4 ms·

To counter some of the negative sentiment here, I had a great interview experience at Google. The only big negative was that the whole process took 5 months. Bu

by GBKS 13y ago

To counter some of the negative sentiment here, I had a great interview experience at Google. The only big negative was that the whole process took 5 months. But every step involved was very organized and the people were professional and thoughtful. The in-person interviews were also great and the questions were all appropriate. I did not take the offer for personal reasons at the time, but the process was great (except for those 5 months). As with all big companies though, there is a bit of luck of the draw involved, as the other stories in this thread show.

VLM 13y ago
"questions were all appropriate" I was asking myself while reading the article, my god, what kind of job was he applying for, AP test author, programing language standard library author, puzzle book author, or what exactly? I haven't gone into a cold interview in many years; its always previous relationship based now. Are cold interviews where no one already knows anyone, like that now, focused on weird algos and trivia questions and nothing to do with the actual job? You're interviewing the workplace as much as they're interviewing you, and I'm smart but I have no idea how to evaluate a possible employer based on their selection of weird trivia questions. Something that at least vaguely relates to the actual job would be interesting.
- at-fates-hands 13y ago
  >>>>You're interviewing the workplace as much as they're interviewing you. Not nearly enough people realize this. If they're asking you corny questions in the interview, how does that reflect on their company? OP said they didn't even ask him questions about his resume - just these corny trivia questions. If I was there, I would've asked how someone thinks this is relevant to doing my job at Google. After the past three years I've done a ton of interviewing and have learned the only way to know if the company is good fit is to grill the interviewer on stuff that matters to you. I've had interviews at fortune 50 companies with people who had no idea who their competition was or where they wanted their IT department to be in 5 years. If you're not invested in your company, what makes you think I should??
  - VLM 13y ago
    Interesting idea popped into my head... If candidate is not going to ask good questions about the job and experiences and responsibilities and challenges and the company, should the interviewer torture the candidate with random pages from Knuth until candidate either asks a good question or breaks or runs out of time. (say yes! say yes!) The other idea that popped into my head is we could develop a new "secret geek code" for HN readers where asking candidates endless queuing theory questions means we're secretly warning the interviewee about long lines in the cafeteria, lots of tree data structure trivia questions means a warning about an intensely hierarchical management style, weird trivia questions about designing thread safe interrupt handling routines means you'll be pestered a lot when you're trying to work which you may or may not be cool with, that kind of thing.
    - 6d0debc071 13y ago
      > Interesting idea popped into my head... If candidate is not going to ask good questions about the job and experiences and responsibilities and challenges and the company, should the interviewer torture the candidate with random pages from Knuth until candidate either asks a good question or breaks or runs out of time. (say yes! say yes!) General etiquette for this sort of sitch seems to be to allow the person with more leverage to lead. Most of the formulaic/cold interviews I've had they'll get to the end and then ask you if you've got any questions.
      - VLM 13y ago
        "allow the person with more leverage to lead" Hmm... I'm unemployed that means they have leverage, I'm employed and looking that means I have the leverage? Now that I think back over the years, as a stereotypical break the ice event is at the start of an interview, they usually thank me for taking the time off from work, at which point I mention I burned a vacation day to meet them and I've only got X left this year, at which point I tend to feel a little arrogant, I'm burning a rare limited day off for these guys, they'd best make it worth my while... I know they're just fishing to see if I'm ethical enough to burn vacation instead of calling in sick, or maybe lying about being currently employed...
bloat 13y ago
Agreed - I enjoyed my Google interview. HR showed me around the building when I arrived. All the interviewers were friendly and not intense at all. In each interview we did the random algorithm question, and then had 10 minutes or so of talking through my questions. Lunch was good. It was a long day - the whole experience was basically tiring but I wouldn't call it stressful. Most importantly HR told me in advance exactly what to expect, and that is what happened. I wasn't expecting much discussion of my experience or previous projects - but the algorithm questions turned up right on schedule, and they were on the topics I'd been told to review.

by GBKS 13y ago

VLM 13y ago

"questions were all appropriate" I was asking myself while reading the article, my god, what kind of job was he applying for, AP test author, programing language standard library author, puzzle book author, or what exactly? I haven't gone into a cold interview in many years; its always previous relationship based now. Are cold interviews where no one already knows anyone, like that now, focused on weird algos and trivia questions and nothing to do with the actual job? You're interviewing the workplace as much as they're interviewing you, and I'm smart but I have no idea how to evaluate a possible employer based on their selection of weird trivia questions. Something that at least vaguely relates to the actual job would be interesting.

at-fates-hands 13y ago
>>>>You're interviewing the workplace as much as they're interviewing you. Not nearly enough people realize this. If they're asking you corny questions in the interview, how does that reflect on their company? OP said they didn't even ask him questions about his resume - just these corny trivia questions. If I was there, I would've asked how someone thinks this is relevant to doing my job at Google. After the past three years I've done a ton of interviewing and have learned the only way to know if the company is good fit is to grill the interviewer on stuff that matters to you. I've had interviews at fortune 50 companies with people who had no idea who their competition was or where they wanted their IT department to be in 5 years. If you're not invested in your company, what makes you think I should??
- VLM 13y ago
  Interesting idea popped into my head... If candidate is not going to ask good questions about the job and experiences and responsibilities and challenges and the company, should the interviewer torture the candidate with random pages from Knuth until candidate either asks a good question or breaks or runs out of time. (say yes! say yes!) The other idea that popped into my head is we could develop a new "secret geek code" for HN readers where asking candidates endless queuing theory questions means we're secretly warning the interviewee about long lines in the cafeteria, lots of tree data structure trivia questions means a warning about an intensely hierarchical management style, weird trivia questions about designing thread safe interrupt handling routines means you'll be pestered a lot when you're trying to work which you may or may not be cool with, that kind of thing.
  - 6d0debc071 13y ago
    > Interesting idea popped into my head... If candidate is not going to ask good questions about the job and experiences and responsibilities and challenges and the company, should the interviewer torture the candidate with random pages from Knuth until candidate either asks a good question or breaks or runs out of time. (say yes! say yes!) General etiquette for this sort of sitch seems to be to allow the person with more leverage to lead. Most of the formulaic/cold interviews I've had they'll get to the end and then ask you if you've got any questions.
    - VLM 13y ago
      "allow the person with more leverage to lead" Hmm... I'm unemployed that means they have leverage, I'm employed and looking that means I have the leverage? Now that I think back over the years, as a stereotypical break the ice event is at the start of an interview, they usually thank me for taking the time off from work, at which point I mention I burned a vacation day to meet them and I've only got X left this year, at which point I tend to feel a little arrogant, I'm burning a rare limited day off for these guys, they'd best make it worth my while... I know they're just fishing to see if I'm ethical enough to burn vacation instead of calling in sick, or maybe lying about being currently employed...

bloat 13y ago

Agreed - I enjoyed my Google interview. HR showed me around the building when I arrived. All the interviewers were friendly and not intense at all. In each interview we did the random algorithm question, and then had 10 minutes or so of talking through my questions. Lunch was good. It was a long day - the whole experience was basically tiring but I wouldn't call it stressful. Most importantly HR told me in advance exactly what to expect, and that is what happened. I wasn't expecting much discussion of my experience or previous projects - but the algorithm questions turned up right on schedule, and they were on the topics I'd been told to review.