    I think that shows that the author may be a poor interviewer (at least on a first glance). It is the job of the interviewer to make the interviewee to feel at ease, and relaxed as much as possible. Some people get very nervous in interviews, and panic a bit, and some of them can be very good engineers. It seems the author's "surgically honing", is more of a "look at me, I know more than you do", ego stroking type of thing. Since I do interview people often (not google, but another top company on the valley), I make sure to make people at ease. When I was younger and stupid, my first instinct was to find the interviewee weakness and 'hone' on them. Looking back, that was plain stupid. It helped me make myself feel good than actually do any good to the process. I gained later on some insight on my behavior once I was on the other side. Since then I made sure to be really really fair and unbiased on the questions I ask. You need to find both strengths and weaknesses of a candidate, but make sure not to trigger a panic induced 'coder's block'. Otherwise you failed as a interviewer.

vinhboy 17y ago

Besides knowing someone who will recommend you, how exactly do you even get an interview?

mortenjorck 17y ago
The best way I know is to work on something innovative that gets some press.
felixc 17y ago
You fill out an application and send in a resume. Works surprisingly well.
- timcederman 17y ago
  Only if you went to the 'right' school or previously worked for the 'right' company. There are a lot of screens prior to a human reading your resume, and without a recommendation, you have a slim chance of a callback.
- j_baker 17y ago
  It hasn't worked surprisingly well for me. I've been told by several people that Google's hiring department is a black hole.
angelbob 17y ago
They troll LinkedIn a fair bit -- Google recruiters ask after me a couple of times a year.
- spudlyo 17y ago
  I too have been getting pinged by google recruiters from LinkedIn about once a quarter. I ignore them. I'm highly annoyed by what I consider to be bullshit interview questions, it's likely I'll never interview there.
  - illumin8 17y ago

blueag 17y ago

Google is the Borg now.

zavulon 17y ago

"Lucas's feedback for the candidate started with, "I spent the first five minutes of my interview calming the candidate down after his interview with Piaw..." When the others got to this part of the feedback there was a lot of laughter. I think that was the moment I realized that Bogdan and I would get along, because he high-fived me across the table." You're a douchebag. I don't think I'm breaking HN etiquette, because I would have no problem saying it to the guy's face.