I was contacted by a Google recruiter in June, and to be honest I wasn't sure if I wanted to try. I failed few Google phone interviews in the past. The recruiter was really nice and assured me I would be doing just fine. Well, it's Google after all, so I started the process. And it's sure a very long journey (2.5 months for me), so be prepared!
I had my phone interview a week after talked to the recruiter. The interviewer was nice, but the phone line was not, we had so much trouble hearing each other, made the interview a bit difficult. The interview questions consist of my work experience, SQL questions (the role is analytics related) and a case question. I thought I failed the interview because I disagreed with the interviewer on the metric choice, but to my surprise, for the first time in my Google interview history, I passed. I got the good news only few hours after my phone interview was done.
Then it comes to on site, it got scheduled to 5 weeks down the road, and it might be because of the July 4th was in between. I actually didn't mind the long wait, since I can get enough time to prepare for the interviews. It's hard to find out what kind of questions program managers get to asked. I have friends who are program managers there, and I was told they were asked case questions and estimation questions, so I really prepared the interview as if I am interviewing for a product manager role.
I had 5 interviews and one lunch interview with the hiring manager for my onsite, and it was on a Friday. I have to say I am pleasantly surprised by how friendly and humble my interviewers are, it made me much more relaxed during the interviews. As for the interview questions, well, surprise, surprise, 95% of the questions were behavior questions, only 1 estimation question. I should have listened to my recruiter's interview prep tips! I managed through, but I had to repeat my examples because I didn't remember many that I can remember great details. I can tell for sure that I nailed 2 interviews based on the interviewers' reaction and comments, but the rest 3... can't tell for sure.
The waiting game started. By Monday, I was telling my Google friends that I am having post-Google-interview anxiety, lol. I kept googling 'how long does it take to hear back after Google onsite", and I guess a lot of people wondered about the same thing. It took 1.5 weeks for me to hear back from my recruiter that my packet will be going to HC.
But things took a turn on the 2nd day, I was told that the position I interviewed for was on hold. You can imagine how I felt about this news. But luckily, one of my interviewers really liked me and happen to have an opening in his group. So I got scheduled to talk to the hiring manager, that's few more days of wait. Definitely take the conversation with the hiring manager as an official interview. He certainly asked questions to figure out if my experience and skills fit the role and if I am a good culture fit. The interview with the HM went well, and the packet was sent to HC. I asked my recruiter if she can tell me what my chance is to pass HC, she said she really cannot. And I was guessing my interview feedbacks are truly mixed. My recruiter is really on top of things, she told me the result right after the HC review meeting, and it's another roller coaster. She said HC requested an additional interview citing that the role requires some ambiguous problem solving skills, so they need to assess my general cognitive ability more, whatever that means. Oh, my god, when will this process come to an end?!
For this interview, you have a choice of going on site or do a video interview. I chose going on site because I know I do better when the interview is in person. Because of that general cognitive ability comment, I spent a lot of time preparing for estimation questions since I only got asked on during last round, and I thought that's what they wanted to focus on this time. Well, guessed wrong! This interview is no different from last round, it's mostly behavior and situational questions.
By now, I've already got another offer, which is a good thing because it pushed Google to expedite the HC review process. Mine was reviewed off their regular review meeting, and good news finally came! My recruiter started working on my compensation package, and surprisingly she pushed it through and got approved within 1 day. The only thing is once this is approved, there is no negotiation at all.
All in all, I am happy that this 2.5-month journey ended on the good news! And I definitely would give a big shoutout to my recruiter! Very patient and very helpful throughout the entire process.