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Google step 3 completed
Jan. 15th, 2004 01:28 pmI've just returned from my face-to-face interview at Google. As I arrived there were clearly other people in the lobby interviewing for the same position. Be not alarmed: the department I'm applying to (AdWords) is growing fast and there are lots of new people brought in each week keep up the growth curve. So yes I'm competing with these folks for slots, but there's more than one slot available.
It looked like the HR staff was in triage mode for their interviews today. There were 8 or so people in the interview pipe at any given moment, and an HR person whose full time duty today seemed to be orchestrating the complex ballet of getting various people in various stages of interviewing on to the next step with the right people.
My first stage was to sit down for the traditional face-to-face interview. The woman who was chatting with me was not very animated, nor did she probe me in-depth for much information. Unlike the lady I talked to for my phone interview, it was difficult if not impossible to build a raport with her. I feel I did decently but couldn't shine very brightly, so I'm worried that I didn't stand out enough to her. I did ask several questions (none of which I'm allowed to share the answers to, as I'm under an NDA) that had piqued my curiosity as I studied for the job; hopefully that showed her that I was interested, had studied, and was technically competent. One heartening thing she did say: about one in three applicants has been out of work for a long time, and (like me) couldn't report much activity or growth in their lives since they became unemployed. She reassured me that this was not a barrier to entry in to Google.
Next came a timed written test. I had 30 minutes to give written responses to three questions, some of them theoretical situations that would come up in the job, and some of them personal ones about me. I wanted to write volumes more than I had time for, but felt I did well with the time I had. Clearly this portion of the process was designed to see if I could write under pressure, and write coherent sentences.
Lastly, I had a kind of "exit interview" to the interview process. I finally met the woman who I'd had the extensive chat with on the phone the other day, and had some follow up questions for her. She asked me how I felt I did, and I essentially shared the above with her. She assured me that they know that folks don't have enough time on the written portion, and take that very much into account as they review the applicants.
Now done with my interviewing, I met up with![[livejournal.com profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/external/lj-userinfo.gif)
capricious_k and furycom for one of Google's famous catered lunches. Yeah, I could get used to working there. Casual atmosphere, young and talented crowd of folks, company growing carefully and well in the post-bubble economy.
From here it's out of my hands. They assured me that I would here from them, one way or the other, either tomorrow or Monday. And that they have their next training session starting next week, so if I get hired I could be starting very soon. Even if I don't get the job, I'm very happy to have gone through the process; it's been very self-affirming.
It looked like the HR staff was in triage mode for their interviews today. There were 8 or so people in the interview pipe at any given moment, and an HR person whose full time duty today seemed to be orchestrating the complex ballet of getting various people in various stages of interviewing on to the next step with the right people.
My first stage was to sit down for the traditional face-to-face interview. The woman who was chatting with me was not very animated, nor did she probe me in-depth for much information. Unlike the lady I talked to for my phone interview, it was difficult if not impossible to build a raport with her. I feel I did decently but couldn't shine very brightly, so I'm worried that I didn't stand out enough to her. I did ask several questions (none of which I'm allowed to share the answers to, as I'm under an NDA) that had piqued my curiosity as I studied for the job; hopefully that showed her that I was interested, had studied, and was technically competent. One heartening thing she did say: about one in three applicants has been out of work for a long time, and (like me) couldn't report much activity or growth in their lives since they became unemployed. She reassured me that this was not a barrier to entry in to Google.
Next came a timed written test. I had 30 minutes to give written responses to three questions, some of them theoretical situations that would come up in the job, and some of them personal ones about me. I wanted to write volumes more than I had time for, but felt I did well with the time I had. Clearly this portion of the process was designed to see if I could write under pressure, and write coherent sentences.
Lastly, I had a kind of "exit interview" to the interview process. I finally met the woman who I'd had the extensive chat with on the phone the other day, and had some follow up questions for her. She asked me how I felt I did, and I essentially shared the above with her. She assured me that they know that folks don't have enough time on the written portion, and take that very much into account as they review the applicants.
Now done with my interviewing, I met up with
capricious_k and furycom for one of Google's famous catered lunches. Yeah, I could get used to working there. Casual atmosphere, young and talented crowd of folks, company growing carefully and well in the post-bubble economy.From here it's out of my hands. They assured me that I would here from them, one way or the other, either tomorrow or Monday. And that they have their next training session starting next week, so if I get hired I could be starting very soon. Even if I don't get the job, I'm very happy to have gone through the process; it's been very self-affirming.
