
I Didn't Get Hired to Google - dominis
https://googleyasheck.com/i-didnt-get-hired-heres-why/
======
tyingq
He made an extensive repository of information on how to get hired at
Google[1], gave talks on the subject[2], and studied full time for 8
months[3].

And it's not that he interviewed and didn't get the job...they didn't even let
him interview, not even the phone screen. That's pretty rough.

[1][https://github.com/jwasham/google-interview-
university](https://github.com/jwasham/google-interview-university)

[2][https://googleyasheck.com/presenting-at-code-
fellows/](https://googleyasheck.com/presenting-at-code-fellows/)

[3][https://googleyasheck.com/why-i-studied-full-time-
for-8-mont...](https://googleyasheck.com/why-i-studied-full-time-for-8-months-
for-a-google-interview/)

~~~
oldopsguy
I can definitely see how preparing in such a public way would raise flags at
the lower recruiter level.

~~~
tyingq
I can see that...it's almost like corporate stalking. Personally, I don't get
the company worship thing...there's plenty of interesting jobs outside of
Google, Facebook, etc.

------
jasode
Title says: _" I Didn't Get Hired. Here's Why."_

Body says: _" Why didn't I get hired? I don't know why."_

Real question to HN readers: Do you believe this type of inconsistency also
affects writing _code_?

In other words... if a hiring manager notices this muddled writing in a blog
post, is it fair to think the programming output will also be muddled? (e.g.
function names, architecture, engineering the organization of microservices,
code comments etc.?)

Or do you believe that the brain compartmentalizes and it's very easy to write
disorganized prose simultaneously with organized code?

~~~
minimaxir
I do wonder what the parallel equivalent of headline clickbait in _code_ is.
Functions with very few LOC? :P

~~~
philh

        /* You won't believe the one weird trick this function uses to compute inverse square root */

------
fecak
Recruiter and resume writer here. I'm at least somewhat surprised, and I
assume his resume had references to his PR campaign, and I'd think that in
itself (along with the somewhat limited qualifications he seems to have) would
at least warrant a phone screen. Even if that phone interview was to feel him
out a bit.

I am genuinely curious to see his resume (I didn't see it on this site or his
other blog). Again, I'd have to assume it was at least somewhat littered with
references to his dream of working for Google (the GitHub repo gives that
away, and maybe he linked to his blog).

His current LinkedIn profile starts with a Projects section (I'd have
recommended a summary) and the first project listed is "Google Interview
University", so I assume any recruiter vetting him would have immediately seen
that, then noticed that his experience section starts with "in training for a
software engineer interview, April 2016 - present", and then perhaps into the
rabbit hole of all his posts.

This might be a case of someone "trying too hard/pandering" to one audience.
If we take away the Google-related content on LinkedIn, we've got a guy who
has 5 years of experience running what appears to be a light tech startup, ~
15 years of demonstrated web dev experience, several Coursera courses, and an
active GitHub.

If you only gave his GitHub 5 seconds (without opening any of the repos
themselves), I'd think most recruiters would think he'd be worth at least a
quick phone call. Maybe they dove in and didn't like what they saw.

More questions than answers on this one.

------
mwill
Two things:

He lists himself as an 'Autodidact', I wonder if he has a BSc and if not, if
that contributed to not getting a phone screen. If it did, thats pretty rough
since he also lists 15 years of experience.

Also I'm very curious about this comment on the post:

 _Honest question: who told you to make this blog? Email me
john@techcrunch.com_

Not quite sure what he's implying by 'who told you', anyone know?

~~~
deong
I was a bit curious there too, but I chalked it up to ambulance chasing from a
techcrunch reporter.

------
misingnoglic
I don't understand why people get DEAD set on just one company - that's never
a good way to do things, especially when the application process is so fickle,
and especially if that company is literally the most applied for company (or
one of them at least). It's not like university applications, where they're at
least obligated to reply back.

------
bbctol
This whole journey has been so weird. Why does this guy care so much about
Google? Did Google turn him down for prom? Was "Google" the last word of his
dying grandfather? He's been on a years-long vision quest to... be an employee
of a place.

------
iplaw
I have to assume that they didn't want someone who was so fanatically and
excessively eager and ambitious. He broadcasted that he studied full-time for
eight months for the interview. They want people who can walk in and own the
interview, with minimal interview-specific preparation.

The entire blog just reeks of desperation and lack of confidence (or worse,
misplaced confidence). I think that they flagged him before he ever applied.

~~~
maverick_iceman
I doubt that is true. The recruiter probably had no idea that he was preparing
for eight months.

------
yakshaving_jgt
Titling the piece “I Didn't Get Hired. Here's Why.”, and then after one
paragraph clarifying “Why didn't I get hired? I don't know why.” …is
confusing, to say the least.

------
segmondy
No surprise. You can learn a lot in a year, but you can't level up your
computer science knowledge in a year. Some people might be offended or
disappointed by this comment, but don't. Just keep your heads down, learn a
lot, expose yourself to lots of different things and the experience will come
with that.

With that said, I'm not surprised that he didn't get a phone interview. Even
if Google knew about him, they might want to let people know that their
interview process can't be gamed. If I was hiring, I might be concerned that
someone who put in that much effort, might stall once they get hired. I want
someone who has put that kind of effort not leading up to the interview, but
over the years due to genuine curiosity due to love of computing and not
because they want to get a job.

~~~
guitarbill
> You can learn a lot in a year, but you can't level up your computer science
> knowledge in a year.

This makes no sense? Level up to what? CS degree level? Because correct me if
I'm wrong, but the majority of interview questions are based on CS 101 (or the
equivalent). So literally the first year. Guess it depends what kind of depth
of knowledge you want/need. Again, if you're only doing it for interviews and
not to go into CS research, don't think you need too much depth.

~~~
16bytes
> Because correct me if I'm wrong, but the majority of interview questions are
> based on CS 101

AFAIK, they actually send out a prep-sheet which recommends experience with
not only big-O and simple algorithms, but knowing how search algorithms
compare, dijkstra's algorithm, A*, graphs, trees, networks, http,
combinatorics, etc.

I'm not sure which CS 101 you took, but to me that's not 101 stuff. They
definitely expect a candidate to know nearly all of what you'd learn in an
entire typical CS program.

------
arcatek
The two times I applied at Google after being recommended by friends already
in charge went quite badly. The recrutor asked for my CV thrice the first time
(rejecting my application between each request, until I stopped answering),
and the second time I had to wait three weeks between the first coding
interview and the actual results. Apparently, my hiring manager took some
vacations, and her replacement had no idea about my file.

I applied only once at Facebook, and the whole process was a bliss. Constant
flow of communication with my recruiter, very interesting interviews, and a
relatively short time between the start of the process and the final result.
It was really weird to see such a big difference between two big tech
companies.

~~~
iplaw
Applied and hired?

I know a few guys who did GSoC a few times, hired full-time, left for a start-
up, rehired, left again for a start-up, rehired into Google X, left again for
a start-up, and now has Google begging for him to come back again.

Google can identify talent, and will bend over backwards to retain that talent
over time. This guy wasn't talent.

~~~
arcatek
No, I didn't pass the Google hiring process. Things went much better with
Facebook, tho :)

------
ipunchghosts
You didnt get hired at google because you have no life, no sense of self. Your
entire blog is about how you make yourself hireable by google. Who cares what
google wants. What do you want?

~~~
yakshaving_jgt
Surely you can communicate that sentiment without wording it quite so harshly?

~~~
ipunchghosts
This strikes me quite a bit as stuff mentioned in the "No More Mr Nice Guy"
book. Im not sure how to word it softer. What would you have done?

------
cagataygurturk
I also would not hire such a freaky. Can you imagine how much headache he
could create (in terms of office politics), in case of a situation that would
affect his employment at Google? He is even not professional I think.

------
paulcole
>After all this work and enthusiasm, I didn't even get a chance to prove
myself.

Is this his first time applying for a job or, you know, interacting with the
world in any way?

------
ipunchghosts
This post makes me want to know what John Biggs wants. In the comments,
"Honest question: who told you to make this blog? Email me
john@techcrunch.com"

~~~
iplaw
Maybe the entire thing is an orchestrated PR stunt by a hiring competitor. Or,
maybe this is a guy who isn't lacking: 1) hubris and 2) cash flow, who wanted
to give Google a go. Along the way, he compiled a massive amount of
information and found another way to be successful - a techco interview
consultant.

~~~
maverick_iceman
A successful interview consultant for Google who failed at Google? Ah, the
irony!

------
zerr
Maybe it's because he was trying to openly game the system (as it seems)?

------
brikelly
Maybe they didn't want the method of "create an interview study guide and
write a popular blog about studying for it" seen as being one of the ways to
get hired at Google, and having a flood of imitators try to do the same thing.

------
zellyn
Apply directly to YouTube. They have super-friendly, involved recruiters that
do a fantastic job.

------
voidr
> Recruiters look at hundreds of resumes every day, and they are highly tuned
> to detecting quality candidates and rejecting those who don't match up with
> their model. For some reason, I just didn't fit the profile. They probably
> are doing me a favor.

They would be doing you a favour if they would tell you why you were rejected
and give you advice moving forward. In this case they are just doing
themselves a favour by not bothering to give you anything meaningful.

> but if you're good enough for Google, you'll eventually get in.

If you don't get in the first time, you might want to ask yourself: is Google
good enough for you?

> Recruiters know what works, and what doesn't. So respect their decision and
> be polite.

A lot of recruiters are incredibly incompetent, they don't always know what
works and what doesn't and they can just reject you due to their own
incompetence. You should always be polite, because being rude rarely earns you
any favours, not because the recruiters are always right, and you should feel
sorry for them.

> There are a lot of places where I can strive for greatness and have that
> effort rewarded.

This is why you should never be hung up on one person from one big company
rejecting you.

------
stillsut
This rejection is symbolic of a large problem emerging in the tech talent
pool, similar to the "not-an-MBA" that we've seen ruin the management culture.

Large companies where you can learn a ton, and work with smart and motivated
people, are filtering based on not entirely relevant CS trivia. They still
have many viable candidates as anyone coming out of a university has four
years where their job is explicitly to learn this stuff.

The stuff ends up being so esoteric, that rarely will these trainees actually
be able to use this knowledge for their own programs (i'm open to
counterexamples here). But the reward of going to work for say Google is so
immense - both monetarily and in experience and connections, that students
accept the cost of learning the wrong stuff for the future benefit, the job
where you "actually start learning valuable knowledge"

The next level up in a career is looking for engineers with a proven history
of being able to scale. Guess who that is: last year's hires, who got brought
into an already working system.

This is the pattern we see in management of Fortune-500's and prestige banks.
This has created a culture where you have to buy your way in the door with
years of what a lot of people who actually do it, will admit is largely B.S.
Again, this is not irrational though, because there is often a dramatic drop-
off in quality of opportunities if you don't buy into the game.

So since everyone else is convinced (perhaps rightly so) that the real value
doesn't come until you've been in an elite position, the effect is to erode
all value in acquiring knowledge, skills and experience, in anything that
doesn't neatly fit the filtering game.

~~~
maverick_iceman
_> The stuff ends up being so esoteric, that rarely will these trainees
actually be able to use this knowledge for their own programs (i'm open to
counterexamples here)._

In my own work I have to use the hyperloglog[1] algorithm pretty often. If I
didn't know CS basics it would be a complete blackbox to me.

Or say someone is building a database and needs to make sure that chances of
personally identifiable information getting released is minimized. He'll
probably have to use some sort of differential privacy[2] algorithm. If
someone has never encountered probability how would he even understand the
requirements?

[1]
[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/HyperLogLog](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/HyperLogLog)

[2]
[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Differential_privacy#Formal_de...](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Differential_privacy#Formal_definition_and_example_application)

~~~
stillsut
Thanks, interesting examples.

Could we drill into hyperloglog and how you use it? Is it a bioinformatics
app? Otherwise why are you using this approximation technique on modern
hardware?

------
enibundo
I bet there are other companies who would be happy to have you in!

------
jaimebuelta
I wonder if his lack of CV (of any kind), no matter how much he studied was
what made recruiters discard him right away.

You can learn a lot in a year, but you can't create a CV containing a career
that may look attractive.

(Google process is pretty much optimised to quickly discard applications)

~~~
RawData
The guy has an awesome CV and 15+ years experience as a self-employed
developer/entrepreneur...

~~~
iplaw
And applying for an entry-level development position. He is not lacking in
hubris, so imagine the managerial nightmare he'd likely impose for a
collection of non-managers.

------
RealityVoid
Does anyone know if rejection letters from Google pre-phonecall-phase are
normal? I mean, I've applied a couple of times (I might look faded compared to
other brilliant people that apply and I had nowhere this guy's drive and level
of involvement but thought that it is worth a shot) and every time I didn't
hear anything back. I though they just contact you in case of a positive.

~~~
misingnoglic
He got a referral, and with those you hear back within a week.

------
vorotato
The people who read these books, and the companies who come up with these
contrived interviews deserve each other.

------
icomefromreddit
> "This is my multi-month study plan for going from web developer (self-
> taught, no CS degree)..."

No CS degree and no CS background. I wonder why he wasn't chosen (and why HN
dismiss Google interviews as silly games...).

------
lapinrigolo
Their loss.

------
akjainaj
Posts of people crying so much about not getting hired by a company (usually
Google) are top cringe.

It's like writing on Facebook that you feel miserable because a girl rejected
you.

Just move on, kid.

~~~
eva1984
I respect a lot of awesome work from Google. But this is just really bad
press.

Not that Google initiated this kind of cult in the first place, the
spontaneous worship is a little overwhelming TBH.

~~~
akjainaj
I don't even understand this kind of cult, Google is a shady company and most
of the software from them I've ever used was of a substandard quality

~~~
eva1984
Google is HUGE company, to the point, I won't assume people from Google
actually sharing anything except the fact they are from Google. There are
awesome people doing world changing stuff, also common programmers doing
routine work. I think a lot of people just assume they join Google they will
automatically be promoted to the first league, which is not true according to
my observations.

------
fdsfsaa
He's not missing much. It's just a big squabbling company.

