I applied through an employee referral. The process took 3 months. I interviewed at Google (Mountain View, CA) in Jun 2018
Interview
I was surprised in the lack of scalability of the Google process given it's breadth. Basically an employee screen (moderate), six onsite one-on-ones (tough). No doubt, each question area is relevant, but I'd be hard pressed to agree that prepping for weeks for this breadth translates well to success in the role. There is no fail fast, pivot, consult, in this process, which is more real-life success. I'd recommend segmenting into two separate onsites with a reduced scope. I think you'd be surprised how much better people would do when looking at the total package.
I'd also say to the interviewer, stop leading the interviews and start listening more you may be surprised by a unique approach. You need to be exceptional as a candidate in the process, but if you offer no patience and can't back off your own expected result, you can't expect to be impressed. Enough said. Another un-google.
Overall, I believe success on the Google interview is more about luck of the draw with interviewer openness and candidate assertiveness on your ideas. Surprising and not what I expected.
The process was straightforward and moved quickly. After applying online, a recruiter reached out within a few days for a brief phone screen. That was followed by two video interviews, one with the hiring manager and one with a panel of team members focused on project planning and stakeholder communication. The whole thing wrapped up in about two weeks, and the team was responsive and clear about next steps throughout.
Interview questions [1]
Question 1
I walked through a specific project where a key vendor delivery slipped. I explained how I flagged the risk early in our weekly status review, reset expectations with stakeholders, re-sequenced dependent tasks, and brought the timeline back within an acceptable range by negotiating a partial early delivery.
standard 1st round digital interview, they are asking about your experience, background, some behavioural questions and technical questions. and they also share a bit more about the role, culture and expectation
Very self-driven, first of multiple rounds, where I had to take the initiative to arrive at the problem, constraints, approach, solutions, tradeoffs and reasoning behind it in a matter of 30 minutes.