14 ms·

Google Interview Warmup

167 points by lastdong 4y ago

systemvoltage 4y ago
> Sorry, your browser is not currently supported. Please try again using Chrome or Safari. Totally unacceptable and shameful.
- pvinis 4y ago
  and it doesn't work on iOS, and even tells me to use safari for mobile
  - systemvoltage 4y ago
    I am using Firefox on Desktop. It feels like the year 2005 browsing corporate intranet that only works in IE6. We've come a long way in 17 years ;-).
    - pixelpoet 4y ago
      Thank god Google came and sorted out the internet for us, it's such a utopia now compared to before. People need to link AMP pages more often!
  - doctor_eval 4y ago
    Works for me on iPad. Maybe they are watching?
- makeitdouble 4y ago
  Reading your comment I thought it was just a warning banner, to give an out in case some elements are broken. But no, the whole main content is blocked for non supported browsers (side pages like FAQ stay available)
- mrtksn 4y ago
  People think that the new IE is Safari but it's actually Chrome. IE wasn't problematic because it lacked features, on the contrary, IE was very innovative but non-standart. This pushed developers into creating web pages using the fancy but IE only futures, thus to have full experience you had to use IE. "IE being bad but still had to use it" phase was only possible thanks to that. In this particular case it might not be a Chrome specific thing but it gives me goosebumps when I see I'm directed to use a particular browser. Most of the times, its "Use Chrome for full experience".
  - tiborsaas 4y ago
    You missed the part of failing to implement CSS properly, really hard to debug and being a security nightmare. You might dislike Chrome for its privacy concerns, but it's a damn solid browser.
    - mrtksn 4y ago
      I like Chrome, I don't like being pushed to use Chrome because I use Safari due to its performance, low battery impact and iOS-macOS integration. The bad parts of IE happened when Microsoft dropped the ball but users had to use it anyway because everything was already made for IE the non-standart way and the developers had to keep making things for IE because everyone used IE. Catch-22. I don't want make people stop using Chrome, it's a solid browser. I simply want me having the option not use it. Today Chrome is very good but what happens if Google mismanages it like Microsoft or abuses its position because an MBA looked at it and had an idea? Some already argue that Chrome is not what used to be and Google already does some sketchy things. I think Its vital to keep our way out intact.
      - dtech 4y ago
        It's unlikely to happen because the incentives are different. 00's Microsoft stopped IE development when they had a monopoly because they wanted everyone on Windows. The web was a competitor, they tried to stifle it. Google makes all of their money on the web. They want everyone on their browser and for the experience to be as good as possible.
- smcl 4y ago
  Exactly. This is extremely petty and particularly among software developers who are keenly aware of this sort of behaviour, a little bit self-defeating.
- hulitu 4y ago
  Why ? If you want to work at Google you shall embrace the company's "culture".
  - dx034 4y ago
    Exactly, I don't get these complains. It's literally for people who want to work at Google. If you don't want to use Google products you're clearly not the target audience.
re 4y ago
Here's a description if your browser isn't supported: This is an app that simulates an interview where you respond to 5 typical questions (for example, "what are you looking for in your next job?"; "tell me about a time you delivered results despite obstacles"). The site requests mic access and transcribes your response. The material on the front page says: > Practice answering interview questions. > Get comfortable answering questions from industry experts. Just talk and your answers are transcribed in real time. > Get insights about your answers. > No grades, just insights about what you said. See job-related terms you used, your most-used words, and talking points you covered. > Keep improving. > Use what you’ve learned and jump back in for another round. Keep building your confidence in a judgement-free zone.
- deleted 4y ago
  [deleted]
- kuu 4y ago
  I wonder which one of those requirements (listen from the mic and showing 5 questions) is impossible to do with other browsers than Chrome...
  - ziml77 4y ago
    Appears to be because Firefox doesn't support the SpeechRecognition API.
    - WorldMaker 4y ago
      Firefox supports it behind a feature flag in about:config until the user permissions and protections have been sorted out by standards bodies. https://caniuse.com/?search=speech%20recognition https://caniuse.com/?search=speech%20recognition
  - croisillon 4y ago
    the ad tracking requirement I guess
    - 4y ago
tiborsaas 4y ago
I'm really surprised they included the strengths and weaknesses question. Anyone asking my weaknesses expect anything other than bullshit or humble bragging? The execution of this page is so perfect that it gives me dystopian vibes. I think this might actually be just a tech demo for demoing speech capabilities :)
- deleted 4y ago
  [deleted]
- smcl 4y ago
  If anyone asks me my weaknesses I'm taking that as a sign they don't really know what they're doing and are just reciting questions they've seen or heard others use before. I honestly do not know what kind of useful information they'd get from this because you'll either get: - bullshitters who have a prepared answer that sorta sounds good - nervous people who cannot think of anything - nervous people who will start listing off their worst qualities Honestly the best response when faced with this is to joke about the cliche "I'm a perfectionist" response and hope that everyone is happy to move on
  - philwelch 4y ago
    I’ve prepared my entire life for the “what are your weaknesses” question but never received it in an actual interview.
    - smcl 4y ago
      That's actually quite encouraging to hear. I have encountered it once when I was younger and I wish I had the self-confidence to deal with it the way I described in my comment. I think I just did the "nervous people listing off their worst qualities" thing. I feel a bit bad at the "bullshitters" comment, I was trying to show the worst case scenario and didn't factor in "normal nice people who have a prepared answer" :)
    - croisillon 4y ago
      I've had it for the first time few weeks ago. I named one, two, three, and they said "ok ok we got it". (I got the job)
discobot2 4y ago
totally not to train their language models to pass interviews
deleted 4y ago
[deleted]
estomagordo 4y ago
Can anyone elaborate on what the use case for me, an end user, is here? Am I supposed to learn something? Enjoy it?
- encryptluks2 4y ago
  Data collection. If you want Google to learn more about you, then this is the way to do it.
- dx034 4y ago
  They provide a full list of questions. I had a look through them and actually found them quite good to prepare for an interview at any company. No need to go through the interactive part to see these questions.
- pastacacioepepe 4y ago
  being this Google, I suspect it's all a clever facade to induce you to give them more of your info. The end game is targeted ads, as with everything they do.
meerita 4y ago
"Sorry, your browser is not currently supported. Please try again using Chrome or Safari."
- reportgunner 4y ago
  "Sorry we don't know how to make this work on Firefox."
  - darig 4y ago
  - steve_adams_86 4y ago
    It requires an API that Firefox doesn’t support by default
    - coolspot 4y ago
      People in other comments report that just changing User Agent header makes the site work in FF.
- kreeben 4y ago
  "Sorry but you can't work here if your favorite browser isn't Chrome. We like them Chrome users, d'you know ah ah mean."
  - meerita 4y ago
    I know many great guys from Google, they take very seriously all browser compatibility. I cannot think any company who took browser compatibility to the levels of Google. This fellow just made a big mistake developing something particular for a couple of browsers. It's not in Google ADN.
    - kevincox 4y ago
      IDK, I worked at Google for a long time and the people who cared about browser compatibility by far the most were the Chrome and Workspace teams. The Chrome team tried to emphasis that it made it very hard to negotiate web standards and made them look bad if Google had Chrome-only properties and Workspace wanted browser compatibility because they needed to officially support browsers that their customers were mandated to use (but they didn't really care about the long tail of browsers).
m0ck 4y ago
>Firefox is not supported Alright then, keep your secrets
- black_puppydog 4y ago
  You have to understand; supporting different browsers is a lot of work and cannot be stemmed by a small band of mavericks like this. It would need some big organization with serious engineering capacity.
  - Rumudiez 4y ago
    That’s beyond laughable. As a solo developer at multiple startups this is hardly a dent in my time spent building web apps. The smoke test is that if you’re struggling with cross-browser compatibility, you’ve already done 100 other things wrong.
    - Godel_unicode 4y ago
      I’m pretty confident that the comment you’re replying to was intended to be ironic.
- fbnlsr 4y ago
  Yup, same here. As a web developer I'm always baffled when I have to make things work everywhere all the time but when it's Google they're like "oops, looks like you need to install another software to use our stuff". Instantly clicked on the close button.
- swat535 4y ago
  Translation: We can't harvest your data and grow our spyware empire.. please come back when you are ready to be exploited.
- wildrhythms 4y ago
  Firefox doesn't support Speech Recognition API yet :/ https://caniuse.com/?search=speech%20recognition https://caniuse.com/?search=speech%20recognition
xigurat 4y ago
I really really wanna know what is so special of this website (and many others) that does not support a non-Chromium browser aside from Safari.
- tiborsaas 4y ago
  https://caniuse.com/?search=speech%20recognition https://caniuse.com/?search=speech%20recognition
Stratoscope 4y ago
"A visitor loads your webpage. They try to use the PgDn key to scroll through it, and nothing happens. You tell them they have to first click somewhere inside the page after loading it, being careful to not click on any element that will respond to the click. Then PgDn will work. Do you think this is a problem, and if so, how would you solve it?" Yes, I realize the HN Guidelines say "Please don't complain about tangential annoyances—things like article or website formats, name collisions, or back-button breakage. They're too common to be interesting." But good grief, the last I heard, I thought Google was a web company. Isn't having a web page that Just Works part of that? On to something more substantial (as if breaking something as fundamental as the PgDn key isn't substantial). > Get insights about your answers. No grades, just insights about what you said. See job-related terms you used, your most-used words, and talking points you covered. I am sorry, but this is really freaking me out. My job-related terms, most-used words, and talking points? Maybe I should just call it a night and admit I'm not good enough for Google.
- doctor_eval 4y ago
  No way. Google’s not good enough for us.
- deleted 4y ago
  [deleted]
pastacacioepepe 4y ago
Am I the only one to think this is just a clever way to induce people into voluntarily disclosing more of their info to Google, so that a better user profile for ads can be built?
omegabravo 4y ago
I hate hate hate questions that are "tell me about a time when..." My mind literally goes blank. The pressure of sitting down with someone you've just met and they are testing your memory. I don't remember times, I remember the lessons. Kind of like I can't remember any source material unless I have an intuitive understanding of it. Ask me about what I learnt when x happened - or what lessons you've learnt previously that apply. You might suggest that's what they're asking - but not in my experience. They want the actual story. Basically I now prepare fake stories before hand. Seems pointless. Give me hypothetical scenarios any day of the week. It's a me problem for not optimising for interviews, but the thought of gaming the system feels dishonest. Basically, these interview warm up questions would be incredibly useful for people like me. If I ever go for an external interview, I would make use of this. Practising for something that is useless.
- consilla 4y ago
  I find it useful to have 2 or 3 real stories to hand that can be modified to suit most of these types of questions.
  - the_only_law 4y ago
    My problem is I usually don’t have a story, my career has been boring and stagnant. I had one of these questions tossed at me in an interview last year. Something a long the lines of a “time I faced a difficult technical challenge and how I managed to solve it”, but I didn’t have any. Well… ok not exactly true. In my professional career I’ve done more sitting around staring at the screen while bureaucrats debates than I have working on challenging technical problems. Any true difficult problems I’ve faced professionally have been predominately organizational. However I’ve been programming in general for a lot longer, and in recent years, despite finding a continuous lack of interest in programming, I am very interested in things that end with me writing code and that’s created some of the work I’m most proud of l. Ofc the interviewer wasn’t interested in any of that, as they wanted something from a position off my resume.
    - deleted 4y ago
timdaub 4y ago
Why do we need speech recognition built into web browsers? The only one I see using this is Google on their search website. This is fucked up.
pneumatic1 4y ago
I wonder if you can answer in such a way that you unlock a foobar challenge.
ale42 4y ago
Firefox not supported? Go away.
- tgv 4y ago
  Who uses Firefox and wants to work for Google?
  - pixelpoet 4y ago
    People whose job doesn't necessarily dictate everything else about their lives?
  - lkxijlewlf 4y ago
    This can't be a serious question. Does everyone who works at google have to use a Pixel phone, too?
  - alephnan 4y ago
    Who uses ad blockers and wants to work for Google?
  - wutbrodo 4y ago
    I used to use Firefox _while_ I worked at Google. Though I eventually gave up when the performance/feature difference became too huge to justify.
LouisSayers 4y ago
"Tell us a time when you disagreed with someone..." I feel like the only way to properly answer these types of questions is to make up some BS scenario and talk about how you worked to see the other person's perspective, added your thoughts and came to an even better solution than you could have done on your own. Do people really disagree so much in workplaces? These questions feel like they're training people how to be sociopaths...
- janeerie 4y ago
  I hate this one. The other one that gets me is "Tell me about a time where a team member was underperforming. What did you do?" I think the correct answer to this is to get on their ass about it or rat them out to their manager. In reality, what I have done is just do their work myself so it gets done. Pretty sure this is why I failed my Amazon interview.
  - Beltalowda 4y ago
    Ideally the manager should already know they're underperforming anyway. But there are cases where they may not. I've told my manager that they should probably have a conversation with some people, or even let them go. I don't think that's "ratting" really. Like you already said: it's you who has to pick up the slack, and a lot of the time "underperforming" also means more stress and work for me (usually in the form of cleaning up after them, fixing their bugs, etc.) With some coworkers I genuinely wished they would just stay at home. This gets even worse if the quality (and thus, revenue) of the company gets affected by their underperforming, which also affects your salary, or even the company's survival! I also try to explicitly praise people in 1-on-1s btw.
- SpicyLemonZest 4y ago
  Yes, people disagree frequently in workplaces. I have quite a few real scenarios where I worked to see the other person's perspective and came to a better solution than I could have reached on my own, and when I interview people who don't that's a real concern. Resolving disputes about the right way to do something is typically a core job responsibility for anyone beyond the entry level.
Prasad369 4y ago
It's a nice tool if you increase other roles better to add more questions
djmips 4y ago
This is nothing like any interview at Google that I have experienced.
0daystock 4y ago
"Sorry, your browser is not currently supported. Please try again using Chrome or Safari." Using the latest version of Firefox on the latest version of Debian Linux. Fuck this page and fuck Chrome.
- JaceLightning 4y ago
  https://caniuse.com/?search=speech%20recognition https://caniuse.com/?search=speech%20recognition
  - Wowfunhappy 4y ago
    Hm, so does the page work if you flip `media.webspeech.recognition.enable` in `about:config`?
  - WorldMaker 4y ago
    Relevant footnote from that link: > Firefox currently has a media.webspeech.recognition.enable flag in about:config for this, but actual support is waiting for permissions to be sorted out. Once again, Google out in front of user permissions and protections getting finalized in standards bodies.
  - ASalazarMX 4y ago
    It uses speech recognition to transcribe what you're saying, but it lets you type your answer if you deny microphone access. That's a poor excuse to demand you run it in Chrome or Safari. I suppose a spoken answer gives more realism to an interview simulation, but a simple "Your browser doesn't support speech recognition. You can use Chrome, Safari, or manually type your answers", would have sufficed.
- stingraycharles 4y ago
  Don’t worry, I get the same error for Chrome on iOS, so it’s definitely not just Linux / Firefox users.
- disintegore 4y ago
  Guess we've failed the interview warmup
djanogo 4y ago
Just completed my Google interview process, it was biggest waste of my time in recent years. Oh the technical questions can vary from Linux kernel question on how something interfaces with kernel/ring0 to front end library which fetches web images, then coding a esoteric algo. I am disappointed in myself that I wasted small period of my life falling for recruiter/social hype of these companies. Worst mistake you can make while looking for a job is to prepare for one specific company, web is full of this garbage content to answer specific company questions.
- ushakov 4y ago
  good, now they’ll import somebody else from third-world country, who prepared for the interview full-time and will work for 70% of your pay
vogt 4y ago
Good luck and thanks for the resource, Google. But as I’ve told your recruiters over and over in the last year, you won’t even get me into an interview with your anti full time remote work policy.
- sydthrowaway 4y ago
  They do have full remote...
  - vogt 4y ago
    Hasn’t been the case any time I’ve been approached for the last 6 months……………
- wollsmoth 4y ago
  This changed in 2022, they are taking on a lot of remote workers now. Although I think they may ask that you be in a certain zone, like some mileage away from a physical office. But I think that may be for tax reasons.
  - smueller1234 4y ago
    Also time zones for ability to collaborate virtually.
  - vogt 4y ago
    Interesting, that would make sense. In the last six months/yr I’ve been told by two different recruiters “all of these positions are hybrid. You may be able to start out full remote for one or two of them, but it’s going to reduce your options significantly.” This is for UX Engineer roles specifically if that matters
    - wollsmoth 4y ago
      Yeah I don't exactly know why but it sounded like different jobs had to be within certain offices. Like if your team is in Mountain View and Seattle you can't necessarily work from Texas, you'd need to be an hour or whatever from one of those two offices.
tpl 4y ago
Are Firefox users not welcome to interview?
- rhacker 4y ago
  Same thing happened to me. That is extremely weird for them to not be intelligent enough to make this firefox compatible.
  - bsedlm 4y ago
    why assume it's not intelligent? I think whether or not it's intelligent depends their actual goal
    - rhacker 4y ago
      This is Ceasar Chavez on Easter Sunday. The ego of people at Google is larger than their intelligence. They don't understand when they turn people off by their "smart" decisions.
      - reillyse 4y ago
        I had to google "Ceasar Chavez on Easter Sunday" to find out what you are talking about. Seems like a storm in an easter egg. I 100% see why google would prefer to celebrate a national hero instead of celebrating a religion that a portion of the population care about.
    - alphabetting 4y ago
      Chrome has 3.4B users. Safari has 1B. Edge has 212M. Firefox has 180M. Not that surprised a small unique page like this only supports the top two browsers.
- transitivebs 4y ago
  https://caniuse.com/?search=speech%20recognition https://caniuse.com/?search=speech%20recognition It should definitely be messaged in the UI, but firefox unfortunately wouldn't support this webapp at the moment.
ramesh31 4y ago
Well this is delightfully dystopic.
flakiness 4y ago
It looks like this is not for an interview at Google but something more generic. You can question what Google knows about the interview-in-general, but that's a different story... I hope people who built this were more aware of the various reputations the Google interview process has had, and made it clear it's not for covering the peculiarity. (A Google employee, knows nothing about this.)
- ushakov 4y ago
  Google Cloud AutoML Recruiter sign up today get your first hundred hours for free!
bastardoperator 4y ago
No thanks, if you could leave me alone on linkedin that would be nice too. I don't want to take a phone quiz or jump through your hoops, you're just not that impressive to me.
natly 4y ago
When did google get a TLD? Incredible. Can anyone register that or is it exclusive to the company? (Never heard of a TLD that only one company is allowed to register.)
- deleted 4y ago
  [deleted]
- xd1936 4y ago
  Oh yeah, as long as you're a company that can promise to deliver the infrastructure to support it, IANA will let you apply[1]. I think it's terribly anti-competitive against smaller corporations, but what do I know. Google, BMW, Target, Barclays, Sky, CERN, Amazon, Fujitsu, Progressive, TravelersInsurance... All kinds of companies have registered them now[2]. Not too many are actively in use though. 1. https://icannwiki.org/Brand_TLD https://icannwiki.org/Brand_TLD 2. https://data.iana.org/TLD/tlds-alpha-by-domain.txt https://data.iana.org/TLD/tlds-alpha-by-domain.txt
  - ushakov 4y ago
    KPMG uses their extensively https://home.kpmg https://home.kpmg
magiclantern 4y ago
I think interview processes are just a game. Interviewers are hoping to win the best candidate and interviewees (job seekers) are just trying to win a good job. Both sides try to exploit the process and find the best fit - and often loose due to the rules of the game. Perhaps if you look at it as an imperfect game, that might give you the mindset of doing the best at the game to get the job you want. As a consequence of hiring being an imperfect game, in my experience many questions in an interview don't relate to the actual job or qualifications needed to perform the job. It seems that often questions are based on "Company X (or HR guru, etc.) did this in their hiring process, so lets do the same!" or "We don't really know what the candidate will do, so lets ask questions about X instead." The end result is that hiring people think they're doing a great job weeding out poor candidates when really their biasing the hiring pool for candidates that don't fit the intended job.
- izacus 4y ago
  All of those processes are like that. Some of them more tedious (law bar, medical bar) some less (engineering bar in some regions). Some of them are even worse ("personality" and "IQ" tests in marketing and other people's jobs). The IT one is at least learnable in a couple of months, which is much less time than I've had to put into many of my college exams.
  - BlargMcLarg 4y ago
    Ironically IQ and personality tests, when applied correctly[0], have some known correlations. Most IT questions and interviews are still open for debate despite being revered by these companies. [0]: Of course, most places don't apply them correctly.
hit8run 4y ago
Yes, be a good trained puppy! Your mind was made to train giving the right answers to business recruitment experts! Learn what you should think and how to be a good A+ wagie!!! Follow the rules. Make the desired mindset your own! Remove your critical thinking and tell yourself: my whole purpose is to serve the globocorp stakeholders! If you do a good job you make them a ton of money so they can get new mega-yachts/mansions/islands/luxury! If you or the economy don’t do so well the next year it is utterly important to protect the stakeholder-wealth and remove you from the payroll :) Good and now go and train to give the answers they want to hear :)
- deeptote 4y ago
  Google is well known for hoarding/warehousing talent, and this is exactly how they find compliant employees, not competent ones.
  - ushakov 4y ago
    Google employees are mostly competent but very obedient though, very obedient they even have dog whistles attached to them, aka. a pager that will call them whenever the corporation needs them
- deleted 4y ago
  [deleted]
- adampk 4y ago
  I can't figure out the insight of this comment? Ostensibly it is meant to reveal how misanthropic this approach is, but what I see being defined is: an organization trying to find talent that agrees with their perspective and 2-sided at-will employment? "Yes, be a good trained puppy! Make a reservation to be able to get into the restaurant. Read the menu, then order an entree. Then eat the food the chef made just for you. Chew it allllll up." I guess you can make any banal activity seem misanthropic with this tone?
  - deleted 4y ago
    [deleted]
hvis 4y ago
I love how half of the top10 replies here (including #1) is about Firefox not being supported. See Google, cross-browser compatibility is important.
- spac 4y ago
  came to complain about this!
- Closi 4y ago
  It’s almost like Google is incentivised to get people to use Chrome…
andrewmcwatters 4y ago
Reminds me of Netflix's Culture page[1], "Selflessness[...] *You seek what is best for Netflix, not yourself or your team." I don't know who thought this was a good idea to write, but I'm a professional who provides services for a fee, and that's the mentality that I find appropriate in a business exchange, not creating an air of worship culture. [1]: https://jobs.netflix.com/culture https://jobs.netflix.com/culture
self_awareness 4y ago
I guess I can't work in Google, because I use Firefox.
deleted 4y ago
[deleted]

167 points by lastdong 4y ago

> Sorry, your browser is not currently supported. Please try again using Chrome or Safari. Totally unacceptable and shameful.

pvinis 4y ago
and it doesn't work on iOS, and even tells me to use safari for mobile
- systemvoltage 4y ago
  I am using Firefox on Desktop. It feels like the year 2005 browsing corporate intranet that only works in IE6. We've come a long way in 17 years ;-).
  - pixelpoet 4y ago
    Thank god Google came and sorted out the internet for us, it's such a utopia now compared to before. People need to link AMP pages more often!
- doctor_eval 4y ago
  Works for me on iPad. Maybe they are watching?
makeitdouble 4y ago
Reading your comment I thought it was just a warning banner, to give an out in case some elements are broken. But no, the whole main content is blocked for non supported browsers (side pages like FAQ stay available)
mrtksn 4y ago
People think that the new IE is Safari but it's actually Chrome. IE wasn't problematic because it lacked features, on the contrary, IE was very innovative but non-standart. This pushed developers into creating web pages using the fancy but IE only futures, thus to have full experience you had to use IE. "IE being bad but still had to use it" phase was only possible thanks to that. In this particular case it might not be a Chrome specific thing but it gives me goosebumps when I see I'm directed to use a particular browser. Most of the times, its "Use Chrome for full experience".
- tiborsaas 4y ago
  You missed the part of failing to implement CSS properly, really hard to debug and being a security nightmare. You might dislike Chrome for its privacy concerns, but it's a damn solid browser.
  - mrtksn 4y ago
    I like Chrome, I don't like being pushed to use Chrome because I use Safari due to its performance, low battery impact and iOS-macOS integration. The bad parts of IE happened when Microsoft dropped the ball but users had to use it anyway because everything was already made for IE the non-standart way and the developers had to keep making things for IE because everyone used IE. Catch-22. I don't want make people stop using Chrome, it's a solid browser. I simply want me having the option not use it. Today Chrome is very good but what happens if Google mismanages it like Microsoft or abuses its position because an MBA looked at it and had an idea? Some already argue that Chrome is not what used to be and Google already does some sketchy things. I think Its vital to keep our way out intact.
    - dtech 4y ago
      It's unlikely to happen because the incentives are different. 00's Microsoft stopped IE development when they had a monopoly because they wanted everyone on Windows. The web was a competitor, they tried to stifle it. Google makes all of their money on the web. They want everyone on their browser and for the experience to be as good as possible.
smcl 4y ago
Exactly. This is extremely petty and particularly among software developers who are keenly aware of this sort of behaviour, a little bit self-defeating.
hulitu 4y ago
Why ? If you want to work at Google you shall embrace the company's "culture".
- dx034 4y ago
  Exactly, I don't get these complains. It's literally for people who want to work at Google. If you don't want to use Google products you're clearly not the target audience.

re 4y ago

Here's a description if your browser isn't supported: This is an app that simulates an interview where you respond to 5 typical questions (for example, "what are you looking for in your next job?"; "tell me about a time you delivered results despite obstacles"). The site requests mic access and transcribes your response. The material on the front page says: > Practice answering interview questions. > Get comfortable answering questions from industry experts. Just talk and your answers are transcribed in real time. > Get insights about your answers. > No grades, just insights about what you said. See job-related terms you used, your most-used words, and talking points you covered. > Keep improving. > Use what you’ve learned and jump back in for another round. Keep building your confidence in a judgement-free zone.

deleted 4y ago
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kuu 4y ago
I wonder which one of those requirements (listen from the mic and showing 5 questions) is impossible to do with other browsers than Chrome...
- ziml77 4y ago
  Appears to be because Firefox doesn't support the SpeechRecognition API.
  - WorldMaker 4y ago
    Firefox supports it behind a feature flag in about:config until the user permissions and protections have been sorted out by standards bodies. https://caniuse.com/?search=speech%20recognition https://caniuse.com/?search=speech%20recognition
- croisillon 4y ago
  the ad tracking requirement I guess
  - 4y ago

tiborsaas 4y ago

I'm really surprised they included the strengths and weaknesses question. Anyone asking my weaknesses expect anything other than bullshit or humble bragging? The execution of this page is so perfect that it gives me dystopian vibes. I think this might actually be just a tech demo for demoing speech capabilities :)

deleted 4y ago
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smcl 4y ago
If anyone asks me my weaknesses I'm taking that as a sign they don't really know what they're doing and are just reciting questions they've seen or heard others use before. I honestly do not know what kind of useful information they'd get from this because you'll either get: - bullshitters who have a prepared answer that sorta sounds good - nervous people who cannot think of anything - nervous people who will start listing off their worst qualities Honestly the best response when faced with this is to joke about the cliche "I'm a perfectionist" response and hope that everyone is happy to move on
- philwelch 4y ago
  I’ve prepared my entire life for the “what are your weaknesses” question but never received it in an actual interview.
  - smcl 4y ago
    That's actually quite encouraging to hear. I have encountered it once when I was younger and I wish I had the self-confidence to deal with it the way I described in my comment. I think I just did the "nervous people listing off their worst qualities" thing. I feel a bit bad at the "bullshitters" comment, I was trying to show the worst case scenario and didn't factor in "normal nice people who have a prepared answer" :)
  - croisillon 4y ago
    I've had it for the first time few weeks ago. I named one, two, three, and they said "ok ok we got it". (I got the job)

discobot2 4y ago

totally not to train their language models to pass interviews

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estomagordo 4y ago

Can anyone elaborate on what the use case for me, an end user, is here? Am I supposed to learn something? Enjoy it?

encryptluks2 4y ago
Data collection. If you want Google to learn more about you, then this is the way to do it.
dx034 4y ago
They provide a full list of questions. I had a look through them and actually found them quite good to prepare for an interview at any company. No need to go through the interactive part to see these questions.
pastacacioepepe 4y ago
being this Google, I suspect it's all a clever facade to induce you to give them more of your info. The end game is targeted ads, as with everything they do.

meerita 4y ago

"Sorry, your browser is not currently supported. Please try again using Chrome or Safari."

reportgunner 4y ago
"Sorry we don't know how to make this work on Firefox."
- darig 4y ago
- steve_adams_86 4y ago
  It requires an API that Firefox doesn’t support by default
  - coolspot 4y ago
    People in other comments report that just changing User Agent header makes the site work in FF.
kreeben 4y ago
"Sorry but you can't work here if your favorite browser isn't Chrome. We like them Chrome users, d'you know ah ah mean."
- meerita 4y ago
  I know many great guys from Google, they take very seriously all browser compatibility. I cannot think any company who took browser compatibility to the levels of Google. This fellow just made a big mistake developing something particular for a couple of browsers. It's not in Google ADN.
  - kevincox 4y ago
    IDK, I worked at Google for a long time and the people who cared about browser compatibility by far the most were the Chrome and Workspace teams. The Chrome team tried to emphasis that it made it very hard to negotiate web standards and made them look bad if Google had Chrome-only properties and Workspace wanted browser compatibility because they needed to officially support browsers that their customers were mandated to use (but they didn't really care about the long tail of browsers).

m0ck 4y ago

>Firefox is not supported Alright then, keep your secrets

black_puppydog 4y ago
You have to understand; supporting different browsers is a lot of work and cannot be stemmed by a small band of mavericks like this. It would need some big organization with serious engineering capacity.
- Rumudiez 4y ago
  That’s beyond laughable. As a solo developer at multiple startups this is hardly a dent in my time spent building web apps. The smoke test is that if you’re struggling with cross-browser compatibility, you’ve already done 100 other things wrong.
  - Godel_unicode 4y ago
    I’m pretty confident that the comment you’re replying to was intended to be ironic.
fbnlsr 4y ago
Yup, same here. As a web developer I'm always baffled when I have to make things work everywhere all the time but when it's Google they're like "oops, looks like you need to install another software to use our stuff". Instantly clicked on the close button.
swat535 4y ago
Translation: We can't harvest your data and grow our spyware empire.. please come back when you are ready to be exploited.
wildrhythms 4y ago
Firefox doesn't support Speech Recognition API yet :/ https://caniuse.com/?search=speech%20recognition https://caniuse.com/?search=speech%20recognition

xigurat 4y ago

I really really wanna know what is so special of this website (and many others) that does not support a non-Chromium browser aside from Safari.

tiborsaas 4y ago
https://caniuse.com/?search=speech%20recognition https://caniuse.com/?search=speech%20recognition

Stratoscope 4y ago

"A visitor loads your webpage. They try to use the PgDn key to scroll through it, and nothing happens. You tell them they have to first click somewhere inside the page after loading it, being careful to not click on any element that will respond to the click. Then PgDn will work. Do you think this is a problem, and if so, how would you solve it?" Yes, I realize the HN Guidelines say "Please don't complain about tangential annoyances—things like article or website formats, name collisions, or back-button breakage. They're too common to be interesting." But good grief, the last I heard, I thought Google was a web company. Isn't having a web page that Just Works part of that? On to something more substantial (as if breaking something as fundamental as the PgDn key isn't substantial). > Get insights about your answers. No grades, just insights about what you said. See job-related terms you used, your most-used words, and talking points you covered. I am sorry, but this is really freaking me out. My job-related terms, most-used words, and talking points? Maybe I should just call it a night and admit I'm not good enough for Google.

doctor_eval 4y ago
No way. Google’s not good enough for us.
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pastacacioepepe 4y ago

Am I the only one to think this is just a clever way to induce people into voluntarily disclosing more of their info to Google, so that a better user profile for ads can be built?

omegabravo 4y ago

I hate hate hate questions that are "tell me about a time when..." My mind literally goes blank. The pressure of sitting down with someone you've just met and they are testing your memory. I don't remember times, I remember the lessons. Kind of like I can't remember any source material unless I have an intuitive understanding of it. Ask me about what I learnt when x happened - or what lessons you've learnt previously that apply. You might suggest that's what they're asking - but not in my experience. They want the actual story. Basically I now prepare fake stories before hand. Seems pointless. Give me hypothetical scenarios any day of the week. It's a me problem for not optimising for interviews, but the thought of gaming the system feels dishonest. Basically, these interview warm up questions would be incredibly useful for people like me. If I ever go for an external interview, I would make use of this. Practising for something that is useless.

consilla 4y ago
I find it useful to have 2 or 3 real stories to hand that can be modified to suit most of these types of questions.
- the_only_law 4y ago
  My problem is I usually don’t have a story, my career has been boring and stagnant. I had one of these questions tossed at me in an interview last year. Something a long the lines of a “time I faced a difficult technical challenge and how I managed to solve it”, but I didn’t have any. Well… ok not exactly true. In my professional career I’ve done more sitting around staring at the screen while bureaucrats debates than I have working on challenging technical problems. Any true difficult problems I’ve faced professionally have been predominately organizational. However I’ve been programming in general for a lot longer, and in recent years, despite finding a continuous lack of interest in programming, I am very interested in things that end with me writing code and that’s created some of the work I’m most proud of l. Ofc the interviewer wasn’t interested in any of that, as they wanted something from a position off my resume.
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timdaub 4y ago

Why do we need speech recognition built into web browsers? The only one I see using this is Google on their search website. This is fucked up.

pneumatic1 4y ago

I wonder if you can answer in such a way that you unlock a foobar challenge.

ale42 4y ago

Firefox not supported? Go away.

tgv 4y ago
Who uses Firefox and wants to work for Google?
- pixelpoet 4y ago
  People whose job doesn't necessarily dictate everything else about their lives?
- lkxijlewlf 4y ago
  This can't be a serious question. Does everyone who works at google have to use a Pixel phone, too?
- alephnan 4y ago
  Who uses ad blockers and wants to work for Google?
- wutbrodo 4y ago
  I used to use Firefox _while_ I worked at Google. Though I eventually gave up when the performance/feature difference became too huge to justify.

LouisSayers 4y ago

"Tell us a time when you disagreed with someone..." I feel like the only way to properly answer these types of questions is to make up some BS scenario and talk about how you worked to see the other person's perspective, added your thoughts and came to an even better solution than you could have done on your own. Do people really disagree so much in workplaces? These questions feel like they're training people how to be sociopaths...

janeerie 4y ago
I hate this one. The other one that gets me is "Tell me about a time where a team member was underperforming. What did you do?" I think the correct answer to this is to get on their ass about it or rat them out to their manager. In reality, what I have done is just do their work myself so it gets done. Pretty sure this is why I failed my Amazon interview.
- Beltalowda 4y ago
  Ideally the manager should already know they're underperforming anyway. But there are cases where they may not. I've told my manager that they should probably have a conversation with some people, or even let them go. I don't think that's "ratting" really. Like you already said: it's you who has to pick up the slack, and a lot of the time "underperforming" also means more stress and work for me (usually in the form of cleaning up after them, fixing their bugs, etc.) With some coworkers I genuinely wished they would just stay at home. This gets even worse if the quality (and thus, revenue) of the company gets affected by their underperforming, which also affects your salary, or even the company's survival! I also try to explicitly praise people in 1-on-1s btw.
SpicyLemonZest 4y ago
Yes, people disagree frequently in workplaces. I have quite a few real scenarios where I worked to see the other person's perspective and came to a better solution than I could have reached on my own, and when I interview people who don't that's a real concern. Resolving disputes about the right way to do something is typically a core job responsibility for anyone beyond the entry level.

Prasad369 4y ago

It's a nice tool if you increase other roles better to add more questions

djmips 4y ago

This is nothing like any interview at Google that I have experienced.

0daystock 4y ago

"Sorry, your browser is not currently supported. Please try again using Chrome or Safari." Using the latest version of Firefox on the latest version of Debian Linux. Fuck this page and fuck Chrome.

JaceLightning 4y ago
https://caniuse.com/?search=speech%20recognition https://caniuse.com/?search=speech%20recognition
- Wowfunhappy 4y ago
  Hm, so does the page work if you flip `media.webspeech.recognition.enable` in `about:config`?
- WorldMaker 4y ago
  Relevant footnote from that link: > Firefox currently has a media.webspeech.recognition.enable flag in about:config for this, but actual support is waiting for permissions to be sorted out. Once again, Google out in front of user permissions and protections getting finalized in standards bodies.
- ASalazarMX 4y ago
  It uses speech recognition to transcribe what you're saying, but it lets you type your answer if you deny microphone access. That's a poor excuse to demand you run it in Chrome or Safari. I suppose a spoken answer gives more realism to an interview simulation, but a simple "Your browser doesn't support speech recognition. You can use Chrome, Safari, or manually type your answers", would have sufficed.
stingraycharles 4y ago
Don’t worry, I get the same error for Chrome on iOS, so it’s definitely not just Linux / Firefox users.
disintegore 4y ago
Guess we've failed the interview warmup

djanogo 4y ago

Just completed my Google interview process, it was biggest waste of my time in recent years. Oh the technical questions can vary from Linux kernel question on how something interfaces with kernel/ring0 to front end library which fetches web images, then coding a esoteric algo. I am disappointed in myself that I wasted small period of my life falling for recruiter/social hype of these companies. Worst mistake you can make while looking for a job is to prepare for one specific company, web is full of this garbage content to answer specific company questions.

ushakov 4y ago
good, now they’ll import somebody else from third-world country, who prepared for the interview full-time and will work for 70% of your pay

vogt 4y ago

Good luck and thanks for the resource, Google. But as I’ve told your recruiters over and over in the last year, you won’t even get me into an interview with your anti full time remote work policy.

sydthrowaway 4y ago
They do have full remote...
- vogt 4y ago
  Hasn’t been the case any time I’ve been approached for the last 6 months……………
wollsmoth 4y ago
This changed in 2022, they are taking on a lot of remote workers now. Although I think they may ask that you be in a certain zone, like some mileage away from a physical office. But I think that may be for tax reasons.
- smueller1234 4y ago
  Also time zones for ability to collaborate virtually.
- vogt 4y ago
  Interesting, that would make sense. In the last six months/yr I’ve been told by two different recruiters “all of these positions are hybrid. You may be able to start out full remote for one or two of them, but it’s going to reduce your options significantly.” This is for UX Engineer roles specifically if that matters
  - wollsmoth 4y ago
    Yeah I don't exactly know why but it sounded like different jobs had to be within certain offices. Like if your team is in Mountain View and Seattle you can't necessarily work from Texas, you'd need to be an hour or whatever from one of those two offices.

tpl 4y ago

Are Firefox users not welcome to interview?

rhacker 4y ago
Same thing happened to me. That is extremely weird for them to not be intelligent enough to make this firefox compatible.
- bsedlm 4y ago
  why assume it's not intelligent? I think whether or not it's intelligent depends their actual goal
  - rhacker 4y ago
    This is Ceasar Chavez on Easter Sunday. The ego of people at Google is larger than their intelligence. They don't understand when they turn people off by their "smart" decisions.
    - reillyse 4y ago
      I had to google "Ceasar Chavez on Easter Sunday" to find out what you are talking about. Seems like a storm in an easter egg. I 100% see why google would prefer to celebrate a national hero instead of celebrating a religion that a portion of the population care about.
  - alphabetting 4y ago
    Chrome has 3.4B users. Safari has 1B. Edge has 212M. Firefox has 180M. Not that surprised a small unique page like this only supports the top two browsers.
transitivebs 4y ago
https://caniuse.com/?search=speech%20recognition https://caniuse.com/?search=speech%20recognition It should definitely be messaged in the UI, but firefox unfortunately wouldn't support this webapp at the moment.

ramesh31 4y ago

Well this is delightfully dystopic.

flakiness 4y ago

It looks like this is not for an interview at Google but something more generic. You can question what Google knows about the interview-in-general, but that's a different story... I hope people who built this were more aware of the various reputations the Google interview process has had, and made it clear it's not for covering the peculiarity. (A Google employee, knows nothing about this.)

ushakov 4y ago
Google Cloud AutoML Recruiter sign up today get your first hundred hours for free!

bastardoperator 4y ago

No thanks, if you could leave me alone on linkedin that would be nice too. I don't want to take a phone quiz or jump through your hoops, you're just not that impressive to me.

natly 4y ago

When did google get a TLD? Incredible. Can anyone register that or is it exclusive to the company? (Never heard of a TLD that only one company is allowed to register.)

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xd1936 4y ago
Oh yeah, as long as you're a company that can promise to deliver the infrastructure to support it, IANA will let you apply[1]. I think it's terribly anti-competitive against smaller corporations, but what do I know. Google, BMW, Target, Barclays, Sky, CERN, Amazon, Fujitsu, Progressive, TravelersInsurance... All kinds of companies have registered them now[2]. Not too many are actively in use though. 1. https://icannwiki.org/Brand_TLD https://icannwiki.org/Brand_TLD 2. https://data.iana.org/TLD/tlds-alpha-by-domain.txt https://data.iana.org/TLD/tlds-alpha-by-domain.txt
- ushakov 4y ago
  KPMG uses their extensively https://home.kpmg https://home.kpmg

magiclantern 4y ago

I think interview processes are just a game. Interviewers are hoping to win the best candidate and interviewees (job seekers) are just trying to win a good job. Both sides try to exploit the process and find the best fit - and often loose due to the rules of the game. Perhaps if you look at it as an imperfect game, that might give you the mindset of doing the best at the game to get the job you want. As a consequence of hiring being an imperfect game, in my experience many questions in an interview don't relate to the actual job or qualifications needed to perform the job. It seems that often questions are based on "Company X (or HR guru, etc.) did this in their hiring process, so lets do the same!" or "We don't really know what the candidate will do, so lets ask questions about X instead." The end result is that hiring people think they're doing a great job weeding out poor candidates when really their biasing the hiring pool for candidates that don't fit the intended job.

izacus 4y ago
All of those processes are like that. Some of them more tedious (law bar, medical bar) some less (engineering bar in some regions). Some of them are even worse ("personality" and "IQ" tests in marketing and other people's jobs). The IT one is at least learnable in a couple of months, which is much less time than I've had to put into many of my college exams.
- BlargMcLarg 4y ago
  Ironically IQ and personality tests, when applied correctly[0], have some known correlations. Most IT questions and interviews are still open for debate despite being revered by these companies. [0]: Of course, most places don't apply them correctly.

hit8run 4y ago

Yes, be a good trained puppy! Your mind was made to train giving the right answers to business recruitment experts! Learn what you should think and how to be a good A+ wagie!!! Follow the rules. Make the desired mindset your own! Remove your critical thinking and tell yourself: my whole purpose is to serve the globocorp stakeholders! If you do a good job you make them a ton of money so they can get new mega-yachts/mansions/islands/luxury! If you or the economy don’t do so well the next year it is utterly important to protect the stakeholder-wealth and remove you from the payroll :) Good and now go and train to give the answers they want to hear :)

deeptote 4y ago
Google is well known for hoarding/warehousing talent, and this is exactly how they find compliant employees, not competent ones.
- ushakov 4y ago
  Google employees are mostly competent but very obedient though, very obedient they even have dog whistles attached to them, aka. a pager that will call them whenever the corporation needs them
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adampk 4y ago
I can't figure out the insight of this comment? Ostensibly it is meant to reveal how misanthropic this approach is, but what I see being defined is: an organization trying to find talent that agrees with their perspective and 2-sided at-will employment? "Yes, be a good trained puppy! Make a reservation to be able to get into the restaurant. Read the menu, then order an entree. Then eat the food the chef made just for you. Chew it allllll up." I guess you can make any banal activity seem misanthropic with this tone?
- deleted 4y ago
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hvis 4y ago

I love how half of the top10 replies here (including #1) is about Firefox not being supported. See Google, cross-browser compatibility is important.

spac 4y ago
came to complain about this!
Closi 4y ago
It’s almost like Google is incentivised to get people to use Chrome…

andrewmcwatters 4y ago

Reminds me of Netflix's Culture page[1], "Selflessness[...] *You seek what is best for Netflix, not yourself or your team." I don't know who thought this was a good idea to write, but I'm a professional who provides services for a fee, and that's the mentality that I find appropriate in a business exchange, not creating an air of worship culture. [1]: https://jobs.netflix.com/culture https://jobs.netflix.com/culture

self_awareness 4y ago

I guess I can't work in Google, because I use Firefox.

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