Google | Early Careers | CANADA | ONSITE | [REJECT]
Eshwar Sundar
2328
GoogleOnsiteIndiaCanadaInterview

I am from India and I interviewed at Google, Canada (VIRTUAL) a month back and got rejected by the HC. I am trying to compile the resources and preparation strategy (I got rejected, but my preparation strategy, the learnings from my mistake would help someone). I won't be sharing any questions as I would like to honor the NDA but still make sure I can give something back to fellow leetcoders.

The Application
I applied through the careers website (after getting a referral). It is important to note that if you are getting a referral, wait before you get the referral email, else it won't be attached. I applied to Early Careers at Mountain View office and Canada office (honestly, it was random, I was totally fine working anywhere). Because of visa issues, my application at MTV got turned down and I was told to interview for Canada.

Phone interview
It was a 45 minute call through hangouts with a google custom made interview portal (supports syntax highlight, but no autocomplete).
The question can be said as Leetcode medium. It was based on priority queue and linked list.
I was able to solve and communicate effectively and moved forward to the onsite.

Onsite interviews
4 rounds --> 1 Googlyness, 3 technical.
My interviews were scheduled over 2 days since I was in India and my interviews were at late night.
Googlyness -> Just be the person you are, if you are not a jerk this round should not be a problem. Simple and leadership related questions. Follow Jeff H Sipe on Youtube for more insights about Google interviews in general.

Technical --> All rounds had two questions. A leetcode medium with a hard followup. All my questions were graph based. The last round had a more design + code approach to it (still uses DSA)

Interview verdict
I was scheduled for 2 more interviews since there were missing data points.
The first round had two questions. First one was Graph based the second one was Deque based This round went super good. I was able to solve with optimizations and fully code.
The second round had just question. This is the round I felt that dragged me down. It was a very implementation related question. (The logic was pretty easy, but there was a lot of corner cases which I should have handled).

Got rejected after 2 weeks :D

Learning from mistakes

  1. When you are applying for an internation offer, make sure you are comfortable with the time zones you are planning to interview at. Squeezing my brain at 1 am in the night did not work out very well for me during the interviews. I could have done much better. (Again the mistake is on me, I should have practised more at this time zone)
  2. Get leetcode premium or borrow it from a friend (It is worth it! It gives you a kickstart and sense of the actual questions) DISCLAIMER: You probably will not get direct LC questions, but it ll be a bit similar.
  3. CONCENTRATE MORE ON GRAPHS! I highly reccomend William Fiset's youtube channel for this.
  4. Be very well prepared before scheduling the interviews. Google will give you ample amount of time to prepare, don't make the mistake I did. When my interviewer asked me for dates to schedule the interviews, I gave the earliest possible dates which was available. This gave me only around 5 days to prepare. For some reason I was thinking if I would be judged if I take a lot of time. But this is not the case. Don't be so hard on yourself. Take your time and prepare

What went really good

  1. I was thinking out loud through all the interviews and made sure the interviewer understands my approach before hopping on to coding. (You should too. The last round, I got a bit dozed and did not do this as well and that could have been a reason that I got rejected)
  2. The Google interview process is long but it is filled with learnings and is a great experience. The only negative thing is I did not get any feedback.
  3. The great thing about the google process is, you learn a lot as an interviewer also. You can learn how to conduct great interviews at your organization. (I assume you are working)
  4. The recruiter is there to help from day one of the process till the end. Any doubts or questions, you should feel free to follow up.

Resources

  1. William Fiset's youtube channel for Graphs
  2. Jeff H Sipe's youtube channel for general google interviews
  3. NeetCode youtube channel (whenever I got stuck on Leetcode problems)
  4. LEETCODE DISCUSSIONS ! (UNDERRATED RESOURCE)

ALL THE BEST IF YOU HAVE YOUR INTERVIEWS COMING UP!

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