Poll: Have you ever applied to work at Google?

[thetrumanshow]

So, Google is hiring like crazy, but they are ultra selective. I wonder if that selectivity precludes some folks from ever applying in the first place. How many of you fit that description?

Edit: there is lots of interest here... Google folks, turn this into a mini HN/Google career fair.

Edit: Guessing this submission was downmodded by a moderator. Ouch?

[gaganbiyani]

I applied to Google and got rejected.

Its a pretty interesting story so I thought I'd share:

I applied through the traditional on-campus recruiting at UC Berkeley. Got past the first round of interviews on Berkeley's campus and then was taken to the Mountain View campus for 4 interviews and a bunch of events. That night, I got a call saying that the interviewers really liked me and recommended that I be hired. At most companies, that would mean that I was made an offer. Instead, they have these "hiring panels" where executives from various departments take a look at your resume, the notes from interviewers, and your transcript / other related documents. 3 weeks later I got an e-mail saying I was rejected during one of these panels. These people never met me; in fact, the 6 people who had met me all recommended that Google hire me. It was kind of weird, since no other company I had applied for had a process where people who hadn't interviewed you made the final decision on whether you should be hired.

Obviously, I am a little frustrated by it - so take this with a grain of salt. However, I think that my experience was emblematic of a few specific issues with the hiring processes there (though they have some amazing processes as well):

1) People who've never met you should not be pontificating in large panels about whether you would be a good fit. That just doesn't make sense.

2) Google has a very strong academic focus on hiring. It is clear when you interview with them that they care a lot about top-brand schools and top GPA's. They seem to believe that the best students will make the best employees. I am not sure, but I think the reason I got rejected may have to do with two C's on my college transcript (which is not indicative of my inability to Ace calculus but rather my lack of interest in attending class). Personally, I think the academic focus is much to their detriment - and a major part of the reason they've struggled at social. That said, Google has some brilliant people who I'm sure I would've loved to work with :). Take this answer for what it is but hopefully you'll find it valuable.

[buro9]

Google's apparent academic focus is what puts me off. That and the doubt about whether interesting work is done outside of their main campus.

I'm self-taught and have been programming and making software from scratch for 15 years and have been pretty successful at it. Recently I did an MSc in CompSci in my spare time and was pleased with a merit (natch, only scored 69% and missed the distinction). This was the first time I've ever done exams or written anything (I was sleeping rough on streets when the peers I have now were being educated) and I feel good with the merit even though I kick myself at not finding that extra 1% somewhere.

What puts me off is a multi-faceted thing though:

1) That a late entry into academic and failing to get a distinction is going to count against me.

2) That my self-learning and lack of a strict appliance of a common vocabulary will sound bad in an interview (I felt in the exams that my struggle for the 'correct' term even though I knew what I wanted to express was not helping me get every point that I could).

3) That if 1) and 2) count against me, that a rejection will count against me in future (that Google collect and never forget data and that it would hurt a future chance when I might try again)

4) And then there's a deep concern with being in London... are the London engineers working on the same level of problem as the engineers in the US?

This last one is the real gnawing doubt... assuming I got through the interview, I'm not particularly interested in working in a body shop. I have ideas, I have creative solutions, I have dedication and I want to create world-changing product, and to improve life on this blue sphere. I want to invest my life's work into that... so I really really don't want to go through what appears to be a protracted process to arrive somewhere I didn't want to be.

Recently the work on Places is changing my view on Google back to a strong positive. It's making me consider applying again whereas before I didn't know why I would apply beyond the challenge of doing so. But the deep doubt remains... do people who work in the London office get the opportunity to work on the core of these problems?

To that, I've just not seen a strongly affirmative answer, and so I'll continue to delay any possible application because why would I risk a rejection unless I really know that I want to be there.

[brown9-2]

I'd suggest applying again one day in the future if you're still interested.

There might be other reasons unrelated to yourself as to why the panel decided against you - a cutback in hiring quotas for the short-term, perhaps.

There are a lot of anecdotes online of people getting in on the 2nd or 3rd try, I don't think anyone there views re-applying after a period of time as a bad thing - or your rejection as a permanent sign.

Even Steve Yegge didn't get hired on his first attempt.

[lionhearted]

> I applied to Google and got rejected.

Consider re-applying? Maybe follow up specifically with each of the people who recommended you, asking for what you could do to bolster your chances?

It sounds like you've got a real legit shot, so if you want it and you're willing to do the massive persistence thing, maybe it'd work out?

[elliottcarlson]

Solicited by Google recruiters but never applied:

a) I don't think Google is a place for me in terms of age and society.

b) I don't come from a CS background, am self taught but have over 12 years of professional experience behind me - I know what I am doing but can't rant of algorithms off the top of my head.

[byoung2]

I don't come from a CS background, am self taught but have over 12 years of professional experience behind me - I know what I am doing but can't rant of algorithms off the top of my head.

During an interview when I couldn't answer a question about CS theory I drew on something I learned as an English major: the analogy. I said:

"Imagine that you aren't a tech company hiring a developer. You are a band hiring a lead guitarist. Do you want someone who studied music theory who can wax poetic about diminished arpeggios and phrygian scales? Or do you want Jimi Hendrix, who is self-taught and doesn't read music, but who can rock out with a Stratocaster and a Marshall Stack?"

I've used that one twice, and I've gotten the job both times. It also helps when you can pass all of the written tests. At my last job I outscored all of the CS majors on all of the tests they gave me!

[BarkMore]

Google does not necessarily require a CS degree.

Google hired me with 10 years professional software development experience and no CS degree. Google hired my friend with similar years of experience and no high school diploma.

[byoung2]

I used to go to a bar in Santa Monica (Warszawa) where the Google folks go every Friday for happy hour. The recruiters kept trying to get me to apply, but I never did. I get the impression that they want people with Engineering/CS backgrounds and here I am a programmer with an English degree. I bet I'd have a better chance of building a startup and selling it to Google so that I could work there than going through the application and interview process. I could be wrong though...

[strlen]

"That woman was sexy...Out of your league? Son. Let women figure out why they won't screw you, don't do it for them." -- @shitmydadsays

[gmurphy]

I work at Google and I am an engineering-degree dropout who was referred by a music-degree dropout; we both now report to a VP who was a mathematics-degree dropout.

That's not to say it won't be harder to get past resume screens and such, and a referral does help in these cases. Thetrumanshow is right that Google suffers when people like you don't apply.

[thetrumanshow]

I tend to think that Google really suffers when smart people like you don't even try to apply.

I think the typical awesome engineer is just a shade too self-deprecating to even think it possible to get hired there.

[edge17]

I had recruiters calling me for 9 months; including somehow trying to reach me through calling my parents house (i don't know where they got that info, but I guess it's on google... either that or a really really old resume). I started the interview process while working on a startup, but then cut it off in the middle and decided google would always be there but my 20's wouldn't.

[megamark16]

I live about as far from a Google location (Missouri) as it's possible to live inside the united states. I'm not interested in moving, and I don't think they'd let me work remotely. That's pretty much it. I'd rather just build something awesome and get into Google through acquisitional osmosis. Maybe at that point I'd be ready to move, but for a bottom of the totem pole position (which I may not even be qualified for), I'll stay where I'm at.

[Apreche]

I applied, and was rejected. However, I had already taken another job before they rejected me. The application process made me not want to work there. More recently I have toured their offices, and I really really don't want to work there.

[ardit33]

me too.

I remember going to their campus, and getting a ewww... this place has a too corporate vibe.

Three of the people that interviewed me seemed burned-out, no enthusiasm whatsoever. Also from my conversations it seemed that Google is a pretty political place (even though it tries hard not to be one).

Only two of the guys, I clicked with. One had done mobile dev since early 2000, and we had worked a lot on similar problems.

The other guy I thought was cool had come from an acquisition.

I didn't even get to meet the recruiter who was supposed to handle my case, and I was greeted by somebody else. The whole interview experience felt like cattle processing.

For some reason I came out with the opinion that Google is a very unhappy place, and competitive (cut-throat perhaps), as it attracts people that are smart, and have tough time being average.

Perhaps it is subconscious sour grapes, or not, but my thinking is that while Google it is chock full of smart people, it seems not to be a fun place.

Ps. I know two googlers in person, and I think they are really smart people, and I respect them as engineers, but I just don't think them as entrepreneurial types though.

So as individual place, it has a lot of smart people, but as a collective and as environment google is not a fun or attractive place to be at least when viewed on a superficial level from the outside. Maybe that's why they have to pay really well to retain their engineers.

[jim_h]

What didn't you like about their offices?

[PhrosTT]

I was recruited and then rejected : )

To be fair the recruiter said it was a generic interview - I spent the week studying data structures & algorithms. And then I get on the phone and the entire interview was on JavaScript and how to hack around the same origin policy.

[notJim]

Man, really? I would do great in that interview. Data structures & algorithms are the main reason I don't apply.

[5TonsOfFlax]

I never applied, but they approached me. I went to interview, and they said "we'd like to hire you". Then about a month of waiting later, they said "nevermind". Now I can't apply for 6 months to a year from November because of their policy, so I guess I miss out on 2011 being their biggest hiring year ever. Oh well.

[thetrumanshow]

So, at least one person said they were hired by Google. I have a question for those folks...

When you applied, did you have any reasonable expectation that you would actually be hired to work there, or was it just on a whim... like a lottery ticket?

[silvajoao]

I'll mention a related question I've been pondering on lately: how does one assess his own skill level?

When one has people around who are clearly more able programmers, one can take the chance to learn from them and try to achieve their skill. But when you believe you might be the top programmer around your office, how do you determine whether you're really good, or you're just in a not-so-great environment?

A lot of entrepreneurial advice mentions trying harder: if you aren't failing, you aren't trying hard enough. Applying at a very competitive company like Google, Facebook or Apple is, IMO, a good way to assess how you "rank" next to very talented peers. Failure there is failing at a very competitive level, and the interviews will give you a sense of how far you might be from them, and perhaps energize you to try harder.

I guess a method to determine your current "level" could be to keep trying to be hired by harder- and harder- to get-into companies, until you fail; that's the level you should strive to get to in the future. If you were never rejected, how do you know whether your current "level" is your highest?

Another common advice for entrepreneurs: "you only fail if you fail to learn the lesson." The reason for failing to be hired is invaluable feedback on your shortcomings, which are much harder to self-assess.

In short: don't self-reject yourself.

(note: I don't have any startup experience, and just 4 years of professional experience as an employee. I guess the more entrepreneurial people around here would propose shipping something and see what happens to make your self-assessment :-)

(2nd note: I was recently hired by Google in Munich, and can't wait to start! :-)

EDIT: this was longer than expected. I totally forgot to address your question: I was afraid of rejection, but I also thought I could do it. I never thought of it as trying my luck in a lottery, and wouldn't apply if I didn't believe I could deliver once on the job.

[gmurphy]

For me, it was the news (in 2005) that they were hiring JavaScript-specific engineers - JS was my true love, and though I didn't think I was anywhere near the CS-Genius stereotype I'd read about in the press, I felt I was pretty good at JS, so I applied on a whim, thinking that it was an outside chance, but the best I'd ever have.

By the end of the interviews, I felt I did well (considering that I'd read up on complexity theory for the first time the night before and had told an interviewer that I didn't know what a hashtable was), and felt that even if I didn't get the job, I'd had an awesome day, but still didn't really believe that it was really going to happen. Then it did. I think I worked out OK for Google (I'm still here 5 years later, at least).

My perspective was that of a foreigner in a land where CS was a path to becoming a suit-wearing enterprise software automaton - at the time, Google seemed like this romantic faraway wonderland, so the whole process was very removed from reality for me; the perspective of someone who went to a school like Stanford or Berkeley is probably very different and more realistic.

[spiffage]

Hired in 2006. I was really serious about it. I was a year out of school (C+ GPA) working at a place I knew I didn't want to be. I had just started to grasp the seriousness of my situation as I stared into the abyss of an Office Space-style cubicle farm future. I knew I wasn't up on my stuff after slacking my way through school so I spent months coming up to speed on algorithms, code architecture, best practices, etc.

I wouldn't say I expected to get the job, but I nailed the interview. I've since moved on from Google, but the stuff I learned during those months has been incredibly valuable for my career.

[silvajoao]

Yet another unrelated-but-related reply: I actually feel a fear of rejection when posting on HN. I know I usually don't have much to add, so I don't post often; but it has happened a lot of times to start writing a reply, and then just discard it for fear of being harshly downvoted/getting snark replies.

[brg]

I had a reasonable expectation; everyone should have a reasonable estimation of their skills from what you do in your side projects and how others regard you. Google hires solid engineers, not just the top 1%.

[guyzero]

Extra option: I never applied and was hired. Believe it or not we have recruiters out there sourcing candidates. I have personally interviewed people who were asked to apply by recruiters but who did not apply on their own.

[dpezely]

Related: solicited by internal Google recruiter but declined.

Google sucked-up nearly all the Python people from Seattle mid-decade this way, just as I was migrating back to Common Lisp, so it wasn't that appealing to me anyway.

It was months before the IPO was announced, no bus from SF yet, no SF office then, and I couldn't bear a reverse-commute. (Wife doesn't drive, so living outside the city not an option)

[unit3]

Never applied because I didn't want to live in the US. I'm sure Google is very nice and all, but I like decent health care. ;)

[andrewmunn]

I imagine as a Googler you'd have access to some of the best healthcare in the world for a very modest price.

[hugh3]

Do you understand how the health care system works in the US? If you have insurance (as all Google employees presumably do) you'll get extremely good health care. The US system is only a problem if you happen to be uninsured.

[sp332]

How about one of these? http://www.google.com/intl/en/jobs/locations/

[mindcrime]

Never applied. They've never come calling and I don't feel any particular inclination to work there, so I haven't sought them out either. I probably wouldn't be a good fit anyway. At 37, and more of the college dropout / autodidact type (although, strangely enough I do have 3 college degrees. Weird.) I don't think I fit their culture of "youth from Ivy League schools."

Anyway, I'd prefer to work on doing my own thing, and build an awesome startup, than go to work for any big company, Google or otherwise. Hell, even Lulu felt big and bureaucratic to me when I was there, and they were only about 100 employees at the time.

[newman314]

Was recruited (for a non-dev position, technical program manager).

First strike was the recruiter trying to lowball me that VPs at other companies come in at this level.

[erik_p]

Don't we also need:

I applied and heard nothing back I applied, had a phone interview and was rejected I applied, interviewed in person and then was rejected I applied, was offered the position and turned it down.

PS I fall in the applied and heard nothing but crickets back column -- i feel so ashamed, HN hold me and tell me it will all be okay :(

[thetrumanshow]

A great story of persistence, until the last bit. Were you just playing a game of tit-for-tat hard-to-get against Google hiring managers? Joking, but I am actually curious why you finally said no.

[dstein]

I applied and then rejected them.

[rglullis]

Hum, I didn't apply and was rejected, sort of.

I was contacted some three years ago by a recruiter on LinkedIn, talked a couple of times via email, then the phone interview. The interviewer asked me questions about networking ("describe what happens during a HTTP request at the various levels of TCP/IP") and Linux internals ("what to do if your open a shell and any command you type results in 'Not enough memory'?"), and we chatted a little bit after that.

By talking with him, I learned that it was more of a sysadmin-y position (dealing more with infrastructure and supporting application developers) then actually working on their products.

My interested waned quite a bit after that. Combined with the fact that my Linux internals answer was far from stellar (I learned a thing or two about /proc afterwards), it didn't surprise me when I got the "we are sorry to inform you..." letter a couple of weeks later.

I don't know if I was being overconfident or if it was the effect of the "web 2.0" bubble, but I though then that I could be hired. I would apply today if I heard of some interesting position in Cambridge or NY to work on Android. Alas, it seems that the Android team is all in the West Coast.

[siddhant]

Interestingly, most of the people voted for "I never applied because there is no way I'd get hired".

And I thought I was the only one who thinks this way.

[eneveu]

I haven't yet applied, but might apply once I feel I'm good enough, if I haven't launched a startup by the time.

I went to one of the top French engineering schools, which, like most of these schools, is "generalist" (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Grandes_%C3%A9coles). This means I got to learn a lot about mechanic, electronic, chemistry, thermodynamic, entrepreneurship (and I am glad I did), but only started to learn about computer engineering during my last year (with a CS specialization). I'm a passionate web developer since almost 3 years, but I never got around to really dig into algorithms / data structures / OS internals... Hell, I've never written a line of C!

I plan to teach myself by reading books / watching the MIT online lectures, but keep postponing it, because it doesn't seem that useful to me in my day to day web programming job, where knowing the basics is enough for the (relatively) small datasets I have to manipulate. Plus, Java abstracts away the OS internals and most of the data structures: while I don't know how to write a linked list / tree / hash map, I know when it is appropriate to use each one of them.

Instead, I find myself focusing on best practices for my current language (Java), learning new languages (Scala, Ruby, Clojure), web programming, cryptography, user experience, and learning more about Linux tricks / sysadmin tasks. I think these skills are a lot more useful in today's programming environment, but my lack in more "classical" computer engineering skills has stopped me from applying to Google.

[netmau5]

I'd loved to apply and to work there, but somehow I just don't feel "special" enough. I know their languages, I know their infrastructure (well, from GAE xp), I code at work and at home, I meet most of what they say they want in an applicant. There's just something about their persona that makes me think that there is too little of a chance to be picked, too little to even be worth the opportunity cost. It's irrational, I know.

[GrooveStomp]

You're not alone. In all the circles I know (minus one pal who's worked at Yahoo and now at Facebook - who actually rejected Google) applying to Google is a big deal, and most people are afraid to do it because it's such a big deal. I have one friend who got flown down to one of their California locations but didn't get hired. She said the process wasn't anything special, except for being asked the complexity of doing long division.