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Interview questions and reviews posted anonymously by interview candidates.

Difficulty Rating [?] Based on 3 ratings

3.7

“Difficult” Interview

Interview Experience [?] Based on 3 ratings

Positive	33%
Neutral	33%
Negative	33%

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4.0

Difficult Interview

Overall Positive Experience

Interviewed and No Offer

Interviewed Aug 2010 in Dublin, County Dublin (Ireland) (took a day)

Initial Phone Screen, then 30 min phone interview which was all about why Google, why leave your current job now, what do you know about Google. then 3x 1Hour Interviews face to face, scenario based questions, logic questions like how many people will take a particular bus today

Interview Questions

How many people will take a particular bus route today

View Answers (1)

Other Details

I Applied Online and the interview consisted of a Phone Interview and a 1:1 Interview.

Helpful Interview?

Yes | No

Inappropriate?

3.0

Average Interview

Overall Negative Experience

Interviewed and No Offer

Interviewed Jul 2011 in Dublin, County Dublin (Ireland) (took a day)

I was inquiring for another position within another company, but somehow the recruiter must've slipped my CV to Google, for which I wasn't really interested to work for. I don't like hyping. Anyway, a week after my inquiry about this other role one male recruiter contacted me that I for some reason was selected for an on-site interview with Google. This kinda surprised me as I was only inquiring and certainly not for Google.

When I got in, I just ignored the bought coolness of the interior (which looked more like the lunch cafeteria in my university than a canteen) because that is happiness you can buy. Instead I focused on the attitude of the diverse employees running around. It struck me that the people I saw were not half as happy as was hyped - friends and acquaintances told me plenty of times how "cool" it was to work for Google and how happy everybody was to simply be part of it. Even the recruiter advised me of this. No such thing there. The ones I saw looked amazingly neutral at best and generally overstretched or overworked.

In the interviewing room came the first surprise: they didn't even know my name. Furthermore, they didn't even have a hard copy of my CV (!!) at hand, nor did they know my nationality and a couple of other things that one can expect from professional recruiters. I was asked to walk them through my CV, which was awkward as they didn't have a copy of it at hand. One of the women said they would have a look at it later, after the interview was done. An indication to me that they really weren't that much interested in me. That made two, as I wasn't very much interested in working for them anyway.

Ran them through my CV, which took a little bit of time as I have 20 years of experience in IT. Meanwhile they asked standard questions as why I left a certain position and so on. They showed me that they were impressed by my achievements. Then they asked me of which I was most proud of during my career. I explained them what it was and they were visibly impressed. After that the mandatory worst experience, of which I informed them.

After that came a couple more standard questions and what kinda annoyed me were the "worse case" questions they asked me. What would you do if a team member doesn't perform? After the solution I gave, they came up with "and what if it still doesn't work". I explained them that I usually work according to the three strike principle.

After a few more standard questions followed the "Google" question: how much people would use a certain application in my country of origin. I guess I didn't answer this one the way they wanted it. But who cares. After that the interview was over, instead of the 25 mins it had been 45 mins. And after being promised feedback, I walked away from the building, knowing that I would never set foot in it again as the absence of a hard copy of my CV, not knowing my name (and asking about it a few times during the interview) nor my nationality, was too unprofessional for me. I've held thousands of interviews throughout my career and I just got a really bad impression of they way they conducted my interview.

Needless to say that I of course did not get the promised feedback. After a week of hearing nothing, I decided to give the recruiter a call as I hadn't received any contact details of the interviewers. After three attempts I finally got hold of the recruiter who was "surprised" that Google hadn't call me back, but that I had been unsuccessful. To my question why she hadn't bothered contacting me, she said she thought Google would contact me. Yeah right, and I am sure when asked, Google would say they thought the recruiter would've contacted me. Simple fact is that recruiters can't be bothered to contact you if a company doesn't want to hire you - amazingly they are so proactive before the actual interview...

Not getting an offer from Google was ok with me as I didn't intend on working there in the first place. I don't need all that hyping as I am much too down to earth for that. The free food gets stale after a while and the whole thing seems to me more like a cult than what it actually is: just another place to work. So don't be fooled by all those great stories - it's just another workplace. Nothing more nothing less.

Interview Questions

How many people use Google Maps in your country?

View Answers (2)

Other Details

I got the interview through a Recruiter and the interview consisted of a 1:1 Interview.

Helpful Interview?

Yes | No

View Comments (4)

Inappropriate?

4.0

Difficult Interview

Overall Neutral Experience

Received and Accepted Offer

Interviewed Oct 2010 (took 4 months)

First I had a phone interview with a recruiter, which was pretty informal (why do you want to work for Google, tell me about your education). After that a round of on site interviews was scheduled. The recruiter had briefed me beforehand about which areas to prepare. This really helped me a lot. The interviewers were very friendly and I felt I did reasonably well. Another round of on site interviews was scheduled for a few weeks later with people from a different department, which went really well. It took another 3 or 4 weeks to for my application to be reviewed before I received an offer.

The whole process took so long because of people being on holidays etc, but I was kept up to date the whole time and didn't have to do any follow ups.