
Does Google's Hiring Process Put Off Talented Applicants? - edent
https://shkspr.mobi/blog/2016/11/does-googles-hiring-process-put-off-talented-applicants/
======
dvcrn
Did the process put me off? Absolutely. So much so that I don't want to apply
again.

Before even starting the interview process, I took weeks to reviews
algorithms, chopped through interviewcake/hackerrank/leetcode challenges, did
numerous test-interviews on pramp and made sure Google was the last of my
interviews to get as much experience in as possible. In the end, it didn't
matter.

The phone call was almost not understandable. My interviewer had a horrible
accent and extreme background noise, almost like he was in a public space with
a really bad microphone. I had to ask 5 times to repeat his question or
clarify what he meant which definitely irritated him as well.

When asked before the interview in what language I would like to do it, I said
python. My interviewer gave me a C++ question (+ C++ class) with streams (I
think that's what it was? I'm not a C++ guy). When mentioning that I said I
want to do it in python he said "oh uhm... well, just implement your solution
in python then", which was a little weird because python doesn't support
streams.

I asked numerous times during the interview if I understood his question
correctly, he said yes. I went ahead with implementing it that way and then
later he asked me why I did it this way and that he wanted something else.

It was a disaster. I didn't pass the interview (they were 50:50 on me) and do
not plan to apply again. I am at a great startup now and probably forgot most
of that algorithm and data structure knowledge again.

~~~
grosbisou
Same experience. Lots of noise making it hard to ask questions. The guy
sounded like he was blackmailed to do that kind of job. He asked me to "sum
the contiguous number in the array". So I start writing the code looping
through the array, finding the boundaries and adding the elements. After 15min
the guy is like "why did you add the elements? I asked you to summarize them."

Ok. Never answered their email again.

~~~
akhilcacharya
They do this on purpose to make you clarify the question.

~~~
onion2k
If someone asks you to "sum an array" then it's quite reasonable to think they
mean calculate the sum of an array. Some languages (PHP springs to mind) have
native "array_sum" functions. Wondering if _someone from Google, who is
interviewing a developer_ means "sum or summarize" would be weird.

------
janoc
I have recently turned down another Google recruiter like this as well.
Position in a domain that is not really my key field and only, maybe, after
their crazy interviewing process.

I am sorry, but I don't have time nor money for days of this coding test/trick
questions nonsense, especially as I would have to travel for the interview
abroad. I am 40 years old, have plenty of experience, scientific publications
on the subject, code in public repositories available and even can supply
personal references if someone wants to call those people. If you want to
treat me like a kid fresh out of the school expect the same treatment back.

And even if you do all this, you are __not __guaranteed to get any specific
position - when I have asked the recruiter what kind of position would I be
interviewing for - junior, senior, developer, team leader, whatever, I was
told "this is not how we work - if you pass the interviews, then we will
assign you to a team that we think best fits with your experience". So, in
other words - go through the grueling interviewing process and finally
discover that the position may not even be relevant for you, completely
wasting everyone's time.

No, thank you. I have better things to do with my time.

~~~
zzalpha
_So, in other words - go through the grueling interviewing process and finally
discover that the position may not even be relevant for you, completely
wasting everyone 's time._

Oh but you see that's where you're confused.

You see, you aren't interviewing for a position, in order to pursue your
interests or advance your career.

You're interviewing to work at Google.

And thank your lucky stars if they accept you! Because OMG Google!!!

~~~
chiefalchemist
Lol. How true. They have more or less one cash cow product (ads) that prints
them money. The rest are just self-indulgent hobbies subsidized by that cash
cow.

And that's grounds for self proclaimed greatness? Sure, Google does some cool
stuff. But their (self-proclaimed?) greatness is overrated. To. A. Fault.

~~~
chrshawkes
And that cow is blocked and ignored by many millennials.

~~~
chiefalchemist
Yup. And Google+ was supposed to help mitigate that risk. Look how that worked
out. What's REALLY stupid is Google had a (crude) "social network." It's
called YouTube. All that genius and no one said "let's take advantage of the
YouTube foundation and trick it out of bit..." And in the meantime FB streams
more video than YT.

Come on now. That's fucking hilarious in the context of treating people like
circus animals and call it an interview process.

------
lostcolony
I always wonder how Google manages to hire. I have a good friend there, but it
was only because another role fell through that she ended up at Google; had
the other company's HR department decided it was okay for a husband and wife
to be working in the same department (different teams), she'd have gone there
first.

For myself, Google's recruitment process was pretty laughable. I applied once
in college for an internship, which was never responded to (fair enough), then
had a recruiter reference it three years later when I was actually looking for
another job, which I followed up on, but then had them drop off the radar (as
seems pretty common) for a month, as I took a job elsewhere, and then later
recruiters doing the same thing, referencing the time I applied 5-7 years
earlier as 'expressing interest'. No, not interested.

It's just as well their interviews are geared for college students, because
that seems to be the only type who would actually tolerate their hiring
process (well, that and the type who doesn't actually need an interview, the
famous 'oh, you have literally written the book on X, come work on X here'
sort)

~~~
gambiting
" (well, that and the type who doesn't actually need an interview, the famous
'oh, you have literally written the book on X, come work on X here' sort)"

Well, they have a reputation for absolutely disregarding whether you are
famous or not:

[https://twitter.com/mxcl/status/608682016205344768](https://twitter.com/mxcl/status/608682016205344768)

~~~
vanni
Even if you are in:

"Ken Thompson must take the mandatory C language test to check-in code."
[2010]

[http://www.theregister.co.uk/2010/04/21/ken_thompson_take_ou...](http://www.theregister.co.uk/2010/04/21/ken_thompson_take_our_test/)

------
julius1234
I did the Google interview process and it lasted around four months. Finally,
their decision was to say 'no' to me. They reached out for me twice after
that, asking if I was interested in doing the entire process again. I turned
them down both times and tried to politely explain that I didn't have any more
time for them, that I already invested all the time that I was willing to
invest in any company and more... Hell! I even used a week from my vacations
to travel to their offices! What I don't understand is, do they expect us to
dissappear from our jobs for a week, to travel to their offices, and not loose
our current jobs in the process?

~~~
edent
Weirdly, it seems very oriented for a European set of employees. A friend of
mine who joined earlier this year was quite happy to burn through several days
of holiday in order to take the interviews. But, as we get ~28 days a year, it
isn't such a big deal.

~~~
dustinmoris
I am European. In Europe people have a strong work-life balance culture with
the main focus on life :). I cannot imagine that any European would want to
sacrifice holidays for a job interview. Normally people call in sick if they
need to go to for an interview. And yes, Europeans have 25+ days annual leave,
but the general feeling is that this is not enough. I think the priorities for
the average European are as follows: Family > Friends > Hobbies > Holidays >
Beer > Food > Cat > Dog > Neighbor's Cat > Something very unsignificant > Work

~~~
edent
Hahaha! I am European also. Well... British, so European for now :-(

I think it depends on the office culture. Where holidays are booked months in
advance, taking "sick days" for interview seems more normal.

------
wht3beb33
You developers don't get it. Think outside of the box. It's like that
recruiter emailed me about a new awesome sounding job and I never heard from
them, wonder why? Well you know why? Because it was an automated email and the
job didn't exist.

Back to Google hiring process. It's a perfectly legit way for Google to
discriminate. Do you think Google doesn't know their hiring process is stupid?
They do. They don't want to hire experienced, smart engineers. They want to
hire inexperienced engineers. Only those will work for free pizza, longer
hours. If you are not willing to study 4 weeks for the interview, then you
won't be staying until midnight to write code in exchange for free pizza.

Let's talk about working at fun projects at Google? Really? Do you think
fixing CSS issues in Gmail will be a fun project? I'd rather not work at
Google and ;

* Have time to do my own laundry.

* Have time to eat out any time with my own money.

* Come to work at 9 leave at 5 and enjoy my life.

* Work with cool people and have fun, instead of working under stress with bunch of arrogant people.

This is exactly the people Google wants to hire. Inexperienced, not so smart
engineers. I'd never, ever work for Google, and they would never want to hire
someone like me. See, their interview process works perfect for them.

~~~
guiomie
Have you worked at Google? You seem to really know what's it's like over
there.

All these points you've mentioned about a good place to work, is pretty much
what I've been experiencing at Google. Great life work balance if you want it.
When it comes to big corp, It seems like a great place to work if you have
kids.

The interview process wasnt much longer than any other Big corp ive
interviewed with. I was in a position where I had and liked my job, so I was
in no rush to leave.

~~~
wht3beb33
Are you a developer at Google or marketing/sales/helpdesk, etc?

~~~
akhilcacharya
I know several people at Google and other Big4/Unicorns (Airbnb, Facebook,
Microsoft, Amazon) and I can assure you none of them are like what you've
described.

------
mabbo
I have friends in the local Google office, and once long ago I interned there.
A few years ago I decided to stop telling off the recruiters and give it a go.

I had 4 interviews where I needed to be exceedingly clever very quickly. I was
for two of them, and wasn't for two of them, and so I was a no-hire. Given a
few days to think through the problems again, I was able to solve them all in
my head- just not in 45 minutes. None of the interviews asked about my ability
to design systems, how to test or manage large-scale applications, how to
gather requirements and work with customers.

My conclusion is that Google is primarily looking for people who either have
every algorithm and problem memorized and ready to regurgitate, or exceedingly
clever people who can solve tricky problems on the spot. I guess this works
for them, as they're a very valuable company. On the other hand, I sometimes
wonder if it works _despite_ this process they have.

~~~
donretag
"None of the interviews asked about my ability to design systems, how to test
or manage large-scale applications, how to gather requirements and work with
customers."

No company will ever ask such questions, which is mind boggling. They will all
ask minute questions about sorting algorithms which you will never code
instead of asking questions related what you will be doing day to day or stuff
that is actually critically important.

No one asks design questions, perhaps because it is an open-ended question.
But aren't those the best question for a role that often requires coming up
with new solutions?

EDIT: perhaps I was too harsh by saying "never". In my experience, companies
have occasionally asked about design, but very few and very little in terms of
the ratio with algorithm questions. Part of the problem is the "new
interviewer every 45/60 minutes" style of interviewing. They all come in and
start off with an algorithm question. Each and every one (at least the
technical ones).

~~~
mabbo
Replying 11 days later so maybe you never see this but...

I'm an interviewer (and SDE) at Amazon and (at least in my division) we won't
do a hire loop for a non-entry level engineer that doesn't include a design
interview. It can make or break a candidate, but if you've been in the
industry for a few years we expect you have some ideas beyond "Get a bigger
database server" when we ask how you'd scale a solution.

------
donretag
For me, the main reason why I turn down Google's requests for interviews is
blind allocation. Google wants you to go through interview after interview
without knowing what role you might get. I am far too experienced to accept
whatever random job a company might have. The last time they contacted me and
told them no, they came back with an actual position of Site Reliability
Engineer. Definitely a job I do not want. Imagine going through the interview
process only to be offered a position that is not to your liking?

It has been almost a year since I heard from Google. They are due to send me
another email soon.

~~~
highlynt
I recently joined Google and it definitely didn't work that way. You aren't
usually interviewing for a specific team, like with smaller companies. But
once you get past the interview your recruiter works with you to find teams
that you will be interested in. In my case I talked to 3 hiring managers that
were all working on the exact type of project I expressed interest in. I've
seen it work this way a bunch of times when hiring for my team since joining.

I'm sure it doesn't always work this way but from what I've seen it's
certainly the intention.

~~~
zzalpha
_But once you get past the interview your recruiter works with you to find
teams that you will be interested in_

That just confirms his/her point.

If you don't know what you'll be doing until after you've gotten through the
recruitment process, it's blind placement.

~~~
Eridrus
There's a significant difference between this and what Facebook does where you
don't know what team you will be on until after you join Facebook and complete
their bootcamp.

~~~
zzalpha
So Facebook is even worse. Good for them!

------
jayflux
If Google (or any other company) don't know whether they should hire you after
6 interviews, I think that says more about them and their process than you.

~~~
edent
I quite agree - that doesn't stop it from being an emotionally exhausting
experience.

------
onion2k
6 interviews over a period of months isn't necessary to find great hires; it's
a way of filtering people out of the interview process. The cost of losing out
on talented people is balanced, at least in part, by the fact that their
process puts off far more older, experienced developers and managers with
families than younger people who dedicate a chunk of their life to the
company.

A job interview is a negotiation. Go in to it with a clear goal - "a solid
offer after 3 interviews" is a good baseline for a giant like Google - and if
you don't get what you're looking for, be willing to walk away.

~~~
johan_larson
I would expect Google to reject that proposal flat out. They are incredibly
keen on process and in this case the process feeds into one of their core
ideas, namely that hiring the very best is crucial. Unless you are a major
figure within the industry, they'll insist you do it their way, full stop.

~~~
onion2k
Google today is operating as if they're Google 10 years ago - back then they
were an incredibly exciting company with more potential than practically any
other business if you were a talented developer. That _really_ isn't the case
now. Google are still phenomenal, but so are other companies now. Google can't
say "do it our way or you get nothing" when a good potential hire will be
interviewing with half a dozen or more other 'unicorn' companies, especially
when those other companies are doing world-changing, ground-breaking work
whereas Google's core products are mature, essentially finished things that
lack that excitement.

------
biofox
I suspect it selects for a very particular type of person -- someone who
values the opportunity to work for google more than their own time; and
consequently results in employees who are eager and willing to put the company
before themselves, work long hours, and not challenge the company's management
or policies.

It's like a gang initiation: put them through an ordeal to test and cement
their loyalty.

~~~
cmrdporcupine
Googler here, I don't find that long grueling hours is something they select
for or that Google is particularily known for.

But IMHO the interview process (which I dislike) definitely selects for new-
grad types. From my perspective it's very heavily biased against industry-
experience types and in favour of people who are comfortable in the "look I
can excellently apply what I learned in my Algorithms/Data structure course on
a whiteboard without sweating and getting nervous".

I should also note that the interview process also puts a lot of burden on
Googlers. People, especially senior people, spend a _lot_ of time
interviewing.

~~~
maaaats
Yeah, I had an interview where it was blatantly obvious the person doing it
didn't want to spend the time. It was a remote interview, somewhat far along
the process (e.g. after screening and some technical) via Skype, but sound
only, no video. I found that a bit weird not seeing the person I was talking
to. But realized during the screen-programming-session the interviewer was
busy doing something else, so it was probably why.

------
notacoward
In another refutation of Betteridge's Law, the answer is yes. Google has been
relentlessly trying to recruit people in my peer group for a long time. I
guess it's a specialty that's in high demand somewhere within the 'plex. A lot
of these people are very talented indeed, and about half of them just won't
even consider Google. Of those, it's another even split between those who are
uninterested in Google generally (privacy issues or ad-based business model)
vs. those who are specifically put off by the interview process. So that's
maybe a quarter of that sample. It's something I'd be deeply concerned about
if I were at Google myself, but I guess they feel that if they just fling
enough money around they'll find enough people willing to put up with that
crap, and since they literally have more money than they know what to do with
it's not a problem.

~~~
quickben
Just out of curiosity, what area are most of you in?

~~~
notacoward
I work on distributed filesystems. Most of the people I'm talking about work
on various forms of data storage, though I could also think of a couple in
virtualization, containers, config management, etc. One of the perks of being
at Red Hat is that I get to rub shoulders (and sometimes bump elbows) with
people across a pretty broad range of specialties.

------
dgreensp
Yes, absolutely. Google is legendary for this. They are turning off not just
talented applicants, but presumably applicants with other options and
applicants with a good dose of self-respect who won't put up with such a long,
impersonal process.

I've been in the world of 20-to-30-person start-ups for the last several years
and seen some amazing recruiting processes. Emails to new leads are personal,
not copy-pasted, and take context into account. Phone screens weed out all but
the most likely applicants to work out. On-site interviews are a chance to get
to know the team. Offers are made quickly, even same-day.

------
pjmlp
Well at least it has put me off, after being rejected twice.

I did not even apply, rather was invited by their HR.

Most likely I am not skilled enough to work there and am just a vocal average
developer, fair enough, no complaints about it.

But then don't spam me all the time saying how great addition I would be to
whatever team X, either I am an average developer or a great addition to the
team.

~~~
bobdole1234
You're always learning, just because you're not where you need to be today,
doesn't mean you'll never reach the bar.

------
marktangotango
I once consulted at a Big Corp that also focused on hiring and burning through
fresh college graduates. I imagined the culture must have been a bit like
google as a result. This was a large health care company in the midwest. They
didn't have the prestige to hire from Stanford or CMU, but they could get some
of the best grads from second and third tier schools.

They'd hire these kids in and put them to work on their legacy monstrosity,
expected 50 hour work weeks, mediocre benefits, and mediocre pay. The result
was a lot of really talented people literally wasting years and not advancing
their skills, and not getting to use any current, marketable technology. It
was also a highly toxic environment as these same capable people crucified
each other in code reviews and one-up-man-ship.

Obviously google must not be quiet that bad, but I'm also sure they have a lot
of really talented people wasting their abilities on internal CRUD apps.

~~~
dgacmu
This is... very, very much unlike Google. Almost the opposite; Google puts a
lot of work into figuring out how to keep its employees happy. And, if
anything, it has the opposite problem than "working on a legacy monstrosity"
\- there's enough internal mobility that it's hard to convince people to work
on something lame. (Obvious bias: I work there a day per week still.)

~~~
hga
_Google puts a lot of work into figuring out how to keep its employees happy._

I'm not sure how you can say this for a company that's notorious for using
closed allocation.

Worst horror story I've heard, here on HN, was an EE who was also good at
Python. He sure thought he was hired to do hardware, but found himself stuck
writing Python to test hardware. Not wanting to end his EE career, he of
course had to resign.

And, yes, I know in theory you're able to quickly transfer out of that first
position if it's not a good fit, but like the anecdote above, we've heard too
many stories where that doesn't work in practice.

As others have noted, the whole thing for non-VIPs seems expressly tuned for
new college graduates, who, in the case of this closed allocation policy,
generally won't mind working on "whatever" for 18 months.

~~~
dgacmu
First - I've never entered Google as a fresh grad, so I have no idea what the
experience is like. More of my students have entered after their Ph.D. than
after their B.S., so again, more bias. All but one of the fresh Ph.D.'s who
went there are still there, and seem generally happy with the way their
careers are going; one left after a few years for a startup.

But, to more directly address your question with the information I do have,
there are a lot of things that make a job good or not good. When it comes to a
lot of the other things - benefits/perks, ease of getting things done, low
overhead, responsive management, good culture, smart colleagues - Google does
very well.

w.r.t. the actual job spec and happiness - all I can say is that there's
likely to be a bias in hearing from people who were dissatisfied. But, again,
my colleague set is biased towards seniority and people who've chosen to stay,
so either way, you're getting an uneven view. :)

~~~
le-mark
This response is much more measured than the previous one. The grand parent
was clearly talking about fresh grads, yet you chose to respond as if you're
exceptional experience was more relevant. If PhDs have a douche rep, this is
an example of why.

~~~
dgacmu
There's a lot of objective evidence that Google is successful in being a good
place to work. I assumed it wasn't necessary or productive to re-hash it.
They're consistently ranked at the top of various "best companies to work for"
lists, blah blah -- and while we all know those are partly a PR game, there's
also some truth behind it.

The note to which I responded was by someone who had never worked at Google,
and was making a large assumption based upon their experience at an unrelated
company ("a large health care company in the midwest"). Many of the things in
that note are factually incorrect as a basis for comparison ("mediocre
benefits, and mediocre pay", said no Google or Facebook engineer, ever).

The point raised by hga has more to go on -- I don't know how common it is to
be stuck doing things like that -- which is why I gave a more careful response
to it.

(As an aside, I don't think it adds much to the discussion to make a personal
attack or a categorical attack against people based upon their education. I
welcome criticism, but it's certainly not fair to judge all Ph.D.s based upon
my response, as much as it's not fair to assume that everyone in Kansas City
misuses apostrophes based upon yours. :)

~~~
le-mark
Oooh, you read my comment history, aren't we clever? Who so ever dissembles
and back tracks twice(!) to explain and justify a banal internet post, they
may have something to consider.

------
raverbashing
Yes, Google has read the "How to make enemies and alienate people" book and
likes to apply it

But to be fair, they're not the only ones doing it. Sadly.

It's quite funny when recruiters come offer me repeatedly the same opening
that I was rejected from on grounds of "not good enough test results" or "not
enough experience in certain areas" (which sometimes are a 100% fair rejection
but more often than not have a pass "grade" of slightly below top marks,
_which does not make sense_ , especially for your run of the mill web
company).

------
EnderMB
For me, it's less about the hiring process, and more about actually getting an
interview.

When I finished my CS degree, I considered applying for Google, but I ended up
working in a startup instead, which is probably for the best, because I ended
up getting thrown into the deep end and learning a ton.

A few years later, I had worked at a few agencies, and had a few decent
projects/promotions under my belt, so I decided that I'd apply to Google, just
to see what my chances were. I submitted my CV, and got a flat-out rejection.
Not to worry, I thought. There's always another time. A year ago, I submitted
my CV again, and after about two weeks I received another rejection.

It might be because I work on the .NET stack, but Google won't touch me, it
seems. I wouldn't consider myself a bad developer by any means. I've
contributed to open-source, I've got a decent rep on Stack Overflow, none of
my employers would have anything bad to say about me. I've had offers for
interviews from Amazon and once from Microsoft; I refused the former, and
accepted the latter, although the recruiter never got back to me. Personally,
I consider the process to be quite fun, and while I've probably forgotten most
of the content from my Algorithms classes, above anything else I think it'd be
a nice thing to try, even if I don't get the job. At the very least, it'll be
a good opportunity to test myself to see if I can (re)learn the stuff I'd need
to be a Google developer.

~~~
akhilcacharya
I would contact a recruiter directly, you could probably find a few emails on
LinkedIn. It's surprising though, I was under the impression that they
interviewed everyone.

~~~
EnderMB
I've tried that too, and still no luck! I've got three different Google
recruiters, and I've messaged about roles in different areas before, and no
bite.

It's really weird. I get at least 5 emails a day from recruiters in general,
and the occasional email from a larger company, but Google clearly don't want
me.

------
dajohnson89
I was contacted by a Google recruiter, and she told me how grueling the
interview process was. She said I could use up to four weeks to study. No
thanks. I have a full time programming job. The notion of coming home to
practice balancing a binary search tree, or finding the kth smallest prime
palindrome in a linked list or whatever.....is revolting.

~~~
noarchy
This has essentially been my attitude. If you're interviewing me based on my
experience in my profession, why should I have to _study_ for anything? We're
talking about things I do 8+ hours per day. Study? That would only be needed
if the questions are specifically not related to the job I'm expecting to do.

------
arikrak
I'm not sure what role the author is referring to, but I never heard of
ordinary job applicants taking 6 months. I applied to Google online for a
software engineer position and their recruiter reached out to me the next day.
We scheduled an in-person interview a couple weeks later (since I wanted a
little time to prepare). After the interview, it took a little under two weeks
for them to move forward to meeting potential teams, and one more week for an
actual offer to be finalized. It could take longer than this, but they keep
candidates in the loop.

~~~
edent
Author here. I'm just going by what the recruiter told me. He was clear that
they need to do due diligence and that I could expect _up to_ a 6 month
process.

I sounds like yours took around 6 weeks - which I still consider to be quite a
long time. My friend told me she went through 3 months of interviews.

These weren't for Director Level (or whatever Google calls them) but for
senior product manager type roles.

Of course, neither you nor I have data about the average length from
application to onboarding, so it is hard to argue specifics.

------
riskneural
Well, I politely declined the next stage when I heard it was a brain teaser
round. I don't really seem to do well in brain teasers. I don't at all get a
kick out of puzzles that aren't a means to an end. Does anybody else have that
feeling?

~~~
akhilcacharya
>I heard it was a brain teaser round

A brain teaser? Like a puzzle? Or do you mean a coding interview?

Brain teasers haven't been asked in years AFAIK.

~~~
riskneural
The term brain teaser was used explicitly. It would have been something data
science/statistics related.

------
pmiller2
It could actually be worse: at least the actual work environment seems to be
decent enough, once you get in. I've explicitly turned down interviews (
_i.e._ I actually responded to the recruiter, rather than just letting the
email sit in my inbox) with Amazon because of how much the day to day would
suck, based on experiences of people I know.

~~~
johan_larson
What did you hear?

------
loukrazy
I interviewed with Google. While waiting for a response from my on-site
interview I interviewed with another company and received an offer. I did not
end up receiving an offer from Google but it did not make a difference as I
already accepted the other job. It took Google almost a month after the on-
site to get through their various levels of review.

------
BuuQu9hu
Google's ethics put off talented applicants.

------
geebee
I interviewed with google, once. I enjoyed the process more than most here,
though in some ways, that really just shows how badly I've been treated in
other interviews.

It's not really an interview. This is the hardest thing for people outside our
field to understand when they hear the word "interview". Our interviews are
essentially exams, and google is probably the purest form of the interview as
exam style of hiring. I studied data structures and algorithms, and took
series of four one-hour oral whiteboard exams. I was treated politely and
well, and had a nice lunch.

Really, they're exams. You might spend less than 5% of your time talking about
the job, your background, your interest. You show up, they test you at the
whiteboard.

I was a no hire. This is fine, but the secrecy around the exam and feedback, I
think, reflects what's so wrong with this situation. There are, as I
understand, actual numerical scores and notes about me and my performance in a
database at google, along with images of the solutions I wrote on the
whiteboard. However, I am not allowed to know anything about these scores or
notes.

Imagine if you took the LSAT and applied to law schools, only to be rejected
with the reason that your scores "weren't what we're looking for", but you
aren't allowed to know what your score actually was! Or, perhaps, that you sat
for your nursing or medical boards, and were told "you were strong in some
areas and clearly studied hard, but we've decided not to allow you to become a
physician or nurse at this time..."

I've written a bit about all this on HN before - our severe problem here is
that we take exams, under conditions that many people view as very stressful,
but with absolutely none of the rights that are often accorded a student. No
clear study path, no information about who will be grading you or what that
person's qualifications are, and - most importantly - no right to understand
how you were graded or why you passed or failed.

This is what I don't want to participate in anymore. I'm nearing the point
where I would rather leave the field than be a part of it.

That last part drives me especially nuts, because google is one of the
companies constantly beating the drum about a "shortage" of developers. Do
they not see how their own behavior contributes to this shortage?

~~~
edent
> However, I am not allowed to know anything about these scores or notes.

Are you in the UK? The Data Protection Act is very clear that you have the
right to any information a company holds about you. All EU countries have a
similar law.

If you are in the EU, you should be able to write to Google and demand the
data they have. That might burn your bridges with them - but at least you'll
know what they thought of you.

~~~
geebee
That's interesting. I'm in California, so not sure if this is an option.

I agree that this might burn bridges, so obviously that's something I'd need
to reconsider. It also speaks volumes about the problems around technical
interviews that simply asking how your performance on an exam was scored is a
potentially career limiting act.

Keep in mind, this is a company that was involved in a clearly illegal wage-
fixing scheme. I do think it's worth treading carefully here.

Tech has a long, long way to go.

------
elif
I absolutely hated my interview experience, but that did not turn me off
completely. I stayed in touch with recruiters in case I decided it became a
good time to move.

What put me off of Google was the declining adherence to "don't be evil" to
the point of it almost becoming an ironic joke, with Eric's shady dealings
with HRC's campaign being the final straw.

------
brudgers
Google's interview process is bureaucratic because Google is bureaucratic.
It's just another enterprise once you get past all the 'ping-pong tables and
beanbag chairs.' Employees ride buses, eat in cafeterias, and are permitted to
use only approved programming languages. Company's of Google's economic size
pretty much have to be.

One of which is Go. A fine language that meets Google's purposes but lacking
map/reduce etc. I can only imagine the difference in perception if Oracle
mandated something like that. Anyway, Google's hiring process has to select
for people who will not be unhappy [metaphorically] programming in Go.
Everybody ain't cut out for corporate life, and talent that doesn't thrive in
Google's cultural straightjackets [every company has them] is better for being
filtered out.

Google has the data to know who is likely to work out and who is not. The
hiring process reflects that.

~~~
chiefalchemist
Kinda. Goggle, like every company, does what it does because it believes it
has served it well.

Sure Google does TONS of cool stuff but very few things have been market
successful. In short, Google makes a TON of money from ads. But it uses
blindness and denial to view that as a cultural / company wide success. Take
away ads and Google is just another fuckup struggling tech company.

~~~
bobdole1234
So, you're saying the fact they've been making billions in profit isn't
success?

~~~
chiefalchemist
No. I'm saying they have one cash cow and a shit load of mediocre products and
complete failures. Take away that one Uber successful product and Google isn't
all that exception. So making decisions based on an outlier is silly.

THAT is what I'm saying :)

------
intralizee
I had read all the horror stories online about google interviews before going
into one.

My interview had the interviewer and I on the phone simple enough. She had
glanced and really had only glanced at my resume and I assume just noticed I
had worked at 'x' which was good enough for her mind of recruiting. She didn't
even look at any projects I had worked on or have any questions aimed towards
previous work. I was good enough to her for the next stage of interviewing but
I ended up wanting to just cut dealing with their interview shit out of my
life at that point. Pathetic company that wants me to slave away memorizing
from some book to pass an interview process that hires plebs that probably
surf Facebook all day while attempting to hire college grads that may have
interned at other tech companies.

------
tedmiston
I've been reached out to by Google recruiters a few times over the past couple
years (Facebook too, but I've heard there process isn't quite as time-
consuming). I have never applied or interned there. I did get a Google Foobar
invite and solved some of those problems but didn't choose to submit to
Google. I went to an average mid-size school in the midwest, probably
relatively unknown to them. I did some grad school which they seemed to
notice; maybe they reach out to everyone who did CS grad school.

One thing I have noticed more than any other place is that the early stage /
non-tech recruiters really spent time digging into my LinkedIn or Stack
Overflow CV to ask specific questions, even in non-technical aspects like
being an RA in college or study abroad. I wish everyone did this. It made me
take them more serious as being interested in me and not just _people_.

I would really enjoy the opportunity to work for Google. I'm self-employed as
an independent contractor with plenty of work. Most recently I turned the
Google recruiter down after he sent a prep deck as I realized between prep,
interviews, travel, etc, I'd be committing 100+ hours to the process. That's a
lot of time and lost money, so despite having the desire to work there, at the
end of the day I concluded it'd be a better use of time to opt-out than
partially commit to an intensive process with very indefinite time bounds. The
recruiter seemed surprised though — maybe people don't do this so much.

------
shubhamjain
There is a distinct possibility that a data-driven company like Google, having
huge budgets for optimising their talent-finding machinery, is already aware
about the holes in their hiring process. There might be no resounding reason
for big-G to catch every talented engineer out there; they just need to catch
enough of them which, considering their glamour, shouldn't be that difficult.
Having the bar raised high, even if superficially so, they can continue to
attract the _crème de la crème_

------
awinter-py
Important to distinguish btwn web silo hires and R&D hires. The fun jobs at G
like driverless cars and ML are targeting relatively rare skillsets. The
technical managers in those silos are likely mining their rolodex and visiting
schools.

It's the boring stuff (web maintenance & integration) where the managers are
burned out (or just bad managers) so they farm out hiring to recruiters.

Acquihire process is lighter-weight per-candidate and gets around the blind
allocation point people are making here.

------
jimmywanger
An interesting data point. It seems that non satisfied potential employees are
far more likely to vocalize their experience than satisfied ones.

The ones who castigate the process the most either failed the process or chose
not to enter it, and ultimately failed to get an offer.

Whereas I know plenty of people who were able to get an offer with a minimally
invasive interview process. Having somebody able to refer you in is key, skips
a lot of the BS.

------
ohstopitu
I do want to add that, I've personally had a GREAT interview experience at
Google (might be a exception based on the rest of the comments but I do want
to put it out here).

I had been initially selected for the position of Sales Engineer. Over the
course of the interviews (3 in total - over the course of 2 weeks), I felt
like I knew what was going on, what stage I was in and what questions were
asked (as in, the reasoning behind the questions - the stuff they wanted to
test me on).

However, after the 3rd interview, I was told that I fit another position
better and they wanted to interview me for that position instead (great
position, but in SF which I was not interested in).

Over the course of the last 4 months, I've been to 100s of interview and I can
safely say that _MY_ Google interview experience is in the top 10 (and if they
are hiring in Ontario, Canada, I will definitely apply and hope to get
interviewed again).

------
ska
I suspect that the hiring process varies quite a bit by role and group, and
mostly people talk about the worst cases.

I did part of the process once (a few years ago) and it was very
straightforward. Roughly it looked like: Initial call "are you interested" on
Tuesday, someone else on Wednesday for 30 min. They arranged a flight & hotel
that Sunday, I spent Monday interviewing and visiting with 5 groups if I
recall correctly, flew home that night.

So just under a week from first contact to interviewing finished. We started
talking positions but I decided to take another opportunity the following week
and stopped the process, so I don't know how long that might have taken for
approval or negotiation. However, they had seemed confident they could get it
sorted out in a couple of weeks.

So just anectdata but doesn't feel at all like the dragged out versions people
talk about.

~~~
ithkuil
yeah, people tend to complain loudly when it goes wrong (and it does happen).
I had a very pleasant experience for what is worth.

------
gpderetta
I actually don't mind coding tests and whiteboard interviews, as I take the
former as a challenge and I tend to do decently on the latter.

My issue with G interview process is how long it takes. Last time I was
looking to change job (I was soon to be a father and wanted something more
stable), I did a round of interviewing for a few companies. All did a phone
interview and quickly followed up with an on site interview. In less than a
week I had a few nice offers.

In the same time frame G came back, after the phone interview, with an offer
to come to the office for the first of a few rounds of interviews. Although I
was interested, I had to decline as I couldn't really justify the time, and
instead took one of the other offers, which is a shame as I have quite a few
ex-colleagues working there and I would love to join them.

------
miiiiiike
My friend was hired last week and somewhere near the end of the process the
headhunters asked him for referrals. When he asked me if I'd be interested I
said "Nope. Not wasting my time on the interviews" almost instinctively.

------
osullivj
When designing a hiring process one should consider the balance between false
positives and false negatives, and the cost of the process. Obviously we all
want to hire talent and reject duds. A cheap quick process runs the risk of
false positives: hiring duds. An expensive lengthy process tying up lots of
top staff will eliminate the false positives, but at cost. So to reduce cost
filters are introduced: online tests, homework, phone calls rather than face
to face. And the filters increase the risk of false negatives - rejecting real
talent.

~~~
tedmiston
While this is an accurate description of Google's process, and it seems like
they intentionally designed it this way (willingness to reject false
negatives), I'm not sure what the point is that you're making about it.

~~~
osullivj
My point is to explain the hard headed calculation behind a hiring process
that has a lot of folk crying "not fair!"

------
Eridrus
What part of the process have you guys found to take so long? I turned down an
offer there 6 years ago, but it didn't take anywhere near 6 months, and from
on-site to offer was about a week or two. I'm going through their process
again now and based on current progress I expect the whole thing to wrap up in
less than a month. It's not the fastest process I've seen, but it hasn't
seemed worse than other large companies to me.

------
chiefalchemist
If Goggle, FB, etc. were serious about diversity, they'd address this. The
fact is, they don't want diversity. They want assimulation. The hiring process
setting that tone.

They, being blind to their own blindness, keep asking: How can we get more
diverse? How can we get X, Y and Z to join us?

It's the wrong question.

The better question is to gaze into the mirror and ask: What are WE doing that
makes us SOOOOOOOO unappealing to X, Y and Z?

Nuff said.

------
swingbridge
There's no question Google no longer attracts the best of the best talent.
Hopefully that's not news to the folks at Google.

~~~
johan_larson
Where do you think the best of the best are going instead?

~~~
akhilcacharya
From what I can gather "best" go to companies with _even more stringent_
hiring bars and processes, like Airbnb, Quora, Dropbox, and the Quant firms.

------
known
2 billion lines of code in ONE repository?
[https://www.wired.com/2015/09/google-2-billion-lines-
codeand...](https://www.wired.com/2015/09/google-2-billion-lines-codeand-one-
place/)

------
viuviuviuz
don't worry...from what I've heard it's boring work anyway

------
setq
The recruitment process is ridiculous. If you can get through the Google
gates, you can get a close enough salary with equity if that's your sort of
thing and start in a week.

And you'll end up working somewhere that your voice counts and the company is
not a high profile privacy and political target.

Might have to buy your own lunch though.

------
camoby
Yes.

