Item — HN Reader

I've been approached by different people at Google several times over the years, and I've always passed for two reasons:

* You require relocation, with no remote options for working that I was ever able to learn about.

* The interview process seems unduly complex and needlessly difficult.

1 comments

When I applied to Google, it consisted of a phone call with a recruiter, a 45-minute technical phone interview, and a one-day visit to the office consisting of four 45-minute technical interviews and casual lunch.

I believe my experience is fairly typical; have you heard otherwise?

I started down the route of phone-interviews (two) before being told that I'd need to relocate to either Ireland or Switzerland, and that I'd need several in-person interviews to proceed further.

(I'm a system administrator, rather than a developer, although I'm a competent programmer in my own right.)

They may have streamlined, or it may be dependent on the type of position you're applying for, but in the case of a few of my friends it involved multiple days in mountain view from NYC, many in-person interviews in NYC, and so on.

I think in two of the cases I can think of it was a ~3 week interview process.

What year was that? I applied in 2011, and I've been conducting interviews for Google ever since, and I think the most in-person interviews I've ever seen on anyone's slate was 5.

Occasionally, a second phone interview is necessary, but usually only if something went wrong in the first one.

Someone I know went to 5 different in-person interviews with Google over a period of something like 3 months. Each time there would be a 2-week or so limbo before talking to someone at Google again. Then after 5 interviews, nothing. Total silence.

This was 2009 or so and was for some sort of infrastructure management position.

This was back in the mid-2000s. I think both of them did way more than 5 in-person interviews - it was probably 2 phone, 3 in-person NYC, 4-5 in-person in MTV.

Both were relatively senior positions, so perhaps they're the exception, or perhaps it's been streamlined since then. I'd buy either.