In fact, in terms of interview difficulty alone, entering Google headquarters may be much easier than going to a large factory in China.

However, if you apply for a job at Google America from China, you are less likely to get an interview. Especially now the environment is changing, this difficulty is further increased.

Therefore, domestic programmers who want to work in Google headquarters generally have two options:

  1. Join Google China team first, then apply for L1 visa to transfer to the United States.
  2. For graduate students applying to the United States, they will land at Google during CPT and OPT.

In terms of difficulty, the second one is relatively easy. Because the difficulty of entering Domestic Google itself is quite high, and the application process of L1 may not be smooth.

And the graduate student that applies for a few schools in the United States is not difficult to apply for actually, read 1 year commonly or 1 year and a half. During this period, you can also use CPT to find an internship. After graduation, STEM major will have 3 years of OPT to allow you to work in the United States, which is the best opportunity to land on Google and apply for H1B.

Now comes the real business: How to get and pass a Google interview?

Interview preparation

  1. Improve their professional level. Google is a company centered on r&d personnel and advocates an engineer culture, so it pays special attention to the experience and algorithm ability of engineers. Algorithmic interview will account for about 70%, and the difficulty of the interview is generally high. If there is no algorithm foundation, it is better to build the knowledge system of algorithm and data structure during the postgraduate study. In addition, computer network, operating system these programmers must have the foundation needless to say; For engineers with work experience, there will also be a system design study.
  2. Resume preparation. This we should all understand, the content is clear, focus, check points; It’s best to get an experienced person to review your resume.
  3. Add project experience. Google also looks at the project experience on the resume, focusing on the overall ability and potential of the candidate. There are no restrictions for people who do not come from a professional background.

The interview process

Google usually opens applications for interns and fresh graduates during spring and fall recruitment. For example, Google 2021 internship post application just ended on August 31 this year.

The recruitment process for Google interns is simple: resume submission → online OA test → phone interview (two rounds) →HC Review→Project Search (Team Match) →offer

OA is to send you two algorithm questions to be completed within 90 minutes. The algorithm questions here are usually the old or LC original questions, so you can cope with them by brushing LintCode. The two rounds of interviews are also algorithmic interviews, which are also online to complete the algorithmic questions given by the interviewer. The interviewer will watch your coding part throughout the interview.

HC Review: Hiring Committee usually consists of a meeting of several senior people to discuss the Hiring of the candidate. There are three HC results: pass/reject/add.

By the way, internship to full-time. The conversion process of Google internship is a little special, which requires 4 feedback, but only 2 feedback can be obtained in one internship. There are two ways to get the remaining two feedback: another internship or two rounds of interviews.

Google’s recruitment process for full-time positions is shown below:

HR interview may be added after the interview. When the candidate has offers from other companies to be answered, HR may skip the OA interview and directly arrange the on-site interview.

Onsite interviews are generally 4-5 rounds. 4 rounds of graduate, 5 rounds of PhD and social recruitment. New graduates and those with less than two years of work experience are generally only tested on data structures and algorithms, plus a round of BQ (behavioral questions interview). Different from OA and electronic interview, the algorithm questions for on-site interview are almost new, at least in LintCode, which is the most difficult part of Google interview.

The interviewer does not need you to give the optimal solution at the beginning. On the contrary, Google pays more attention to how candidates start from a basic working solution and continuously optimize their ideas and algorithms.

Social recruitment algorithm proportion has been reduced, increase system design interview. In addition, these two years also have the appearance of fresh students face system design. In “System Architecture Design” explained 18 questions and interview test points, through 4S analysis to deal with any type of system design. Now you can sign up for the first two chapters for free!

It usually takes 2-3 weeks or even 1 month from the end of the on-site interview to the results of HC. Graduating students generally have offer after HC, but may also become a spare tire because there is no pit. This year, due to the epidemic, many people met the interview, but failed to match the group or even HC directly did not give the interview.

The Team Match was carried out one or two months before entry, in the form of Project Search for interns. Theoretically you can match indefinitely until you find the right group.

Some useful preparation tips

  • Think out loud is a very important habit to have. The advantage is that you can organize your thoughts better; Can let the interviewer know against the trend, but also know why; If you’re going off the rails, the interviewer can give you a hint. As for when to ask questions and how to communicate these questions, I have detailed explanation in “Interview soft skills Guide”.

Now you can register for free by ** *. The first audition will be held on October 19th. The audition content includes:

  • In addition to brushing questions, what other skills are indispensable to get an offer
  • How to improve interview soft skills: resume, behavioral interview, communication skills
  • Dealing With Ambiguity

Free audition time: Monday, October 19 09:30 Beijing time

  • Practice writing code on the whiteboard and make sure that syntax can be written correctly without any auxiliary tools.
  • Make sure that at least one language, whether it’s Java, Python, or CPP, won’t fall flat. How well an algorithm works directly affects your job search results.