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I interviewed at Google a million years ago and got the same sort of "trivia list", which was surprising to me. I passed most of them and everyone seemed excite

I interviewed at Google a million years ago and got the same sort of "trivia list", which was surprising to me. I passed most of them and everyone seemed excited about me while I was there, but then I started criticizing the interview process and (more importantly) Google Finance as being pretty bad, and this really upset everyone. I could tell they weren't used to ever being criticized, pointing out how the interview process had effectively zero behavioral aspects or problem solving questions, as well as all the gaps between one of their products and the competition, and they did not give me an offer. The funny part is they incorporated much of my feedback into Google Finance years later. It's still a mess, but hey at least they made some progress.

ionforce 8y ago
> then I started criticizing the interview process and (more importantly) Google Finance as being pretty bad, and this really upset everyone. Not rocket science, everybody. Who knew that people don't respond well to being criticized by strangers! Nobel Prize.
- devilmoon 8y ago
  Guess we found the Google Finance developer on HN
- be_jenk 8y ago
  Typically socially well-adjusted people can accept criticism on a project/product without taking it personally
  - organsnyder 8y ago
    Depends on the context and how it is delivered. If a job applicant started talking about my team's product "being pretty bad", that would be a red flag—I can only imagine what their code-review style would be like.
- AboutTheWhisles 8y ago
  I would be excited if someone criticized what I am working on if they were planning on being part of the solution
- eli 8y ago
  I'd love to hear thoughtful constructive criticism during an interview. But unsolicited negativity would be a bit of a flag.
  - Retric 8y ago
    Seems like a complete wast of time in an interview. If you join then sure mention it, and if your rejected you can send an email or something but it's not constructive during an interview.
    - danpalmer 8y ago
      We interview specifically for people who can give and take constructive criticism. There are points in our interview process where giving a rational and constructive critique of our product would be a very good thing for a candidate. These are skills we value highly as they help employees improve faster. We also do check for negativity in candidates though to balance this. Critical feedback can be given effectively without needing to be rude or unpleasant.
deleted 8y ago
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mirth23 8y ago
That's familiar. Towards the end of my Google interview 10+ years ago I was asked "What do you think Google could do better?" and my answer, which was constructively framed in terms of my wanting to help fix it, led to the technical interviewer saying "Well I won't waste any more of your time." Like OP, I was told that I was interviewing for a managerial position (in my case, a PM in SRE) but was given a technical interview that seemed designed for recent grads (I had about 10 years of experience at that point). My interviewer was < 6 months out of a grad program and seemed to have very little context for functional or programmatic management and mostly asked me a bunch of big O and algorithm questions. I was doing pretty well until I had the audacity to suggest that maybe the Google Docs/Drive/Whatever needed to be better integrated at the time. My sense was that they were looking for extremely pedantic and detail-oriented programmers and nothing that I was being asked had to do with real problem solving, design, abstract thinking, or interpersonal skills.

ionforce 8y ago

> then I started criticizing the interview process and (more importantly) Google Finance as being pretty bad, and this really upset everyone. Not rocket science, everybody. Who knew that people don't respond well to being criticized by strangers! Nobel Prize.

devilmoon 8y ago
Guess we found the Google Finance developer on HN
be_jenk 8y ago
Typically socially well-adjusted people can accept criticism on a project/product without taking it personally
- organsnyder 8y ago
  Depends on the context and how it is delivered. If a job applicant started talking about my team's product "being pretty bad", that would be a red flag—I can only imagine what their code-review style would be like.
AboutTheWhisles 8y ago
I would be excited if someone criticized what I am working on if they were planning on being part of the solution
eli 8y ago
I'd love to hear thoughtful constructive criticism during an interview. But unsolicited negativity would be a bit of a flag.
- Retric 8y ago
  Seems like a complete wast of time in an interview. If you join then sure mention it, and if your rejected you can send an email or something but it's not constructive during an interview.
  - danpalmer 8y ago
    We interview specifically for people who can give and take constructive criticism. There are points in our interview process where giving a rational and constructive critique of our product would be a very good thing for a candidate. These are skills we value highly as they help employees improve faster. We also do check for negativity in candidates though to balance this. Critical feedback can be given effectively without needing to be rude or unpleasant.

deleted 8y ago

[deleted]

mirth23 8y ago

That's familiar. Towards the end of my Google interview 10+ years ago I was asked "What do you think Google could do better?" and my answer, which was constructively framed in terms of my wanting to help fix it, led to the technical interviewer saying "Well I won't waste any more of your time." Like OP, I was told that I was interviewing for a managerial position (in my case, a PM in SRE) but was given a technical interview that seemed designed for recent grads (I had about 10 years of experience at that point). My interviewer was < 6 months out of a grad program and seemed to have very little context for functional or programmatic management and mostly asked me a bunch of big O and algorithm questions. I was doing pretty well until I had the audacity to suggest that maybe the Google Docs/Drive/Whatever needed to be better integrated at the time. My sense was that they were looking for extremely pedantic and detail-oriented programmers and nothing that I was being asked had to do with real problem solving, design, abstract thinking, or interpersonal skills.