Google Interview Preparation Guide - All You Need To Know

Google Interview Preparation Guide - All You Need To Know

Surabhi

Oct 11, 2021 - 12 Min read

Cracking a Google interview and receiving an offer from one of the most coveted software companies is the dream of many professionals, but with an acceptance rate of 0.2% getting a job at Google is much harder than getting into Harvard ( Harvard’s acceptance rate is 4.8%). This makes it even more important for you to prepare extensively and give it your best shot.

Nonetheless, knowing how interviews are conducted at Google can help ease your preparation and eliminate surprises. Here is the guide to help you understand the Google interview process, read along!

How to Apply at Google?

You can either apply directly at Google’s job portal or ask your friends working at Google to refer you for the job openings. Irrespective of whether you are looking for a job, someone from the Google recruitment team can also contact you if they find your profile interesting for any of their roles.

Things to consider while applying at Google Career page -

Apply to only three jobs within a period of 30 days.
If you were previously rejected for the engineering role, it is recommended to apply only after a year.
Make the resume relevant to the job you are applying for, keep it specific, result-oriented, and to the point.
Be specific about projects and related accomplishments with data to back it up.

Google looks for resumes with data and quantifiable information during the resume shortlisting. Hence, always try to be specific about your accomplishments and back them up with quantifiable measures.

We suggest writing achievements on your resume by following the result (what you achieved - quantifiable), actions (how you achieved the result), and situation (the existing problem that you solved) approach.

For fresh graduates, Google conducts campus placement interviews. Connect with your college placement team to know about Google hiring scheduled for your university. If you are an undergrad and aspire to get a job at Google, we recommend you to take part in their Kick Start Coding Competitions, where you can hone your programming skills.

While the interview process may differ slightly depending on the role and the teams, the basics of the interviewing will remain the same as explained in the next part,

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The Google Interview Process

Once shortlisted, you have to undergo 5 to 8 interviews in total with their hiring team before you can get an offer. The complete interviewing process can stretch up to 2 to 21/2 months.

Step #1 - Online Assessment (90 minutes, for new graduates and interns only)

Before the phone and onsite interviews, new graduates and interns have to take an online assessment or case study round (like a short coding quiz), depending on whether you are applying for a technical or non-technical role. You will get an email explaining the assessment structure and where you need to log in to take the assessment.

For the technical role, the assessment round usually consists of 2 coding algorithm questions to be answered within 90 minutes; you can code in any of your preferred languages (c,c++,c#, Go, Java, JavaScript, or Python).

Tips for technical online assessment round -

Practice dynamic programming problems and other coding topics like arrays, trees, graphs, recursion, sorting, etc.
Use a timer when you solve coding problems during your preparation.
Practice questions from past Google Coding Competition

Step #2 - Telephonic or Hangout Interview ( 1 - 2 rounds of 45 minutes each )

You will have one or two rounds of phone/ video interviews with the recruiter, followed by rounds with the team’s manager or peers. These rounds of interviews may last from 45 minutes to an hour. The format of questions may differ depending on the role you may be applying for - technical or non-technical.

The first phone call will be from someone in the Google recruitment team, mostly a non-technical person. This screening round is mostly to know about your career growth and professional interests. Even though you might feel it to be more conversational and may end up being too relaxed, do note that recruiters are also trained to grade the candidates, and they might be taking notes. The hiring committee ( team of Googlers, that takes the hiring decision) will also assess any notes the recruiters provide during the final hiring decision.

The next rounds (1 or 2 rounds) of interviews will be technical and will be scheduled on phone or Google hangouts. During these rounds, candidates are expected to write 10 to 50 lines of workable code on Google Docs in their preferred language. So, make sure you are hands-on and comfortable coding on Google Docs. Make sure to ask clarifying questions and walk the interviewer through your approach as you code. The interviewers want to understand your thinking process and approach to the given problem.

General Tips for phone/ hangout interview rounds -

During your HR / Recruiter interview, practice telling your career journey from start to finish and your reason to choose the career path for the last five years. Refrain yourself from taking too much and keep the set of questions ready that you might want to ask the interviewer.
During open-ended interview questions, do not forget to ask clarifying questions and devise requirements. If you are making assumptions, make sure that you communicate those to the interviewer.
Practice writing clean, maintainable code on Google document, and try to communicate your approach throughout. Review, fix bugs, and test your code. (Do not write any pseudo-codes).

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Step #3 - Project work (Take-home assignment, if needed)

Depending on the role you are applying for, sometimes you may be asked to complete a small project - it can be a case study or code sample, before your in depth interviews. You will get an email from Google HR about the requirements and timeline for the project work.

Step #4 - Onsite Interviews (4 to 6 rounds of detailed interviews, 45 minutes each)

Once you clear your phone interview rounds and project work (if given), you will be contacted by Google HR to schedule an onsite interview, which usually includes 3-4 interviews in a day lasting about 45 minutes each.

You will typically spend a day at the Google office giving interviews and having lunch with one of the Google employees. The lunch meeting is casual and gives you a chance to ask questions about working at Google. Even though the lunch meeting is not an interview, it is advisable to conduct oneself.

Due to the current COVID-19 situation, Google is taking these rounds on hangout, which allows them to loop in interviewers from different offices worldwide, and gives you a chance to explore their multicultural, diverse work environment.

Each interview for technical hiring would last to about 45 minutes to an hour and will cover one of the following topics,

Coding interview
System design interview (only for experienced hire with 4-5 years of experience)
Leadership interview (only for managerial positions)

A typical 45-minute interview consists of 35 minutes of programming. You are expected to code on a whiteboard, in some Google offices, they have started providing Chromebooks. The laptop comes with a pre-installed app that lets you choose your preferred language of coding.

Google has stopped using “Brain Teasers” since 2013 and is now evaluating candidates through structured interviewing - meaning using the same interviewing method and scoring with standardized rubrics to evaluate all candidates applying for the same role.

Post your interview; each interviewer will score your performance on a scale of 1 to 4 (score of 3 recommends hire) along with detailed feedback on your interview. The hiring manager will pass on these details to the hiring committee, who will decide on hiring.

We will talk about what Google is looking for in candidates in our next section.

Tips for onsite Google interview -

Most questions cover data structure, algorithms, and their complexity analysis, which requires you to code on either whiteboard or Chromebook. Hence practice extensively for these types of coding problems on the whiteboard.
Interviewers at Google intentionally give ambiguous open-ended questions, don’t make assumptions, and ask clarifying questions before writing your code.
Keep the communication open as you code, let the interviewer know your thinking process.
Write the workable code in the language you are most comfortable with, test your code always to make sure it’s free of bugs.

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What attributes Google is looking for in candidates?

As discussed above, after every interview, the interviewer will complete a detailed standardized feedback form with all interview related communication and attributes that Google is looking for in their employees. Below is the list of attributes that Google values (Please note that the form is constantly evolving and changing).

1. The 4 Hiring Attributes: Google looks for four hiring attributes in each candidate, and your interviewer will score you on standardized rubrics for each of these attributes on a four-pointer scale.

General Cognitive Ability (GCA) - Google wants to hire candidates who can learn and adapt to new situations fast. For example, the interviewer will evaluate your analytical and problem-solving capabilities.
Role Related Knowledge and Experience (RRKR) - Google wants candidates who have the background, experience, skill, and expertise needed for the role.
Emergent Leadership Ability: Google wants each of its employees to have a leader’s quality, who can easily take the steering wheel whenever needed to accomplish the job.
Googleyness - These are the specific attributes that might be difficult to pinpoint but help Google be the best. Comfort with ambiguity, humility, and collaborative nature are qualities that make up the Googleyness.

Questions asked during the interview: The middle part of feedback covers the question asked during the interview. This is intended for other interviewers so that they don’t end up asking the same question again.
Your Answer: The interviewer will also document your response, the whiteboard code that you have written, and their assessment of your answer.
Overall Conclusion: This is the part where the interviewer will give detailed feedback on candidate’s performance along with their scoring on a scale of 1 to 4 (typically, a score of 3 is a good score and a recommendation to hire)

Apart from the above-mentioned attributes, Google looks for grit, analytical skills, real life achievements, and your ability to solve problems more than your grades or college accomplishments.

The Final Hiring Decision - Behind the scene

Once your on-site interview is done, the recruiter will create your “file or packet” with all the details of interaction you had during the interview and send it across to the hiring committee.

Your file or packet will contain,

Your Resume
Employee reference notes- if you are applying through Google employee reference.
Your on-site interview questions, your response, your code, scores given by the interviewer, and detailed feedback
Any note that any of the interviewers wanted to highlight - attitude, strength, area of concern, red flag (if any)

The hiring committee is a team of 4-5 Googlers, who never meet the candidate but select the best candidate based on the candidate’s entire interview details.

Google Interview Questions

As discussed above, the google interview questions usually cover three topics when it comes to technical hiring - coding & algorithm, system design, and behavioral & leadership questions.

The coding and algorithm questions cover graphs and trees (most commonly asked), Array/ string, dynamic programming, recursion, and maths/ geometry questions. Make sure you are able to compare and analyze complex algorithms, for example, using Big-O notation.

The system design questions will cover operating system fundamentals like threads, concurrency issues, semaphores, monitors, deadlock, locks, deadlocks, livestock, etc., as well as an understanding of system design topics like interfaces, feature sets, class hierarchies, and distributed systems. You should be able to combine your academic knowledge and experiences to solve real-world engineering problems.

Despite which role you are interviewing for, prepare for behavioral interview questions. If you appear for a managerial position, prepare for leadership questions as well. The interviewer would like to know more about your team management skills and leadership qualities. Be prepared with some examples from your past experiences where you have managed to solve complex problems and achieved success.

You can find the list of interview questions asked at Google Glassdoor, or you can refer to the resource library to get a better understanding of the type of coding and system design questions asked during the interview.

You can download a free Google Interview Questions Guide containing 50+ coding interview questions.

(5 interview questions each with a solution on below topics, with the small brief about subtopics covered in each)

Dynamic Programming
Graph/ trees
Array/ string processing
Recursion
System Design
Maths and geometry

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Resources

It will take about 3 - 4 months of rigorous practice to crack the interview at Google. There are many online free sites where you hone your coding and technical skills. Google has created a resource library to help candidates like you prepare for their upcoming interviews. You can check out the page here.

You can also check out Google’s detailed youtube series on how to prepare for your interview at Google. Below are the links to some resources that will help you prepare for your upcoming Google interview, All the Best!

Books

Interview Preparation by Google