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The strongest factor in my opinion (after pure luck) is the rapport you're able to build with the interviewer. Doing that of course requires doing well in the t

The strongest factor in my opinion (after pure luck) is the rapport you're able to build with the interviewer. Doing that of course requires doing well in the technical questions, but the end-goal shouldn't be seen as doing well in the questions, but seeming "Googley" to the interviewer. Googleyness in this context tends to include not just whether you did well on the questions, but things like your sense of humor, ability to communicate in a positive and cheerful way, whether you seem mature and responsible, and other such little things the typical techie would like in another person. Interviewers are also human, and they can only do so much to change how they perceive another person. Source: Have interviewed with Google a couple of times, and coached a couple of other people for the same.

dmoy 8y ago
On the flip side, a good interviewer should be building rapport with the interviewee regardless of interview performance. This is especially important for earlier interviews in the day, because you don't want the candidate to get flustered and ruin future interviews. Even better is to use that rapport to then disguise successively large hints into the interviewing process, so the candidate can't obviously tell if they've failed horribly... again to avoid tilting them for future interviews that day. Give them room and time to explore the problem space on their own, but don't let them sit in silence making no progress for 30 minutes making it painfully obvious that something is very wrong. A single bombed interview might not kill the whole packet, so it's best to insulate.
endtime 8y ago
I can't speak for other interviewers, but I barely take this into account. As long as someone isn't actively antisocial (has never happened to me) or unprofessional (has happened once or twice) I file feedback exclusively on technical merit and communication. There have been times where I liked someone and wanted to give them good feedback, but couldn't.
- backpropaganda 8y ago
  > I barely take this into account. > I file feedback exclusively on technical merit and communication. I appreciate your comment, but my point is that there's no way to actually do this, even if your goal is to. It may seem that you're being objective, but the objective facts can only influence the subjective opinion that's ultimately responsible for the decision, not the reverse as we like to think. For example, if an interviewer likes the interviewee, they would actually think that the person did quite well in the technical question, and not if they don't. We first form an opinion about someone or something and then look for "objective" facts to justify it, not the other way round. The only way to really be objective here is to use a point system and hard thresholds which completely removes the human in the loop, like SAT. I recommend "Thinking Fast and Slow" and "Why Buddhism is True" which go into this idea in detail, and in general about how poor we are at being unbiased and rational. You'd be surprised at how deep our irrationality goes even if you already have some idea.
  - frahs 8y ago
    And that's why Google's recruiting has the extra step of a hiring committee which didn't meet the candidate. Interviewers fill out interview feedback based on how their interview went with the candidate, and there's guidelines to try to reduce bias (no gendered pronouns in feedback, the candidate's code is included as-is in the feedback, etc) and the committee makes the final decision based on the feedback. Sure, what is included can still be slightly biased, but if you're talking about non-technical things at the beginning or end, it won't really make it into the technical interview feedback, and probably will have little to no effect on the committee's decision. At the end of the day, the problems you're asked have optimal solutions and your code will either work or it won't.
  - endtime 8y ago
    Okay, of course, I didn't mean to suggest that I'm a robot - I meant that"Googleyness" is not a conscious criterion. I'm sure charisma etc. can influence me a bit. But when I've asked the same question 50 times, and I have to write up feedback in a structured way (I'll be vague about this to play it safe with my employer, though it's nothing exciting or complicated), there's only a quite limited amount of wiggle room. I certainly wouldn't advise a candidate to optimize for rapport over whiteboard coding or algorithms. Like I said, I've interviewed candidates with whom I had good rapport - with whom I'd love to have a beer - but I still couldn't write strong feedback for them. I don't think your point is totally off base, I just think you stated it too strongly in your previous comment.
jacquesm 8y ago
> but seeming "Googley" to the interviewer. There is no such thing. > but things like your sense of humor, ability to communicate in a positive and cheerful way, whether you seem mature and responsible, and other such little things the typical techie would like in another person. Sounds like you're hiring actors rather than people able to do good technical work. Google as a company seems to have none of these qualities in the aggregate so it looks to me as if your process is broken. Besides the obvious ethical challenges.
- backpropaganda 8y ago
  I'm not saying I approve of this. Just stating how things are. I'm not an interviewer and don't represent Google, but I doubt other big companies have any better process.

dmoy 8y ago

On the flip side, a good interviewer should be building rapport with the interviewee regardless of interview performance. This is especially important for earlier interviews in the day, because you don't want the candidate to get flustered and ruin future interviews. Even better is to use that rapport to then disguise successively large hints into the interviewing process, so the candidate can't obviously tell if they've failed horribly... again to avoid tilting them for future interviews that day. Give them room and time to explore the problem space on their own, but don't let them sit in silence making no progress for 30 minutes making it painfully obvious that something is very wrong. A single bombed interview might not kill the whole packet, so it's best to insulate.

endtime 8y ago

I can't speak for other interviewers, but I barely take this into account. As long as someone isn't actively antisocial (has never happened to me) or unprofessional (has happened once or twice) I file feedback exclusively on technical merit and communication. There have been times where I liked someone and wanted to give them good feedback, but couldn't.

backpropaganda 8y ago
> I barely take this into account. > I file feedback exclusively on technical merit and communication. I appreciate your comment, but my point is that there's no way to actually do this, even if your goal is to. It may seem that you're being objective, but the objective facts can only influence the subjective opinion that's ultimately responsible for the decision, not the reverse as we like to think. For example, if an interviewer likes the interviewee, they would actually think that the person did quite well in the technical question, and not if they don't. We first form an opinion about someone or something and then look for "objective" facts to justify it, not the other way round. The only way to really be objective here is to use a point system and hard thresholds which completely removes the human in the loop, like SAT. I recommend "Thinking Fast and Slow" and "Why Buddhism is True" which go into this idea in detail, and in general about how poor we are at being unbiased and rational. You'd be surprised at how deep our irrationality goes even if you already have some idea.
- frahs 8y ago
  And that's why Google's recruiting has the extra step of a hiring committee which didn't meet the candidate. Interviewers fill out interview feedback based on how their interview went with the candidate, and there's guidelines to try to reduce bias (no gendered pronouns in feedback, the candidate's code is included as-is in the feedback, etc) and the committee makes the final decision based on the feedback. Sure, what is included can still be slightly biased, but if you're talking about non-technical things at the beginning or end, it won't really make it into the technical interview feedback, and probably will have little to no effect on the committee's decision. At the end of the day, the problems you're asked have optimal solutions and your code will either work or it won't.
- endtime 8y ago
  Okay, of course, I didn't mean to suggest that I'm a robot - I meant that"Googleyness" is not a conscious criterion. I'm sure charisma etc. can influence me a bit. But when I've asked the same question 50 times, and I have to write up feedback in a structured way (I'll be vague about this to play it safe with my employer, though it's nothing exciting or complicated), there's only a quite limited amount of wiggle room. I certainly wouldn't advise a candidate to optimize for rapport over whiteboard coding or algorithms. Like I said, I've interviewed candidates with whom I had good rapport - with whom I'd love to have a beer - but I still couldn't write strong feedback for them. I don't think your point is totally off base, I just think you stated it too strongly in your previous comment.

jacquesm 8y ago

> but seeming "Googley" to the interviewer. There is no such thing. > but things like your sense of humor, ability to communicate in a positive and cheerful way, whether you seem mature and responsible, and other such little things the typical techie would like in another person. Sounds like you're hiring actors rather than people able to do good technical work. Google as a company seems to have none of these qualities in the aggregate so it looks to me as if your process is broken. Besides the obvious ethical challenges.

backpropaganda 8y ago
I'm not saying I approve of this. Just stating how things are. I'm not an interviewer and don't represent Google, but I doubt other big companies have any better process.