Final Outcome
Even though my recruiter had given me a ray of hope by saying things are looking
“positive” I received a phone call from her next week on Tuesday that
I had been rejected. I pressed her for any feedback she could give but she kept
mum. However she did say that I was a very strong candidate and that she wished
she had better news. It wasn’t a really big blow since I already had a job
offer from Microsoft but I would have liked to know the reasons because I think
my interviews went really well. Later on I asked her if you think it would be wise
to reapply and she suggested that it would be a good idea after an year.
Later on I wrote to Vishal who had given me his email and he agreed to talk to me
over the phone about my interview with him. He said that APM was the toughest program
to get into at Google infact he said it was much more tougher than getting a technical
job at Google. According to him it was probably easier to get into the PM role with
an MBA than getting into the APM prgoram. The only thing he said he didn’t
like in my interview with him was that I seemed tense in the first 5 minutes. That’s
it.
He said he was happy with my answers and the only possibility of being turned down
was that at Google they want zero risk when hiring so even if a single iinterviewers
expresses a slight doubt about the candidate that’s the final nail in your
job application coffin.
My other observations at google were following and you might find them interesting
and are free to disagree
- Most of the people who interviewed and even the recruiters had Stanford
degrees and a good chunk of candidates were Stanford alums or students. I think
there’s a natural bias in hiring Stanford grads at Google. Marissa is also
a Stanford graduate.
- Out of the people interviewing me ethnically 3 were white, 2 Chinese
and 1 Indian. Among the candidates there were a lot of Chinese, 4 Indians, 2 African
Americans and a few whites. In all we were about 20. By Chinese I mean Koreans,
Taiwanese meaning they looked Chinese-like. Furthermore, two people who came in
with us were Goldman Sachs IT department employees and two PMs from Microsoft were
also there. One guy was from Cisco. One guy from Intuit. Some were still in college.
- At one of the dinners another APM Nandu told us how he always loves
to ask the two bullets in a revolver question where you calculate the probability
and he pressed that he could always tell if the person already knew the answer and
was faking it or not. So if you guys get Nandu you know what question is coming
your way unless he reads this before you do !
- Too much has been made about the free food at Google and I finally
had it for the onsite interviews. Yes it was nice but there are drawbacks. The cuisine
is limited for instance Indian food stall had only two dishes being served that
day. There’s a lot of junk food like ice-cream smoothies deserts which in
my opinion aren’t good for health and since they are free there’s a
very high probability you’ll end up eating them. Furthermore, in spite of
the fact that there’s an on-site gym most people I saw that day including
the hundreds in the cafeteria weren’t anywhere close to being called physically
fit. I guess when the food is free it is natural to overeat.
- The mini-kitchens had nothing but junk food sugary enough to make
sure that by the time you retire you have diabetes. All types of sweets and candies
were placed like kitkat, M&Ms etc etc. I thought they might have something healthy
but except for flavoured water there was none.
- Most of the crowd was very young. Everyone seemed less than forty.
There might be some truth after all in the age bias Google is accused of practicing.
- I didn’t like the office space at all. They have literally
cramped the whole place. For instance in one office with glass walls they put in
two to three people. Others were assigne assigned small cubicles and there’s
hardly any privacy. Comparatively at Microsoft the team I interviewed with everyone
had their own spacious neat and clean office.
- Google is very mean when it comes to the expenditures. They send
you a reimbursement policy which states you must take the metro or SuperShuttle
to and from the airports and they don’t allow you to spend more than $35 on
meals per day infact they say that on the interview day we don’t expect you
to spend at all. I found it very mean and cheap of Google to cut costs like this.
They made me stay the whole Tuesday just so that they could save money on the red-eye
flight. By the way their reimbursement is much much slower than Microsoft's.
- Remember Google isn’t for everyone. Yes, it sounds hip and
has a lot of hype but you might get frustrated there. It’s a lot of stress
and the free food there is to make you stay longer at the office. You have to be
that person who likes that kind of environment to thrive there so don’t think
Google is panacea of all your pains. Just as an example in the bathrooms, they had
put up technical notes on urinals about thread-debugging with sample code and a
tool that could help you find them better. Personally, I am not that passionate
about coding that I would like to find bugs in code while peeing ( the very reason
I applied for the APM position and not the Engineering one) but if you are that
kind of person then yes Google is for you !
In the ends enjoy the Google experience and the goodies they give you when leave.
Remember there are many people who get rejected in the APM program even some very
smart guys from Stanford. You being rejected doesn't mean you are not good enough
because after all it’s people on the other side who are evaluating you and
they are prone to mistakes too.
As far as I got rejected, I don't know the reason but I accept that I must not have
been competent enough for them.
Best of luck for your interviews !
Google vs Microsoft