Google Program Manager I interview questions

I was pretty excited to have an opportunity to interview at Google... and was quickly disappointed. I knew it would be a difficult set of interviews, and so I began preparing/studying weeks in advance. It didn't really matter. For all Google's talk about it's unique corporate culture and how much they value finding employees that are the right "fit", I was a bit offended at just how impersonal the process was. The questions had no connection to my qualifications, experiences, and interests. Rather, I was drilled on abstract issues that seemed more intent on discovering how many facts I could spew out rather than how I approached a particular business problem. With the style of questioning, I felt like I was being set up to fail. I would answer a question, and the interviewer would keep pushing the issue with narrower and narrower follow-up questions until I had no choice but to admit, "I'm not sure." Only then would they switch to a fresh topic. For example, a line of questioning about renewable energy markets eventually ended up on "Tell me the difference between AC and DC power transmission." None of this seems like it would have any impact on my ability to do the job. A friend had given me some advice... to do well in the interview, it's important to "Show What You Know"... and I found that to be accurate. It's all about proving how smart you are, not necessarily why your skills and experiences are a good fit for the role.

I met with 6 interviews as well as the recruiter that was sherparding me around on Google campus. Was asked a variety of excersises to design different service offerings or how to determine if a change in an existing service should be analyzed for potential deployment. Overall the folks I met during this loop were not particularly impressive. Interview went well but I came away with the impression that they were only interested in folks with heavy focus on the advertising space. Also felt that they were very focused on my age and that was a major factor in not being made an offer. Interstingly at some point their internal systems were set to move forward with an offer because I was sent a questionaire asking why I had declined the offer and how it could have been improved. I definitely came away enjoying the process and would have been interested in exploring an offer if one had been made.