
My interviews at Google - markdennehy
http://www.stochasticgeometry.ie/2010/07/20/interviews-google/
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ryandvm
Sounds a lot like an engineer interview with Amazon. Very professional and
very stressful.

The problem I have with these SAT style interviews though is that they're
weeding out talent unnecessarily. Personally, I tend to get brain-lock when
I'm under intense scrutiny, and the stress of knowing that I'm in the middle
of a potentially life altering event really isn't helping any.

The reason I think this filter is unnecessary is because I'm pretty sure that
"stage fright" isn't actually a problem you'll face if you work at Google or
Amazon or Microsoft or wherever. You have projects and goals and you work to
complete them. Christ, you're a programmer, not John McClane. Nobody is
standing around with their thumb on the detonator watching you write an
algorithm for reversing a linked list.

I suppose it would be difficult to scale, but I think what would be more
successful for the technical portion of the process would be a Google Code Jam
style arrangement whereby you're given a problem to solve, you crunch on it
for the evening, and when you've figured it out you upload your code. If it's
correct and fast, perhaps you'd make a good employee...

~~~
lliiffee
My understanding is that Google totally agrees that they are weeding out
talented people. However, given the number of applications they get, they are
wise to be more concerned about false-positives than false-negatives. Most
companies don't get so many highly-qualified applicants and so would probably
be foolish to copy the Google model.

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mcantor
Does anyone know why Google is so reticent about feedback from the interviews?
It seems like it's a policy.

~~~
s-phi-nl
See <http://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=1520431>.

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brown9-2
On the subject of "Google interview questions", anyone interested in the
subject should check out the reviews on glassdoor.com.

There are several hundred (unverified, as far as I can tell) reports/reviews
from people who have interviewed there, with sample questions, stories of
their experiences, etc.

~~~
fragmede
I wonder how hot Google would be for access logs and a hidden iframe to a
Google domain to potentially get the Gmail address of glassdoor.com users.
Furthermore, what would the bias be? Users are self-starting enough to look
for help, but is this 'cheating'?

Paranoia, but an interesting thought experiment, and utterly doable.

