TL;DR at bottom. I haven't been through such a poor interview process in a long time. It's a lot like the dinosaurs like IBM or Lockheed Martin. While Google's interview process used to be seen as "quirky", the slightest economical curveball has thrown them off a cliff, and into the harsh reality that they just aren't that good anymore. Please note, this has been my experience with Google's Government branch (Public Sector). YMMV. Current TC: 367k YOE: 16 This has been my interview process. TL;DR at the bottom if you can't be bothered. - Early-January: I apply to a mid/senior role, and get contacted about the role the next day. Both recruiters are fantastic and get a lot of stuff moving at once. It's going great. - JAN 20: I hear of layoffs and send an email to the recruiters to make sure they're okay. No responses, but I disregard concerns, because one mentioned going on vacation, and my interview was already scheduled and set up. - JAN 23: I go into the interview via Google Meet. *Nobody* shows up. I email both internal contacts and get nothing. Mind you, I'm interviewing with 5 other companies, including ones affected by layoffs, and nothing like this happened. - JAN 25: Emailed again. Nothing. - JAN 27: I'm a little annoyed now, so I email yet again. This time, I get 2 automatic out-of-office messages with details on who to contact. Pause on this. It took Google SEVEN DAYS to realize their interview POCs were totally unreachable, and that maybe they should get OOO messages set up for their laid off recruiters. So now I email the new point of contact and explain the situation.... and I'm ghosted for a week. - ONE WEEK LATER: I email the new POC again, and get a 3 sentence response. Understandably, the new recruiter is probably swamped. Long story short, both recruiters were laid off. My original interviewer (a Chief Engineer of >10 years) was laid off. New recruiter sets up a new interview. - FEB 6: The new interview! It was comically easy. 45 minutes of just chatting, and the most basic questions I've ever been asked. Not coding. Mostly about authentication mechanisms and security. - FEB 10: I send a follow-up email to the new recruiter. Nothing. - FEB 13: I get an email from the new recruiter that my interview results were fantastic. HOWEVER, they're not sure if they can proceed, due to government clearance details. To keep it simple, the recruiter doesn't doesn't know if I have the right type of clearance (I do). This is because the clearance name isn't a one-to-one fit with what the job description says, and that's scary because it means that the recruiter isn't cut out for the roles they're headhunting for. ... In this time frame, I've gone through 3 other interviews in full, and I'm finishing up the other 2 interview loops. I'm expecting a couple of offers this week, all cleared work, specifically from Palantir, Amazon, Microsoft. The other 2 where I'm still interviewing are SpaceX and Lockheed Martin (lol). But seriously, this is embarrassing for Google. This interview process is akin to IBM when I interviewed with them 6+ years ago. Nobody communicated and nobody knew what was going on. This is the *exact* same thing happening right now with how layoffs were handled, interviews falling apart, the lack of communication, and the misunderstanding the clearance stuff. TL;DR: Both recruiters laid off, interviewer laid off (a 10+ yr. chief engineer), no contact for a week because emails were going into the void, new recruiter is drowning in work, interview was half-assed, new recruiter doesn't know if I meet a paper requirement (that I do), because the new recruiter isn't familiar with the type of work they're recruiting for.
45 mins phone screen with no coding??? Was it supposed to be a coding round?
The role itself is non-coding, mostly infrastructure. The questions were insanely easy. This is a lower senior level role, and I was asked "What is Active Directory?"
So WHAT is it? PS Google only knows internal tooling. /s
Yeah, things are not good at all here right now and I don’t think we’ve hit bottom yet.
That supreme court case is supposed to be a big risk for Google right now. Are y'all talking about that?
There are so many things that are risks for Google right now, the courts aren’t any more worrisome than any of the other crap. ☺️
My partner was a recruiter at Google (a good one) until unceremoniously laid off a few weeks ago. He always said the recruiting process even when fully staffed was a complete mess. Tons of unnecessary people involved, approvals, gates, etc. that bogged down the process. Not to mention totally clueless and indecisive HMs and business leaders. The stories he has are crazy. It’s a miracle they ever hired anyone. Google has been riding on its prestige and now the curtain has been pulled back. They haven’t launched an innovative product in a decade. Fuck that place.
That's just depressing. This has been an eye opening "don't meet your heroes" experience. I'm sorry for your partner. Hopefully they've rebounded since then?
Google is indeed bloated then…
Too long. Who can tell me what the poll is about?
Which place I should ACTUALLY focus on, since they managed to keep their shit together.
Sorry for your wasted life hours
It's okay. Companies rise and fall. A tumble doesn't mean it's over, no matter how much Blind likes to scream it. If Google was my only job option right now, I'd be desperate and sad. But since I have a lot of options, it's just mildly annoying. I'd hate to be a high performer trapped inside.
🤣
Thank you, Keanu Chungus
Recruiting is a mess at Google right now. But work wise I don't see any issues here
Thanks for a well written, coherent post with useful information, which is apparently too long for the alleged super geniuses on this site to read. Their loss.
I mean, the only useful information I got was that a bunch of people got laid off at Google so they're not recruiting. Maybe the details would be more relevant if Google was actually trying to hire, but it doesn't seem so :/
@Oracle the big part is that there's a huge lack of communication, 7 straight days before someone on the back end said "Oh shit" and configured OOO messages, and the current recruiters don't understand the basics of the roles they're recruiting for. It's on par with being turned down for a role, because "You know networking security, but the job requirement specifies DNS and IP security"
It's a shitshow right now. Ignore it.
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We need a summary of long post
It’s worth the read.
Typical Salesforce, ignoring what I say. But seriously, the tl;dr at the bottom.