Table of Contents
Introduction
Working with Google is a dream for almost everyone in technology, however, the dream actually comes true only for a handful.
Although rejections are heartbreaking, one can learn a lot from rejection as well and pursue success. Today, we will dig through the experience shared by many candidates who were at least once rejected in Google interviews and learn some essentials to follow the right path.
Why Google Rejects?
Google does not share the feedback of your interview. Therefore, if you had a good interview, it is practically impossible to conclude a certain reason for rejection. There could be countless reasons to get rejected in an interview and many of them may not be in your control.
For example, they may have already reached the number of people they were looking for, maybe the interviewer was unable to connect with you or maybe it was just not your day. However, there are few rejection reasons that can be worked upon.
Clarity over Google interview process
Many candidates rejected by Google are not fully cognizant of the Google interview process. They tend to overlook the number of interview rounds and the magnitude of each round.
To enhance your chances of success, you need to fully understand the complete interview process as well as what is expected from you in each round and what kind of questions you might face.
Competency and preparation
Appearing in Google interviews is a serious business. You will be tested brutally about your knowledge, experiences, views and problem-solving skills. Most of the people who fail at Google are just either not competent or prepared enough to make the cut.
Response time
Many candidates provide correct, optimal solutions during an interview, but when it takes them too long or they need too much help, then they usually get rejected.
They expect a faster, optimal solution with minimal help. This is another key rejection reason in the Google interview process.
Quality of solution
Interviewers at Google are smart, intelligent and experienced. They know what they are asking and expectations are very clear. In spite of providing the correct solution, many candidates get rejected because the quality of the solution is not good enough.
Big ‘O’ of an algorithm
Most of the Google interview questions are related to data structures, algorithms and their big ‘O’ values. Inability to prove your understanding and practical implementation of an efficient algorithm often lead to rejection.
Soft skills
Google tends to hire smart people. Candidates who can be expressive can communicate well. There are many technically very encyclopaedic candidates but many of them lack social and communication skills. Google usually rejects these candidates.
Handling Rejection
Rejections are hard to digest. Especially, if the rejection is coming from your dream company, it may be very difficult to cope with. However, few points to remember as shared by many Google candidates who faced rejection are listed below.
Don’t over criticise yourself
After rejection, though it is good to identify your shortcomings, self-criticism doesn’t help a lot. Rejection does not indicate you are not good enough, it’s just an indication that you may need to prepare more or you need more experience in a few areas.
Take some time to refresh yourself if needed and aim for your future project; that could be opting for an internship or looking for another job in a decent company. So many life-changing opportunities are waiting for you with open arms.
It’s not the last time
You will hear that many of the Google employees did not make it in their first attempt at the interview. All the stories have one common factor, persistence. They never gave up. Learn from your mistakes, prepare accordingly, improve as much as you can. Google has a dedicated webpage that assists candidates to prepare for their interviews.
Gather experience
After rejection in a Google interview, you can gather tons of experience and expertise through your internship or your next job. When appearing for the next Google interview, you can appear as a more seasoned candidate with your past Google interview experience and all the experience and knowledge you later accumulated.
Improve yourself
Google or not, when you are aspiring for a career in the technical industry, you can improve and sharpen yourself every day. No preparation, no self-improvement will go wasted, it will come resourceful even if you are not working in Google.
Further, like mentioned before you can always retry for Google and with this improved version of yourself, with a better chance to crack the interview.
Believe in yourself
Like mentioned before, in an interview, many things could go south and you may not be able to control it. Failure in an interview should not stop you from focusing on proving you are the right candidate. When you apply to more companies, the probability of things going out of your control will decrease, given that you work hard and prepare yourself.
We all have a hierarchy of companies that we would like to work for. You may crack your second favourite company and it may prove to be an excellent fit for you.
Also go through our video to know more about rejection experiences.
Rejection Takeaways:
Be thankful for the opportunity
It’s important to move on from the dejected state of mind and be thankful for the entire journey from preparation for the Google interview to appearing for multiple rounds of interviews. No matter the outcome of the entire process, your preparation and experiences are to remain with you and will help you to grow in future.
Be Careful of Your inner voice
As per Psychology Today magazine, self-talk is an inner voice that provides a running monologue combining conscious thoughts and unconscious beliefs and biases. And this could be either on a positive or negative side. Moping over your failure won’t help. Don’t let negativity obscure your mind.
Focus on the positives that you achieved during your preparation and through the course of the interview and don’t let the end result define you.
Never give up, be persistent
Use rejection as an opportunity to identify your improvement areas. Once you can identify your shortcomings, you can work on them and gain more expertise and experience with more wisdom. Never stop trying until you reach your destination.
Improve Resourcefulness in Your Current venture
You prepared hard for your interview, maybe for years. However, a rejection in the Google interview process does not take away everything you have done so far. The knowledge and experience you gather during preparation and interviews can be used in your next venture.
Frequently Aske Questions
You can look and apply for a job in Google that suits your profile from careers.google.com.
You don’t necessarily need a Computer Science degree to apply for a job at Google. However, computer-related knowledge is absolutely essential to perform well during the interview process.
Millions of candidates apply for the most sought after tech giant, and it’s tough to get notified.
The best way to get an interview call from Google is to get a referral from a Google employee. If you can manage one, that will not only radically improve your chances of getting an interview call but also fast-track the entire process.
Google interview questions in nature are not very different from other tech giants’ interview questions. Your soft skills, technical abilities, thinking abilities and approach to everything are meticulously scrutinised. However, the major difference in the interview process is Google takes their recruitment process very seriously and it’s a very long and elaborate process. Sometimes the entire process could take more than months.
Interview process: Learn as much as possible about the Google interview process. This will help you to understand their expectations and prepare accordingly.
1. Benchmark yourself: It’s important to know where you stand. Take Google interview questions for each round, solve them, see how much time you are taking, check the depth of the solution. Keep repeating.
2. Prepare a study list: You can’t prepare for everything. Make a list of areas you need to cover which must include multiple sorting algorithms with Big-O, binary search, implementation of data structure like hashmap, linked list, stack, queue, trees along with Big-O complexities, graph traversal algorithm, bit maps, bit shifting, few object-oriented programming and related collections, mathematical API, Recursion, backtracking, memorisation. It’s good to have knowledge in discrete mathematics and statistics.
3. Practise algorithm and data structure: Put a lot of effort into this section, pick your strongest language and practise whiteboard coding.
Practice technical/non-technical questions as much as possible: Gather as many Google interview questions as possible and prepare them. Prepare with yourself and with peers as well. Evaluate each other.
4. Take a breath: Try to get a good night’s sleep before the interview day and try to be relaxed as much as possible.
There are a total of eight rounds of interviews in the Google interview process.
Phone Screening: You will get a call from a recruiter and you will be asked a few fairly quick and simpler questions.
Based on the correctness of your answers you will be selected for the next round. In the next round, you will get a call from an engineer and you will be interviewed for about 45 minutes. Usually, 1/10 candidates clear this round. After this, similar to the previous round, you will again be interviewed by a different engineer. After clearing these, you can move on to the On-Site interviews.
On-Site Interviews: You will have to attend this face to face interview in one of the Google offices. There will be five onsite interviews, each of 45 minutes on different topics such as whiteboard coding, data structure, algorithm, generic computer science topics, etc.
An interview with Google is still another job interview only. Hence the generic goal of the interviewer and the candidate are similar to other interviews. Interviewers want to evaluate your technical abilities, depth of knowledge, clarity of thought process, solution approach towards a given problem, communication skill, team bonding abilities, etc.
Where you want to impress the interviewer, showcase your knowledge, prove your competency as a candidate for the applied position and also get a feel about the company. Since the interview process is rigorous in Google, over the internet it’s possible to find thousands of Google interview questions shared by past candidates.
One thing to consider, preparing for those questions won’t do the trick for you; however, they can give you an idea about the types of Google interview questions you may be asked during the interview.
Below are a few sample Google interview questions for reference:
1. Tell us about the best Google products according to you, and do you have anything you wish to change about them?
2. What makes you want to work at Google?
3. How would you explain how this particular Google product functions to a kid?
4. Have you ever taken a massive risk that led to failure? Why did you take the risk and did you learn anything from it?
5. Did you ever face conflict while working in a team? How did you go about handling it?
6. Tell us about any situation where you struggled to build relationships with people who are important. How did you achieve it?
7. Describe a time when you had to interact with a difficult client. How did you handle it?
8. Tell me about a time you were under a lot of pressure. What was going on, and how did you get through it?
9. Tell me about the first job you have ever had. What did you do to learn the ropes?
10. Describe a long-term project that you managed. How did you keep everything moving along in a timely manner?
Yes, Google provides accommodation for onsite interviews if the candidate asks for one. Candidates need to ask the recruiter about any facilities he needs. Google has a dedicated team arranging these kinds of facilities for the candidate.
Yes, after getting rejected in a Google interview you can again apply in Google. However, Google’s recommendation is to take your time, get yourself more prepared, gain some more experience and then reapply to Google for the job you are looking for.
On average, if we consider on-site interviews only, 1/5-1/7 onsite interview candidates get selected finally after attending all rounds of interviews. That means you have 15%-20% chances of landing with a Google offer letter if you are selected for Google onsite interview rounds.
Key Takeaways
Over the course of your learning path, try to accumulate knowledge and skills as much as you can. You never know what might appear resourceful in future. Pursue your interests and learn what excites you. Preparing for long keeping just one particular job in mind will not only confine you but also is an aim too short-sighted.
One must also remember that Google is looking for friendly and social candidates, not just skilled ones. And finally, being rejected by Google does not necessarily mean one is less skilled in any way, there are multiple factors that influence the interviews and the results. One must never give up and always try again.
