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That's wrong. The recruiter has a goal to get "correct" answers: if someone passes the interview without providing these answers via some "soft skills" (it more

That's wrong. The recruiter has a goal to get "correct" answers: if someone passes the interview without providing these answers via some "soft skills" (it more looks like a social engineering), then the recruiter fails. Because of that, there's no point in trying to explain your answers in hope, that recruiter will somehow agree that they match the answers from checklist. More adequate approach will be to find the way to bypass this interview, by finding the right contacts who have the adequate expertise and can make the hiring decisions. This situation is like trying to sell new fridge or delivery van to a waiter in restaurant, who was instructed to talk to business visitors while management is away. He was indeed put in charge, but he can do nothing for you or worse, communicate your offer to his boss in a wrong way, so you have to escalate - to find the contacts of management, to reach them etc. I think this story makes sense as an illustration of how not to hire people.

dkonofalski 10y ago
What's wrong? I think this is exactly why this test exists. They don't care if you get the "correct" answers at this stage in the process. This is a glorified personality test that, in my opinion, the author misinterpreted as a technical exam. Directors at Google are not going to be the people that know the answer to everything and talk down to people. They're the people that have technical skills while, more importantly, having the personality and people skills to actually direct people and communicate with people of varying skill levels. You and large amount of very technical people in this thread are the exact types of people that Google would, more than likely, try to avoid for a position like this.
- ivan_gammel 10y ago
  Well, it's just your wishful thinking that it's a such kind of interview, not reality, and any personal attacks on me won't help you to prove your point. I have software engineering management experience in multinational companies and I have hired other managers: there are much more effective ways to find a person with good soft skills than such remote screening with a purely technical checklist. This way it's simply too costly: first, you need really smart recruiter with good soft skills himself, so he will expose the candidate's weaknesses and strengths. Then, there should be very well designed checklist that will allow to derive candidate's mentality from answers on purely technical questions. That's almost impossible, I'd say.
  - dkonofalski 10y ago
    It's not my wishful thinking. Others in this thread have confirmed that they took a similar test when interviewing for Google and some of them actually got the job. One user even mentioned that the person doing the interview was a psychologist. I'm not attacking you. I'm simply saying that you're just like the author of the post. You assume, because the author says so", that this was a technical assessment when Google employees in this thread seem to be confirming that it is not. Your management experience is irrelevant to a basic failure to recognize this for what it is. This was a phone call. It's not like the interviewer was making these deductions of the interviewee simply by reading their answers on paper.

dkonofalski 10y ago

What's wrong? I think this is exactly why this test exists. They don't care if you get the "correct" answers at this stage in the process. This is a glorified personality test that, in my opinion, the author misinterpreted as a technical exam. Directors at Google are not going to be the people that know the answer to everything and talk down to people. They're the people that have technical skills while, more importantly, having the personality and people skills to actually direct people and communicate with people of varying skill levels. You and large amount of very technical people in this thread are the exact types of people that Google would, more than likely, try to avoid for a position like this.

ivan_gammel 10y ago
Well, it's just your wishful thinking that it's a such kind of interview, not reality, and any personal attacks on me won't help you to prove your point. I have software engineering management experience in multinational companies and I have hired other managers: there are much more effective ways to find a person with good soft skills than such remote screening with a purely technical checklist. This way it's simply too costly: first, you need really smart recruiter with good soft skills himself, so he will expose the candidate's weaknesses and strengths. Then, there should be very well designed checklist that will allow to derive candidate's mentality from answers on purely technical questions. That's almost impossible, I'd say.
- dkonofalski 10y ago
  It's not my wishful thinking. Others in this thread have confirmed that they took a similar test when interviewing for Google and some of them actually got the job. One user even mentioned that the person doing the interview was a psychologist. I'm not attacking you. I'm simply saying that you're just like the author of the post. You assume, because the author says so", that this was a technical assessment when Google employees in this thread seem to be confirming that it is not. Your management experience is irrelevant to a basic failure to recognize this for what it is. This was a phone call. It's not like the interviewer was making these deductions of the interviewee simply by reading their answers on paper.