Hi,

Hope everyone is having a great week, and is staying safe. Thought I would share my phone screen experience at Google.

I originally applied online (wasn't really expecting to hear back). Got the OA, which I finished a week after I got it. The questions were straight from the Google OA assessment post.

I then a got a reply a week after to set a phone screen. They gave me ~ 3 weeks to prepare for it.

The day of the phone screen there was some technical issues, and a bit of delay so I had to jump straight into the problem. It was a pretty simple tree problem (I got lucky).

Problem

There is a grasshopper that starts from the root node, if the hopper hops to a node with no children the hopper is stuck and can't move further. If the grasshopper has the option to move then it has to make the hop. Basically the goal is to find the probability of the grasshopper landing at each node.

Example
p : probability
parent -> [children]

           (p : 0) -> [(p: 0) -> [(p:1/3)] , (p: 0) -> [(p:1/6), (p:1/6)] , (p: 1/3)]

Outcome

After a week, I got a reply saying that my interview went well but they were winding down the hiring process for new grad roles so they couldn't move forward. I was sort of worried about this, because I knew Google was slowing down hiring, ecspecially for new grad roles in the US. I thought eventually they would stop for Canada. I guess I kind of regret not asking for an earlier interview.

However if your still in the process, don't give up. You never know, they may be accepting really strong candidates.

Tips

-> Like everyone says, take your time to fully grasp the problem and ask any questions you may have. (For e.g what the function signature is)
-> With recursive tree problems make sure to start with all base cases, and edge cases
-> Because your using a google doc it can get a bit un organized, this is something I struggled with a bit.
-> Don't rush your solution, but also be mindful that the interviewer may have another followup (1-3 questions).
-> Always state the runtime even if they don't ask, and even if its trivial.
-> Keep talking, even if your thinking. If you know something won't work explain why it won't. Shows that your thinking through different options.
-> Stay calm as best as you can, if it doesn't work out it doesn't work out. Don't add unecessary pressure.

-> In terms of prep I honestly just really tried to focus on the major topics (DP, Graphs, Trees, Recursion) and studying the problems I sucked at, figuring out the patterns, and making whiteboard interview templates.