First Interview was with a recruiter. This was 30 minutes, over the phone. The recruiter was great, really friendly, welcoming and explained the interview process. Once she let me know that I was through to the second round, she sent me through an email with study tips and resources which was really helpful. Extremely overwhelming, but helpful. They also held interview prep sessions which I attended.
My second, third and fourth interviews were with different managers / seniors within what would be my team. They were 45 minutes each on the same day.
I was a little taken aback by the lack of diversity with the interviewers - all male. For a tech company that talks so much about diversity in the workplace, I found this a little bit bizarre.
My interviews went relatively well in terms of questions / answers, however, the last person that interviewed me was hiding his phone behind his laptop... he was on that phone texting for majority of the interview and only looked up to ask a question. I then asked what has been the biggest challenge for him at Google over the last year (expecting a covid response etc) but he replied and said 'Finding candidates. We've had to interview people who are under-qualified and aren't up to our standards.' I know this probably wasn't personal, but I found it a little condescending and odd to mention in an interview ?
Anyway, the process was fine. I got through to the fourth round which I am proud of but didn't receive an offer. The response I got was that they offered the role to someone with more experience and 'no other feedback is available at this time'. For putting candidates through 4 x interviews (3 on the same day), I would think some feedback would be available. I understand Google is a tech giant who can't provide detailed feedback to all of their candidates, but I currently work for a 'tech giant' who gives a little bit more respect to their candidates and their time.
