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If a lot of talented engineers from Microsoft and Amazon are having trouble in Google interviews, doesn't that indicate that Google is testing the wrong things?
by JabavuAdams 14y ago
If a lot of talented engineers from Microsoft and Amazon are having trouble in Google interviews, doesn't that indicate that Google is testing the wrong things?
- proksoup 14y agoAgreed. If writing a binary search tree thingamabob isn't relevant to the job they have 10 years experience in, why is the answer to that question so important at the goog? Why not ask questions that are relevant to the experience the candidate does have ...
- dhconnelly 14y agoBecause Google engineers don't seem to be hired for their experience with specific technologies/areas, but for their general competence. EDIT: Sorry, I really should have avoided making a comment at all. Google's hiring practices have been debated here a billion times and I can't really add anything that hasn't been said before.
- Daniel_Newby 14y agoYou cannot fake it with strong b.s. skills, and you cannot take credit for someone else's work.
- glaak 14y agoIt depends on how you look at it. Google wants people who have a strong understand of CS fundamentals (which includes knowing core data structures). Google also wants people who are good coders (which includes being able to translate an idea into code). A good coder who knows CS fundamentals should be able to do that. Thus, not knowing how to implement a binary search tree is revealing. And, really, the question is rarely "implement a binary search tree." It may, however, be to implement a binary search tree which support a getMedian() operation.
- Evbn 14y agoOf course, not knowing how to write a library quality Java w/generics implementation of a a search API on a non-search tree, on the whiteboard, as one of my interviewers once demanded, is something a bit else.
- almost_usual 14y agoIt shows motivation, there is competition that is willing to brush up on CS fundamentals, have a full time job, and practice interviewing.
- georgemcbay 14y agoEveryone at Google does great on these types of interviews -- ergo, the process must be perfect!
- ninjin 14y agoIf this is the case, I believe there is a word for this phenomena... https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Confirmation_bias https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Confirmation_bias
- azth 14y agoFrom what I have been told, Google is willing to accept false negatives instead of admitting false positives.
- ajross 14y agoThe same is historically (and notoriously) true of Microsoft. I think the point is more that with this kind of screen there is just an inherently high false negative rate. That's a problem only if it's actually preventing you from hiring successfully.
- sseveran 14y agoI know of quite a few false positives at google.
- azth 14y agoI do/did too. It is not fool-proof, but their ratio seems to be lower than other places I have seen.
- rhizome 14y agoIs it that, or is it that they're big enough not to notice as much?
- hboon 14y agoCan you give examples? While I'm lucky to be way from the corporate world for the last few years, I'm still very interested in practises such as hiring and interviewing.
- bhylle 14y ago> If a lot of talented engineers from Microsoft and Amazon are having trouble in Google interviews, doesn't that indicate that Google is testing the wrong things? From my experience the average quality of engineer at Google is very high. I think it simply indicates a different hiring bar.
- nostrademons 14y agoIt's quite possible that the skills needed to succeed at Microsoft or Amazon are different from the skills needed to succeed at Google.