The only good way to assess a candidate is to hire them. It's sad, but true. Some of the brightest and best will not even be able to code with someone else even paying the remotest attention to them. Interviews used to take account of this 15 years ago. Google came along and destroyed this.
I remember talking to a Google interviewer and I came up with a better solution than they expected. Since my solution was non-standard for online median finding-they wanted a unbalanced binary tree where I wanted a tree with the values at the leaves and using a fixed height, in this manner you could easily find successor and predecessor and I'd have actually found a better solution than their expected solution. They wanted the standard binary tree solution with predecessor and insertion, where I failed.
Everything will still jovial, until I mentioned that I consider the tools I use and how to operate them as part of my skill-set. Apparently this is false.
This was me interviewing at Google for a potential job using computer graphics or computer vision. I wouldn't even be working with problems anywhere close to this.
I've found that everyone is just copying Google's process because of all of Google's cash and success, but don't realize that most of Google's success is not due to any investment but rather just one solid team doing search well.
Anyways, I'm glad I didn't get hired, I have a better job (pay and work). Both of the projects I would have worked on have already failed or nearing failure already, it's been like 3 months.
I used to interview at Google and think you're misunderstanding why you failed the interview.
If the solution works and is better, then the interviewer should recognize that. I have this happen often when I use a new-to-me question (well, not often better, but similar enough performance). Even if the interviewer failed you for something they shouldn't have, it'd raise a flag in the hiring committee if you passed the other 3-4 interview sessions and the committee should look closer at the one failing interview to see what's going on.
And I have no idea what you mean by the "tools" and "how to operate them" being false and failing.
Do you understand why I failed the interview? That's absurd. How can you understand if I've not even given all the details? Your process is somehow bullet-proof and guaranteed to be followed? Probably because that's the assumption Google is predicated on. It couldn't have happened, so it didn't. I mean, logically, that's true.
> And I have no idea what you mean by the "tools" and "how to operate them" being false and failing.
I mean I consider my skill-set (what they're buying from me) to be my theoretical / intellectual ability, in addition to the practical activities I take when using the computer to achieve my job (using a mouse, keyboard, git, c++, testing). The interviewer mentioned they are looking for generalist programmers who don't consider their tool-set (git, windows, whatever) to be part of their skill-set. While I am quite general, I consider it a plus that I know such a wide range of different technologies. It was my question which prompted this, I asked about this very thing since I know it's a sore spot at Google, knowing a few Google employees and some Google coops. I believe this is the reason I failed, the interview completely changed his tone at this point.
In any case, the interview didn't test anything I would have done on the job, or my ability to do such things. It also didn't even test my intelligence independently of my preparedness, since there's so much preparatory material available, though it did eliminate people with lower intelligence who didn't prepare.
I failed the interview because of a number of reasons, but I definitely solved the problem. The typical process wasn't followed as this was right as COVID hit. So maybe that had some effect as well, this was the second phone interview with a new person (the first one I completed the problem, but there was a glitch and the call dropped and we couldn't recover for some time), and I've been ignoring the recruiter for years. I think I didn't really want to work for Google in the first place, so that probably also came through. I'm a big proponent of privacy and against Google's advertising business model.
I think based on the interview process I'm no longer considering Google anymore, despite still having another interview in six months. I will probably inform the Google recruiter in the future. It's just a waste of my time to prepare for such a silly test. When the main book to get the test is a book about how to cheat it and appear better than you are, it shows that the test is completely broken. Maybe a company the size of Google should hire people for short internships where they code throw-away prototypical problems and do some paid work. Maybe on a problem that takes some time and planning. I'd do that, even today. I think Google has lost most of the individuals who actually have an impact in this industry beyond search.
Maybe that's why the process won't change, Google isn't selecting for some traits which are commonly sought after.
I remember talking to a Google interviewer and I came up with a better solution than they expected. Since my solution was non-standard for online median finding-they wanted a unbalanced binary tree where I wanted a tree with the values at the leaves and using a fixed height, in this manner you could easily find successor and predecessor and I'd have actually found a better solution than their expected solution. They wanted the standard binary tree solution with predecessor and insertion, where I failed.
Everything will still jovial, until I mentioned that I consider the tools I use and how to operate them as part of my skill-set. Apparently this is false.
This was me interviewing at Google for a potential job using computer graphics or computer vision. I wouldn't even be working with problems anywhere close to this.
I've found that everyone is just copying Google's process because of all of Google's cash and success, but don't realize that most of Google's success is not due to any investment but rather just one solid team doing search well.
Anyways, I'm glad I didn't get hired, I have a better job (pay and work). Both of the projects I would have worked on have already failed or nearing failure already, it's been like 3 months.