As you may know, I'm a linguist by education. In the Czech Republic I started studying cuneiform, dropped it and went to new media. Despite the fact that judging by this description I'm dumber than all of you, from time to time I'm even invited to interviews. I was even invited to Google, I'll tell you about that today.
One autumn I was sitting at work not suspecting anything. A girl from Google added me on LinkedIn and asked if I'd have 15 minutes :) I said of course, and we called.
She explained that there's an open analyst position in the anti-spam and fraud team. They need a person with Russian, English and any other languages, who on top of everything can analyze data. Well, i.e. I fit pretty well.
We agreed on the first stage. A week later a girl from the team itself called me and we talked for about an hour. The questions were very different, but mainly I had to imagine myself in some situation. For example, you're a hacker and you need a lot of traffic to your site. What will you do?
There were several such questions, and in an hour of interview you get quite tired.
However, a week later they wrote that I also passed this stage, and 4 interviews were waiting for me. By the way, the position was open in Dublin, so they were ready to pay for tickets, accommodation. However, they weren't ready to help with a visa. Unfortunately, I didn't have a residence card by that time (they haven't made it even now, complete failure). I.e. I had to go through these interviews via Hangouts, Google's analogue of Skype.
They gave about a week to prepare. Sent materials. I read the book "Work Rules!" by Laszlo Bock, Google's HR director. Very interestingly written. And I better understood what Google is and what to expect at interviews :) While preparing, I somehow got used to the idea that I was already there.
I was already ready to move directly, studied everything about Ireland, almost learned the Irish language :)
By the way, at this stage there are 4 interviews.
First - for so-called Googliness. They explain it as wanting only those people who will fit them culturally. Having read about this I understood that, perhaps, the main quality they're looking for is the concept of "intellectual humility", which doesn't even exist in Russian. This is such an ability to doubt your knowledge and dogmas. I.e. they absolutely don't need a person who knows "absolutely the best way to make cutlets", they need a person who will actively try to make cutlets and make mistakes until they find the most suitable way. They say many people fail on this who somewhere at university learned to do one thing well and will drill it till they're blue.
Second - for leadership. Yes-yes, at every, even the simplest position they need a leader person. But there's one but. They don't need a person who will command 100% of the time. They need a "situational leader", i.e. who today takes everything into their own hands, and tomorrow gives the palm to another, because they believe tomorrow someone will handle it better.
Third - technical part. Everything's relatively simple there - you need to guess (or understand) what your team does and train technical skills for this position. Interestingly - nobody will say something like "you need Python and databases". They'll say - you need to be able to analyze, and then think for yourself.
Last, most interesting - interview on "how smart you are". On it you just need to show how you work with your head. Having prepared I understood that there are no right answers there, you need to show that you can find a way out from where there isn't one.
So, how it all went. Each interview lasted 45 minutes.
First was leadership. On it they asked me questions like "give an example of how you dealt at work with someone you didn't like". It was quite simple, because I answered honestly and with real examples from life.
Second was Googliness. I prepared well for this part, and, in principle, the questions were expected for me. You just need to be a normal person, not a sociophobe and any other phobe.
Third was about the technical part. There were really few direct technical questions on it. Rather again questions like "what would you do in such-and-such situation". I must note that this part was quite boring, or maybe I just started getting tired.
Last was just about how smart I am. And it started immediately unexpectedly - questions went, mainly, on product management. Like, imagine a product that I don't like. Put myself in the product manager's place and describe steps on how to make it better. How to collect feedback, what to spend more resources on, etc. In short, the questions were completely unexpected. Strangely, the interview book says that the main task of the interviewer is not to find your weak sides, but to help with strong ones. I.e. if you answer "incorrectly", they'll try to lead you in the right direction. However, in this case this wasn't happening, although I even tried to change the topic or ask for hints :( In general, already during the interview itself I understood that positive feedback from this person is unlikely.
Interestingly, the first two interviews (Googliness and leadership) were conducted by a person at a really high position, technique - your direct colleague, and intelligence - the team manager.
Then all interviewers must write a review and send them to a committee. The committee is such experienced thirty-year-old grandfathers and grandmas who review feedback and decide to take or not to take. That's exactly why each interviewer eternally types something and almost doesn't look at you. This, of course, is sad. Good news - the committee is experienced enough not to pay attention to "picked his nose, very bad candidate". But it also won't pay attention to "knows C++ excellently, excellent fellow", if this C++ isn't needed at all at this position. In general, the book says that all ten circles of hell are created so that Google doesn't have even slightly "wrong" people. I.e. if they take you - almost guaranteed you won't be the smartest.
Here I waited quite a while for feedback. They called in a couple weeks, and without many details said I didn't pass further :( I had to dig, they said I got a neutral (read "not positive") assessment on technique and mental abilities, so I'm not going further. I have the right to apply for any other position immediately. If there had been even one negative feedback - I could apply only in a year.
What conclusions?
- Preparation decides. I did a lot of homework and it helped. I failed where I either didn't guess or couldn't guess what to prepare for
- When you try to get into such companies, you get very attached. As I said, in my head I already moved to Dublin. I don't know if this is bad or good. It didn't bother me, but be ready
- Self-esteem greatly increases. When you passed even 60-70% of the way, you feel the power of your possibilities. Many won't even get a response to their resume
- I understood that I still want to live in an English-speaking country. This motivated me a lot
- If possible, you should interview in person, on site. I'm sure I could have turned the last interview in a direction that would be comfortable for me, if I sat with a real person, not a screen
- The more complex the selection process, the greater the guarantee that there will be few idiots around you at work. So if you see a complex corporate interview process - that's for the better
- Such interviews make you reconsider your current state of affairs. You suit Google in terms of leadership, but at your job they won't trust you with anything? Worth thinking about. Big companies are trying to get you, and now they pay you little saying "we can't pay more"? Again, think why
- A separate story is, of course, how HR behaves. When you have good chances to pass (read "when HR has a big opportunity to get a commission for you") - they answer you quickly, ready to help with everything. When you fail somewhere - everything suddenly changes. They answer slowly, don't go into details, you have to pull everything out. Well, and what's most interesting - about 3 months have passed, and nobody has written to me anymore. Isn't there a more suitable position based on feedback? They know better what I'm good at, plus they can save a bunch of time. Who knows.
I must note that this whole story taught me a lot and inspired me a lot. I hope my story helps you too. Ask about what you want here or on social networks and don't forget to subscribe (you'll find the links yourself, you're not small children).