After about a month and a half I received an email from my recruiter that since our team had won the Scavenger Hunt they would be giving us $50 in credit for shopping at the Google Online Store. I ordered a couple of shirts and I am already selling some of the stuff they gave us much cheaper than their online store here. Do check it out.

On-Site Interviews

My first interview was with a lady who was part of the startup that was acquired by Google and now is known as Google docs. She started out with the question

So you can always prepare this question in advance and a good idea is to go with something about which you have indepth knowledge such as your final year project or your master/phd thesis because generally the thesis so specific that the chances that the interviewer would know anything about it are very slim and the added advantage that since it is your thesis you would know a lot about it.

I went with my master's thesis and though the interviewer tried her best to look as if she was understanding it all but I could tell that she was not. Then came the all time favourite google question

• Which google product would you want to change?

I got this question repeated many times. It seemed as if the interviewers weren’t in sync and didn’t share notes before interviewing me thus repeating questions. This question was very easier as I rammed the interviewer with all the weaknesses of Orkut and how basically Google lost to an upstart facebook. The interviewer seemed happy with my answers and all in all I thought it was a good interview. Just so that you know you could say how Orkut's interface sucks and how it neglected the "privacy" features which led to it's downfall.

view from Clift hotel

The last nail in Orkut's coffin was when facebook launched the application platform which was a brilliant idea to get thousands of developers working free for you. Orkut instead of fighting back with innovation chose to shamelessly copy all the features facebook provided. Keep Reading ...