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How To Prepare For Google Interview In 6 Months

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How I prepared for Coding Interviews | 6 Months Guide

There will also be a few non-technical questions. When I did my first one, a friend recommended that I have answers ready for cookie-cutter questions like

Where do you see yourself in ten years?

Dont bother with that!

They will ask you about your previous work and education, though, and pretty much always ask about a technical challenge you overcame.

If you have a tech blog, refer to it. Ive had interviewers discuss my posts with me . Blogs arent hard to write, and even a few posts on an otherwise barren blog will make you look more thoughtful.

Finally, the absolute best way to prepare for a Google interview is to do more Google interviews, so if you fail, good for you!

Google Interview Preparation Guide

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  • Google Interview Preparation Guide – All You Need To Know
  • Cracking a Google interview and receiving an offer from one of the most coveted software companies is the dream of many professionals, but with an acceptance rate of 0.2% getting a job at Google is much harder than getting into Harvard . This makes it even more important for you to prepare extensively and give it your best shot.

    Nonetheless, knowing how interviews are conducted at Google can help ease your preparation and eliminate surprises. Here is the guide to help you understand the Google interview process, read along!

    The Final Hiring Decision

    Once your on-site interview is done, the recruiter will create your file or packet with all the details of interaction you had during the interview and send it across to the hiring committee.

    Your file or packet will contain,

    • Your Resume
    • Employee reference notes- if you are applying through Google employee reference.
    • Your on-site interview questions, your response, your code, scores given by the interviewer, and detailed feedback
    • Any note that any of the interviewers wanted to highlight – attitude, strength, area of concern, red flag

    The hiring committee is a team of 4-5 Googlers, who never meet the candidate but select the best candidate based on the candidates entire interview details.

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    The Google Phone Interview

    For the phone screen, you are interviewed by at least one Google employee who provides you with a coding question. You share a Google document with the interviewer and use it to write code for the question asked by the interviewer.

    Protip: Coding in Google Docs sucks, but if you update your preferences it can make your life 1000x better. Learn how to do that here.

    This interview will focus on your ability to produce code without an IDE . Typically, the question asked will be one that can be solved by a brute-force solution, and then progressively improved upon.

    The phone interview is about 30-45 minutes. Assuming you did well, the Google recruiter will reach back out to you to give you the next steps if they decide to move along with you.

    Dont be disappointed if they ask to do a second phone interview. Thats totally normal if they dont feel like they were able to adequately assess you the first time and doesn’t have any bearing on your later interviews.

    Tips For Practicing Coding Challenges

    2.6 Google Forms New Create a Scale Question

    There is no shortcut or magic wand for practicing coding challenges. Here are some basic tips to guide you through the preparation stage.

    Keep time in mind. The coding interview will be timed, so its important to prepare with that in mind. If you are used to preparing under a time constraint, it will be far less stressful during the actual interview.

    Know your weak spots. As you prepare, take note of your weak spots. Everyone has them. Google has stated that they care about your thought process, so if you come up against a weak spot, talk through it. This will demonstrate your eagerness to improve.

    Know the common pitfalls. There are three big pitfalls when it comes to a Google interview: not knowing the Big-O complexity of an algorithm, having no knowledge of Googles expectations, and not articulating your problem-solving process. Keep these pitfalls in mind as you work.

    Articulate your process. Google wants to hear about your thought process. As you practice, get used to explaining why and what you are doing. Those with a clear sense of how they work stand out.

    Behavioral interviews are often overlooked by software development candidates. In reality, this is the interview that sometimes will make or break you as a candidate. Google cares deeply about their values, so if you come unprepared for these questions, theyll notice it.

    Also Check: What Are The Main Questions Asked In A Job Interview

    How To Search And Apply For Jobs At Google

    There are four ways to apply for a job at Google

    1- Search and look for jobs on Google careers site: Google careers

    2- A Google recruiter found you on LinkedIn site and contacted you.

    3- You know someone working at Google and he/she referred you for a job

    4- You can use this powerful job hunt method to contact someone at Google and apply for jobs.

    You Only Wrote Your First Line Of Code When You Applied To A Bootcamp Were You Not Intimidated When Applying Considering You Hadnt Coded Before

    Not really. I trusted in the process, which claimed that people with absolutely no coding experience could apply to these bootcamps, get in, and be employable in the Software Engineering field. I figured that if anybody could do it, I could, because when I set out to do something, I tend to really go all in.

    Also Check: What To Ask A Cfo In An Interview

    Can You Tell Us About Algoexpert And What It Offers To Developers

    AlgoExpert is a website that offers an organized platform with 77 curated practice interview questions, with more being added periodically. Each question is accompanied by:

    • an in-depth two-part video explanation consisting of:
    • a conceptual whiteboard overview of the algorithm at hand, covering its inner workings and its space-time complexity analysis
    • an entire coding walkthrough of the solution
    • a full-fledged coding workspace where you can type out and run your code against premade test cases and look at hints if you need help

    I Had To Revise All My Data Structure/algorithms Concepts In 10 Days After 8 Months Of Break

    The Truth About How I Learned to Code in 6 Months And Got Into Google

    Every time that I had to prepare for an interview, I remember searching the below phrase on google. It was the first question that came to my mind:

    An exhaustive list of resources to prepare for the interview/Google interview

    I realized soon enough that I needed to make a customized list because I had not been able to find anything satisfactory and trustworthy online. So here I am, yours sincerely, sharing all of my experience and curated resources. These have been approved by many people who got into Google, so trust me :P. Lets dive into the tips I have prepared for my future self.

    P.S. If you dont want to read my tips but need the resources , then by all means, jump straight to the end. You shall find your treasure there!

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    Month Preparation Plan For Software Engineering Interviews

  • First things first. Commit to it. Realize that you will spend the next 6 months on this.
  • Give yourself time. Give yourself 6 months if possible. You are probably preparing with a job or school, so it will take time.
  • If you want a guided bootcamp, check out Interview Camp
  • Here is a concise plan. Now, the pace will vary from person-to-person. I am assuming you are preparing alongside a full-time job or study.

    Also, this plan doesnt cover System Design. That should be done separately, and usually takes a lot less time than Algo prep.

    Overview Of Google Interviews

    The whole interview process takes 2 to 2.5 months to complete. Google interviews for software developers consist of 5 to 7 interviews in total. This includes an initial phone screen with a Google recruiter, followed by 4 to 6 on-site interviews with different Google employees. All coding challenges are done on a whiteboard, Google Docs, or a Chromebook.

    Google normally hires at level T3 with T11 being the height of levels. T3 is an entry-level, full-time software engineer with an undergraduate or Masters degree. The average salary for a T3 employee is $117,000 annually. Google prefers the following programming languages: Java, C++, C Go, and Python.

    There are three types of coding problems you can expect to see in a Google interview.

    • System design questions: these questions gauge your ability to handle high-level system design with scalability in mind.

    • Coding interview challenges: these questions gauge your knowledge of data structures and algorithms to optimize a solution to common problems.

    • General analysis questions: these questions gauge your thought process through mathematical or opinion-based questions

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    Dont Study As Much As I Did

    Yes, I took 8 months. But I could have abbreviated the process. Like any startup with a big goal, you make mistakes and do things that waste time. There are many things I wish I go back and do differently.

    I studied topics I didnt need to, some because I thought I would need them for the interview, and some because I wanted to have the knowledge on hand for when I started working. I didnt want to be a burden on the team Im assigned to. It turns out I simply over-prepared.

    I spent 3 weeks reading a 1,000-page book on C++. I dont remember 1,000 pages worth, but I know a good bit about C++ now. As it turns out, Im using Python for the interview, not C++. I had assumed I needed C++, C, or Java, but I was wrong. Its good to ask, not assume.

    I read way more books than I needed to. There are only 3 or 4 books I should have read.

    I have a code catalog of dozens of algorithms that I review, most of which I wouldnt expect in an interview. You dont need to do that.

    I watched many hours of YouTube videos but could have watched far less, and spread out topics over time.

    I should have stopped reading books and watching videos earlier and started on coding problems sooner. I would have been able to spend more time applying the topics I learned.

    My sense of fear led me to study far more topics than I needed to.

    How Long Is The Interview Process

    Create a Split Page in Google Docs

    Historically, Googles infamous interview process involved 15-25 interviews over a period of 6-9 months. It has since been whittled down to 4-9 interviews over a period of about two months, consisting of a phone screen and onsite interviews.

    According to Indeed, nearly 40% of hires are headhunted by recruiters, while 22% apply through online job boards. Some recruiters say over 80% of hires come in through sourcing or referrals!

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    The Main Concept For The Interview Is To Keep The Interview Active And This Requires Some Action From Your Side

    Such as the following

    • You need to discuss.
    • You need to express your views.
    • Its okay and encouraged to question your interviewer. Ask for help when you need it. If you need to assume something, verbally check with your interviewer that it is a correct assumption
    • Google is interested in your problem-solving approach. This means talking and asking questions.
    • The interview questions will be in-depth, and Google wants to see how you think about complicated problems. Correct answers are often not necessary if youve shown a mature thought process.
    • Communication throughout the interview is key. Not only will you improve your chance of solving the problem and show the interviewer your thoughts, but the interviewer will also judge the teamwork by which you both get to the solution.
    • Interviewers will ask you questions about your skills, interests, education, career, and projects. Remember to be genuine and interesting.

    How I Landed A Google Internship In 6 Months

    Image Credit: Vince Smith/Flickr

    When I decided that I would try out coding again in the summer after high school, I had no intention of it going further than a simple hobby. Somehow, learning Swift led to registering as an Apple Developer, leading to a published app. I fell in love with how infinite software is and how limitless the creation possibilities are. At that point, the journey had only just begun.

    Recommended Reading: How To Prepare For Amazon Coding Interview

    What Drove You To Coding In The First Place

    Ive always had a penchant for entrepreneurship, but throughout high school and college, I repeatedly found myself in the frustrating situation of having lots of business ideas but needing a technical cofounder to help me actually build them out. Since I was plagued by the misconception that to study Computer Science, you had to have been coding since you were very young, I never made the jump and learnt how to code.

    This led to a lot of abandoned projects and disappointment. I finally decided it was time for me to learn how to code when I graduated from college and realized that even normal job fields that I was interested in, like Product Management and Venture Capital, required a Computer Science background.

    Ux Engineer Interview Questions

    Prepare for Your Google Interview: UX Design
  • What is A/B testing?
  • How do you avoid a flash of unstyled content while still keeping your site accessible to all users?
  • What UX news have you read lately?
  • What experience have you had working alongside developers as a designer?
  • Tell me about your design process.
  • How would you describe interaction design to someone whos never heard of it?
  • Whats the difference between information architecture and user experience?
  • How would you redesign Craigslist?
  • How would you design a system for controlling a toy car using a smartphone?
  • Walk me through a project youve worked on.
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    How Is The Google Interview Different From Other Companies

    Google isnt shy about sharing their hiring practices. In fact they have a whole page dedicated to exactly that.

    The interview process begins with at least one phone screen and, if successful, a series of onsite interviews. The Google phone screen and onsite portions are fairly typical across the board of technical interviewing, but the process at Google is unique in a couple specific details:

    What You Have To Say About The Whole Experience

    The people you will talk to are smart, and its a fun experience to be able to solve problems with smart and passionate people.

    All the intriguing questions back-and-forth made me feel like I was being taught by modern Socrates

    In the end all these interviews have given me a great chance to realize some gaps in my knowledge and refine my approach to solve algorithms.

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    What Are Your Reflections

    There are lots of smart Googlers who didnt get in until their third attempt .

    But I found the process of doing a Google interview at all to be very rewarding.

    It is important to reflect afterwards in order to reap the full benefits of interviewing at Google.

    If you did well, why? But more importantly, if you feel you did poorly, why? Google wont give feedback, which can be a bit depressing at times.

    CHAPTER 2

    What is google hiring process?

    Understanding The Interview Process

    Uninstall Google Chrome on Windows 10, 8, 7, XP

    In this first module, TechLead explains how to structure your resume to give you the best chance of success, how to breeze through the telephone screening, and what you can expect during your on-site interview.

    If this sounds like run-of-the-mill how to land a job information, its notthe insight TechLead is able to offer here, as someone who has played the role of technical recruiter in over 100 interviews with Googleis truly priceless.

    TechLead also discusses the different mindsets of technical recruiters vs. non-technical recruiters, and provides a framework for tailoring your approach depending on which type of recruiter youre working with.

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    How Can You Learn To Code In 6 Months

    Learning to code is a marathon, not a 100m sprint. You need to become a lifelong learner, and the more you know, the longer will be the list of things that you feel the need to discover.

    But , if we’re talking about changing careers, I think it’s totally possible to become a Software Engineer in 6 months or less. You just need to quickly acquire a good set of entry-level skills.

    How do I know that it’s possible?

    Simple. I did it in 2017. And I’m not the only one. If you search for it, you’ll find lots of people who’ve accomplished the same feat.

    Why The Text Books

    Now, I need to address the all-important question of why do recruiters, interviewers, and advocates constantly badger us about sticking to the good old textbooks, instead of having us do what engineers do best: use technology to solve our problems. At most companies, having something like “Spring” or “Apache Storm” on your resume is a great boost, and sometimes even mandatory. You are sometimes even asked very specific and pedantic questions about these technologies. Companies like Google, though, simply don’t care.

    What they are there to evaluate is how well can you solve problems, in a very contained environment, using the most basic tools at your disposal, namely, algorithms, data structures, and systems design.

    Therefore, focusing on these textbooks will hone your skills in applying these tools of trade to the problems in their most abstract form: you are not going to bother about thinking whether or not a particular technology is suitable to solving a given problem rather, you will be forced to think your way through modeling a given problem into its most basic algorithmic form, applying the algorithms you have learned, and finally testing the solution.

    You will be evaluated on your problem-solving skills, which to be honest, is the only part of your experience that you will take with you to Google . The CI tools you are used to, the technologies, the conventions, and even the techniques, will for the most part be irrelevant to how things are done at Google.

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