5 ms·

Great post on the gamification aspect. But as an aside: is it really typical for someone to prepare this hard for an interview, even if it is for a dream compa

Great post on the gamification aspect. But as an aside: is it really typical for someone to prepare this hard for an interview, even if it is for a dream company? If so, then something seems to be clearly broken with the interview process. My idea of a superstar candidate is not someone who memorizes possible questions and answers, but simply someone who is really really good at what he does.

rhizome 14y ago
Is is, but the fact is that people who work at these companies don't really work on problems like those posed at interviews. Once you're in, you're in, and you can relax, more or less. The sense I've developed over the years is that hiring processes like these are engineered to find overqualified employees.
w1ntermute 14y ago
Yeah, this is just stupid. I have a friend at Amazon who said I'd have no trouble getting through their interview process, but these Google interviews are absurd to me. Why try so hard to get a job at a company that everyone is applying to when you can instead much more easily get a position at a lower profile company, like Amazon or Microsoft, that will still give you challenging and rewarding work? Do I respect and like Google's creations more than Amazon's or Microsoft's? Sure, but that's far from the only factor when choosing a job, even though people act like it is. I'll never bother applying to Google. It's a simple matter of leveraging the principles of supply and demand in your favor.
- larsberg 14y ago
  > when you can instead much more easily get a position at a > lower profile company, like Amazon or Microsoft It's not quite comparable. When I was a hiring manager at Microsoft, I regularly saw candidate who already had offers from Amazon and Google that didn't even make it through a half-day of interviews. I assume the same is for candidate that we made offers to who went to Google. The companies are all both looking for slightly different things - culture fit is a HUGE part - and there's some random luck of the draw. (e.g., did your first interviewer just come to work after a fight with their husband?)
- jrockway 14y ago
  Why try so hard to get a job at a company that everyone is applying to when you can instead much more easily get a position at a lower profile company, like Amazon or Microsoft, that will still give you challenging and rewarding work? I interviewed at Amazon and Google at about the same time. I got offers from both and chose Google because their offices are nicer, they give you free food and lots of coffee choices, and I just got the impression that they care about employees more than Amazon did. (One of my interviewers at Amazon noted: "They deliver groceries right to your desk. But it's too expensive, so we don't do it.") Amazon didn't really seem like some place that I would stay at for very long, because I would get tired of the cheapness. But some people really love being cheap, so I guess Amazon is perfect for them. (At Amazon, they give you door desks and a 24" monitor. At Google, we get motorized sit-to-stand desks and 30" monitors. Although I've been too lazy to request a standing desk, so far...) So anyway, challenging and rewarding work is nice, but it's not enough for me personally. I need my employer to at least pretend to care about me. YMMV.
  - w1ntermute 14y ago
    My friend has in fact complained about the "door desks" at Amazon and the ergonomic issues they can cause, so I'm aware of the cheapness issue. I've also read Steve Yegge's accidentally-made-public Google+ rant about Amazon. However, it's not like Google has a monopoly on nice perks. I only gave Amazon as an example because I personally know an employee. And obviously since you got offers from both companies, you would have no reason to pick Amazon over Google. But that's not the point I'm making - I'm saying that prior to starting the application process, it would be logical to avoid Google. The calculus changes completely once you've already got the offer in hand.
    - jrockway 14y ago
      Interviewing at Google took the same amount of my time as interviewing at Amazon. Why would it not be worthwhile to peruse all options, especially when one of the options seems better than the rest?
      - 14y ago
- sethist 14y ago
  Just for argument's sake, think of it like a college application process. Google might be MIT and Amazon somewhere like RPI. Why try so hard to into a school that everyone is applying to when you can instead much more easily get a position at a lower profile school?" RPI is easier to get into and could still give you challenging and rewarding work, but that doesn't mean it isn't worth the extra effort to get into the more difficult and sought-after position.
  - w1ntermute 14y ago
    It's interesting that you should bring up the college application process. I came to a similar conclusion for college. Rather than going to an Ivy League (or MIT/Stanford) school, I went to a fairly good (top 20) university instead. I got a full ride, which allowed me to come out of college with a net profit of $25k. To this day, I have no regrets about the decision I made, while I have friends who went to the Ivies and are now still in debt and without a good job (primarily because they went into finance right before things went to hell in a handbasket, but still).
    - objclxt 14y ago
      This may have been true when you were at college, but the Ivy I went to operated (and still operates) on a need-blind basis for scholarships. This effectively means you pay what you/your family can afford, and this college also operates a 'no debt' policy. For some students (particularly international ones, where the majority of US colleges don't offer need-blind aid) an Ivy League school can actually be cheaper than other respected colleges.
- huggah 14y ago
  I didn't specifically prepare for my interview with Google. A quick poll of my office mates indicates that they didn't either. This might not be typical, but I don't think the OPs degree of interview preparation is necessary. I've interviewed (and gotten offers from) Microsoft and Amazon as well. Their interviews were different (Microsoft asked more puzzle-type questions, Amazon was very OO-focused), but I didn't feel like the Google interview was substantially harder or easier.
- buro9 14y ago
  Maybe it depends on the level you're going in at. I went through an Amazon interview process that had the nickname "the round". It required that I speak to 12 unique people during the process, and as such required 14 interviews (most face-to-face, some phone). Those were with people at the same level (architect), people above the level (a board member/leadership), people below the level (principle developers). In addition to that was a 5 hour technical test that I found really good fun. The first hour I was totally stumped as to how to even begin, so I took a tea break out of frustration and nerves and found that I then completed it in around 10 minutes. I found the test fascinating... a very simple thing that tested a lot of the basics in one go as well as how you might solve a very obscure and rare problem. I won't share details on that test out of respect. Hiring is hard and I'm sure that they are re-using that technical test. At the end I didn't get the job as I was "too technical" and the position was for a solutions architect and would have involved lots of customer contact. But I was offered an equivalent developer track position, though unfortunately I personally feel my strength is to always be listening to customers, so I then declined. The process was interesting though. There were good questions, the interrogation of knowledge at a very deep technical level, and most of the face-to-face interviews included some technical element. Because I hire too I find going through interviews to be a rare chance to deconstruct someone else's process and to try and gain an insight into what they look for. I do not think that the higher level positions at Amazon would be "no trouble", the interviewers knew exactly what they wanted and the process was an enjoyable challenge.
agrona 14y ago
I'm generally not one to get excited about the concept of gamification. However, I thought the variable reward stuff was novel and interesting (and obvious, in hindsight).
praptak 14y ago
You are right in principle but the outcome of the interview is a combination of two factors: the baseline of real skill and the "noise" of your preparedness, mood on the particular day, judgement of the interviewer and so on. You can't change that, therefore it makes sense to put effort into improving the part of the noise that you can control. And also: a good preparation actually increases your real skill baseline.
eshvk 14y ago
> But as an aside: is it really typical for someone to prepare this hard for an interview, even if it is for a dream company? If so, then something seems to be clearly broken with the interview process. My idea of a superstar candidate is not someone who memorizes possible questions and answers, but simply someone who is really really good at what he does. The problem is that the google process tests how good a computer scientist you are. Irrespective of how good you are with the fundamentals, the fact of the matter is that is most software engineering jobs don't necessarily involve that much algorithmic knowledge and essentially are all about glueing complicated systems together. Irrespective of how much practice you have gotten in the past, practice for an interview is unfortunately essential. The process is broken and people just believe that copying the Google process will help which really doesn't. (I am not disagreeing with you that the person did seem more intense than usual but the again what is intense for me might not be intense for him: Who am I to judge?)
jimfl 14y ago
Part of preparation of this kind is merely getting comfortable with the idea of problem solving and coding in a high pressure environment, many otherwise excellent candidates eliminate themselves by choking at the whiteboard or collaborative editing tool. A day of serial technical interviews can be a brutal exercise that is very different from flow coding.

rhizome 14y ago

Is is, but the fact is that people who work at these companies don't really work on problems like those posed at interviews. Once you're in, you're in, and you can relax, more or less. The sense I've developed over the years is that hiring processes like these are engineered to find overqualified employees.

w1ntermute 14y ago

Yeah, this is just stupid. I have a friend at Amazon who said I'd have no trouble getting through their interview process, but these Google interviews are absurd to me. Why try so hard to get a job at a company that everyone is applying to when you can instead much more easily get a position at a lower profile company, like Amazon or Microsoft, that will still give you challenging and rewarding work? Do I respect and like Google's creations more than Amazon's or Microsoft's? Sure, but that's far from the only factor when choosing a job, even though people act like it is. I'll never bother applying to Google. It's a simple matter of leveraging the principles of supply and demand in your favor.

larsberg 14y ago
> when you can instead much more easily get a position at a > lower profile company, like Amazon or Microsoft It's not quite comparable. When I was a hiring manager at Microsoft, I regularly saw candidate who already had offers from Amazon and Google that didn't even make it through a half-day of interviews. I assume the same is for candidate that we made offers to who went to Google. The companies are all both looking for slightly different things - culture fit is a HUGE part - and there's some random luck of the draw. (e.g., did your first interviewer just come to work after a fight with their husband?)
jrockway 14y ago
Why try so hard to get a job at a company that everyone is applying to when you can instead much more easily get a position at a lower profile company, like Amazon or Microsoft, that will still give you challenging and rewarding work? I interviewed at Amazon and Google at about the same time. I got offers from both and chose Google because their offices are nicer, they give you free food and lots of coffee choices, and I just got the impression that they care about employees more than Amazon did. (One of my interviewers at Amazon noted: "They deliver groceries right to your desk. But it's too expensive, so we don't do it.") Amazon didn't really seem like some place that I would stay at for very long, because I would get tired of the cheapness. But some people really love being cheap, so I guess Amazon is perfect for them. (At Amazon, they give you door desks and a 24" monitor. At Google, we get motorized sit-to-stand desks and 30" monitors. Although I've been too lazy to request a standing desk, so far...) So anyway, challenging and rewarding work is nice, but it's not enough for me personally. I need my employer to at least pretend to care about me. YMMV.
- w1ntermute 14y ago
  My friend has in fact complained about the "door desks" at Amazon and the ergonomic issues they can cause, so I'm aware of the cheapness issue. I've also read Steve Yegge's accidentally-made-public Google+ rant about Amazon. However, it's not like Google has a monopoly on nice perks. I only gave Amazon as an example because I personally know an employee. And obviously since you got offers from both companies, you would have no reason to pick Amazon over Google. But that's not the point I'm making - I'm saying that prior to starting the application process, it would be logical to avoid Google. The calculus changes completely once you've already got the offer in hand.
  - jrockway 14y ago
    Interviewing at Google took the same amount of my time as interviewing at Amazon. Why would it not be worthwhile to peruse all options, especially when one of the options seems better than the rest?
    - 14y ago
sethist 14y ago
Just for argument's sake, think of it like a college application process. Google might be MIT and Amazon somewhere like RPI. Why try so hard to into a school that everyone is applying to when you can instead much more easily get a position at a lower profile school?" RPI is easier to get into and could still give you challenging and rewarding work, but that doesn't mean it isn't worth the extra effort to get into the more difficult and sought-after position.
- w1ntermute 14y ago
  It's interesting that you should bring up the college application process. I came to a similar conclusion for college. Rather than going to an Ivy League (or MIT/Stanford) school, I went to a fairly good (top 20) university instead. I got a full ride, which allowed me to come out of college with a net profit of $25k. To this day, I have no regrets about the decision I made, while I have friends who went to the Ivies and are now still in debt and without a good job (primarily because they went into finance right before things went to hell in a handbasket, but still).
  - objclxt 14y ago
    This may have been true when you were at college, but the Ivy I went to operated (and still operates) on a need-blind basis for scholarships. This effectively means you pay what you/your family can afford, and this college also operates a 'no debt' policy. For some students (particularly international ones, where the majority of US colleges don't offer need-blind aid) an Ivy League school can actually be cheaper than other respected colleges.
huggah 14y ago
I didn't specifically prepare for my interview with Google. A quick poll of my office mates indicates that they didn't either. This might not be typical, but I don't think the OPs degree of interview preparation is necessary. I've interviewed (and gotten offers from) Microsoft and Amazon as well. Their interviews were different (Microsoft asked more puzzle-type questions, Amazon was very OO-focused), but I didn't feel like the Google interview was substantially harder or easier.
buro9 14y ago
Maybe it depends on the level you're going in at. I went through an Amazon interview process that had the nickname "the round". It required that I speak to 12 unique people during the process, and as such required 14 interviews (most face-to-face, some phone). Those were with people at the same level (architect), people above the level (a board member/leadership), people below the level (principle developers). In addition to that was a 5 hour technical test that I found really good fun. The first hour I was totally stumped as to how to even begin, so I took a tea break out of frustration and nerves and found that I then completed it in around 10 minutes. I found the test fascinating... a very simple thing that tested a lot of the basics in one go as well as how you might solve a very obscure and rare problem. I won't share details on that test out of respect. Hiring is hard and I'm sure that they are re-using that technical test. At the end I didn't get the job as I was "too technical" and the position was for a solutions architect and would have involved lots of customer contact. But I was offered an equivalent developer track position, though unfortunately I personally feel my strength is to always be listening to customers, so I then declined. The process was interesting though. There were good questions, the interrogation of knowledge at a very deep technical level, and most of the face-to-face interviews included some technical element. Because I hire too I find going through interviews to be a rare chance to deconstruct someone else's process and to try and gain an insight into what they look for. I do not think that the higher level positions at Amazon would be "no trouble", the interviewers knew exactly what they wanted and the process was an enjoyable challenge.

agrona 14y ago

I'm generally not one to get excited about the concept of gamification. However, I thought the variable reward stuff was novel and interesting (and obvious, in hindsight).

praptak 14y ago

You are right in principle but the outcome of the interview is a combination of two factors: the baseline of real skill and the "noise" of your preparedness, mood on the particular day, judgement of the interviewer and so on. You can't change that, therefore it makes sense to put effort into improving the part of the noise that you can control. And also: a good preparation actually increases your real skill baseline.

eshvk 14y ago

> But as an aside: is it really typical for someone to prepare this hard for an interview, even if it is for a dream company? If so, then something seems to be clearly broken with the interview process. My idea of a superstar candidate is not someone who memorizes possible questions and answers, but simply someone who is really really good at what he does. The problem is that the google process tests how good a computer scientist you are. Irrespective of how good you are with the fundamentals, the fact of the matter is that is most software engineering jobs don't necessarily involve that much algorithmic knowledge and essentially are all about glueing complicated systems together. Irrespective of how much practice you have gotten in the past, practice for an interview is unfortunately essential. The process is broken and people just believe that copying the Google process will help which really doesn't. (I am not disagreeing with you that the person did seem more intense than usual but the again what is intense for me might not be intense for him: Who am I to judge?)

jimfl 14y ago

Part of preparation of this kind is merely getting comfortable with the idea of problem solving and coding in a high pressure environment, many otherwise excellent candidates eliminate themselves by choking at the whiteboard or collaborative editing tool. A day of serial technical interviews can be a brutal exercise that is very different from flow coding.