I applied through college or university. The process took 2 days. I interviewed at Google (Mountain View, CA) in Mar 2011
Interview
I applied online through my school's jobsite. Got an interview call 1 moth later. I was set up with 2 45 min phone interviews. The first interview was primarily about my previous job experiences. The second one was purely case based.
Interview questions [2]
Question 1
Name some google product you like? How will you improve it?
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.
You would have to do a hiring assessment first, then a recruiter screening follows. First round interview with the hiring manager. Majorly product sense and product improvement. The questions were not direct though.
Overall a lot of steps to the interview process. Talked to different people and had opportunities to ask questions. Many different stages which made it a lengthy process overall. Wasn't too bad.