Questions Google Asks In Interviews

+ Google Behavioral Interview Questions

Now that youve gotten an idea of what to expect during the Google interview process, lets jump into some example questions.

To help you prepare strategically for your job interview, we have used Glassdoor data to identify the real questions asked in different Google interviews. The questions weve chosen come from our research on five Google tech roles: product manager, software engineer, program manager, account manager, and data scientist. Wed recommend reading one of these comprehensive interview guides if youre applying for one of these roles in particular.

Youll notice that weve divided the questions into the following categories:

• Leadership / people management
• Project management

We’ve added these categories to make the list of questions easier to understand, starting with the general questions that apply to any job. Each category tests a different quality that Google is looking for in its candidates, and the frequency of each question type will vary depending on the role. For instance, interviews for managerial roles will include a higher number of leadership / people management questions.

Note that we’ve edited the language in some of the questions for clarity or grammar. Now lets get into it.

Google Coding Interview Recap

The entire Google interview process takes around two months to complete and consists of five interviews in total. For the interviews, there will primarily be three question formats: system design, general analysis, and technical skills.

Prescreen: The first interview consists of a prescreening with a Google employee, which will last 45 – 60 minutes. In this interview, the interviewer will test you on your knowledge of data structures and algorithms.

On-site interviews: If you past the prescreen, you will be invited to an on-site interview, in which you will be interviewed by 4-6 employees for 45 minutes each. These interviews will more rigorously test your knowledge of data structures and algorithms. Typically, you will be writing code on a Google Doc or whiteboard.

Based on your performance, you will be scored on a scale between 1 and 4, with 3 being the minimum threshold to hire.

Overall, Google wants to test your technical and logical application of computer science. Here are some popular topics to review before your interview:

Does Google Ask Behavioral Interview Questions

Behavioral interviews at Google and Google Cloud Platform are a little different than other tech companies.

For starters, your first interview at Google will be a phone screen with a recruiter. In this interview, you’ll get asked behavioral questions that will see if you’re a quality candidate.

However, what sets Google apart, is that you’ll also get asked behavioral questions at nearly every other stage of your interview as well.

During technical interviews your interviewer may ask you about your previous roles as a way to buy time or as an icebreaker to jump into the rest of the interview.

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Google Behavioral Questions: Leadership/people Management

In addition to a collaborative nature, Google is looking for employees who demonstrate emergent leadership. This is because most roles will involve not only working in teams, but also leading them when appropriate.

As a result, you should expect questions about your approach to developing and retaining team members, your ability to lead teams through difficult situations, how you resolve conflict, etc. Of course, expect these questions to come up more frequently when interviewing for a managerial or leadership position.

Example behavioral questions asked at Google: Leadership/people management

• Tell me about a time you demonstrated leadership even though you weren’t the formal manager
• Tell me about a time you lead a team through a difficult situation
• Tell me about a time you developed and retained team members
• Tell me about a time you had to handle trade offs and ambiguity
• Which traits differentiate a manager from a leader, and how do you rank yourself as a leader on those traits?
• How would you deal with a team challenge in a balanced way?
• How would you address a skill gap or personality conflict?
• How would you ensure your team is diverse and inclusive?

How Would You Explain How This Google Product Works To A Four Year Old

This is a communication test that can be daunting if you’re not ready for it. Chances are the interviewer will use a Google product that is connected to the job for which you are applying, so focus on those. Make sure that you understand how the product works and what it does fully. If you truly understand it, you should be able to simplify your explanation enough that the four year old can get the right idea.

Example : You know how we pay the cashier at the grocery store for our food? With Google Pay, I can use my phone to pay the cashier and the money comes right out of my bank account. I don’t have to worry about losing my card.

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Example Answer: Tell Me About A Challenge Or Conflict You Faced At A Past Job

Now that you know some approaches for answering behavioral questions, let’s look at a full example. Well use one of Googles most frequently asked questions.

Try answering the question below following your preferred method. Play both the role of the interviewer and the candidate. Write down your answer, then practice saying it out loud before going through our example response. Once youve finished, compare your response to our example to fill in any gaps in your story.

Try this question:

Tell me about a challenge or conflict you faced at a past job

Answer:

Well use the IGotAnOffer method described above and answer as if interviewing for a product manager job at Google. You will find our proposed answer to the question below.

Notice that the question asks for a past challenge OR conflict, which lets you choose what youd like to highlight in your answer. If you choose a past challenge, this would be a good way to show off your leadership and problem-solving skills. However in this case, weve chosen to focus on a past conflict, which well use to display conflict-resolution and collaboration skills.

For a sample answer to the past challenge question instead, take a look here.

1. Situation

As this question isnt necessarily about a specific role, it allows you to describe a variety of situations. Well use a generic example, but you should of course use an example from your own work experience.

2. Problem

3. Solution

4. Impact

5. Lessons

What Is A Behavioral Interview At Google

Google uses behavioral interviews to assess job candidates based on their past experiences. These questions typically start with Tell me about a time you and focus on soft skills such as: leadership, communication, teamwork, problem solving, etc.

To round out your preparation, we’ve also included some resume, HR, and hypothetical questions such as “what are your strengths and weaknesses?” or “how would you…?” in this article. As these are real questions that have been reported by past candidates, we want to make sure you’re ready for anything.

These questions will appear at every step of the and Google Cloud Platform, from the initial recruiter screen all the way through to the onsite interviews. They may even appear as icebreaker or transition questions during technical screens. The frequency and type of behavioral questions will vary per role, but be prepared for many.

For more information on the process for a specific role, consult one of our comprehensive interview guides below:

Now, what will your interviewers be looking out for?

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Find K Closest Numbers

Given a sorted number array and two integers K and X, find K closest numbers to X in the array. Return the numbers in the sorted order. X is not necessarily present in the array.

Example:

O) O)

Once again this problem follows the Top K Numbers pattern. Here is our approach to the problem:

• Since the array is already sorted, we can first find the number closest to X through binary search. Lets say that number is Y.
• The K closest numbers to K adjacent to Y in the array. We can search both sides of Y to find the closest numbers.
• Then, we can use a heap to efficiently search for the closest numbers. We can take K numbers in both directions of Y and push them in a min-heap sorted by their difference from X.
• Finally, we extract the top K numbers from the min-heap to find the required numbers.

Good Questions To Ask At The End Of A Google Interview

When you are finished answering Google interview questions, you typically get to ask a few yourself. This is a crucial opportunity. Not only will it ensure you can get details that may not have been covered, but it also lets you gauge whether the job is actually right for you.

If you dont know what to ask, here are five good questions for the end of any Google interview:

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Google Interview Questions For Specific Domains

Domain-specific interviews involve questions around the domain in question. Below are domain-specific Google interview questions:

Google Interview Questions on AI and Machine Learning

AI and Machine Learning are fields that are becoming increasingly important in recent times, and Google actively hires for roles around this skill. Here are some common ML and AI questions asked at Googleâs technical interview.

Google Interview Questions for Front-end Developers

You will be asked questions around front-end development in addition to the core technical part of your interview. Here are some questions Google usually asks during front-end development interviews.

Leadership And Management Behavioral Interview Questions

Google wants employees who have what they call emergent leadership. The Google interview process is designed to highlight your ability to lead.

Almost every job at Google will require you to work cross-functionally. This means that you not only need to lead your own teams, but will also need to work well with others who aren’t always on the same page.

Expect to answer many questions about leadership in Google interviews. Your ability to lead teams through difficult problems will score high marks in your Google interview.

As you answer this question, your interviewer is looking for these key things

• Do you have experience managing large teams?
• Do you understand the value of 1:1 meetings with your team?
• Do you prioritize 1:1s over other meetings?
• Are you invested in your employees’ long-term career growth?
• Are you gathering feedback from your team to understand how they’re feeling about their role and work?
• Can you explain your management style with key examples?

Here’s what a good answer looks like:

One-on-one meetings are valuable to myself and my team. As such, I think it’s important to meet with my team regularly so I can hear from them openly. Planning meetings and office chit-chat aren’t the best place to get feedback, in my opinion.

2. Explain how you set up 1:1s and when you like to have them.

3. How do you structure 1:1s?

Why is this a good answer?

Here’s what a bad answer looks like:

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Putting It All Together

Ultimately, its normal to be a bit nervous when you head into your Google interview. But if you use the tips above, you can arrive prepared. Then, your chances of shining go up dramatically.

Remember, youre a great candidate. If you werent, you wouldnt have been invited in for an interview. So, take a deep breath, relax, and show the hiring manager that you are the best person for the job.

Good luck!

What Is The Star Framework

We recommend using the STAR framework in the Google interview process to answer questions.

STAR is short for:

You may have heard of the STAR method before or even subconsciously used it yourself. At its core, it encourages you to break your answers into four parts. Describe the situation, what task you were given, what action you took, and what results you achieved.

Internalizing the STAR framework will help your answers shine through.

Here’s how to use the STAR method to answer any Google interview questions you get asked.

This technique is a common interview strategy at dozens of interviews. So much so that we made a complete course on how to answer questions in both behavioral and technical interviews.

Read More: The STAR Interview Framework

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Questions To Ask About The Culture

This is an opportunity for you to learn if the company culture aligns with the type of culture youre seeking from a job. To make the most of any questions regarding company culture, you might consider researching beforehand the type of company culture youre most interested in.

Interviewers will often speak to what they like most about the culture, so its great to ask multiple people about this throughout the interview process to get a holistic view of the culture. Asking questions also, again, expresses your interest in the company, and that youve done your research. Here are some example questions you could ask:

Google Behavioral Questions: Project Management

Finally, you may be asked one or multiple project management questions, which dive into your productivity and how you would effectively lead projects end-to-end. Some of these questions are specific to certain roles, such as how do you run your product lifecycle? for product managers.

If youre interviewing for a position that will entail managing and leading project teams, then expect questions about your overall project management philosophy, your ability to deal with complex and ambiguous situations, and your experience delivering results.

Right, now lets get into some questions.

Example behavioral questions asked at Google: Project management

• Tell me about a time you had to handle a project that was late
• Tell me about a time you were the end-to-end owner of a project
• Tell me about a time you used data to make a critical decision
• Tell me about a time you used data to measure impact
• Tell me about a time you improved a process at one of your previous workplaces
• How will you go about doing this job for the first 90 days?
• How would you handle competing visions on how to deliver a project?
• How would you choose a methodology to manage a project?
• How would you balance flexibility and process in an agile environment?
• How do you sort your priorities when engaged in multitasking?
• How do you make product decisions? How do you run your product lifecycle?

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Mention What Is The Weight Of The Empire State Building

This question was actually asked by google employers to check the thought process of the employee. It is to see how well employee can do guestimate that is what is referred for such question. It is a little tricky but if you good at numbers and height width calculation, you will surely come up with some answer. Anyway the answer to this question was something 750,000 tons or 1.5 billion pound of weight, after considering all the parameters like single floor widthXheight, weight, etc.

How To Answer Google Behavioral Interview Questions

As you can see, the Google interview is no joke. Behavioral interview questions cover the entire spectrum of your skills as an employee.

They’re not just learning about your previous work experience. They’re about learning about who you are and if you’ll be a good fit at the end of the Google search. .

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What Do You Want To Highlight

Before you start practicing answers, write down a list of your biggest accomplishments or facts about your professional life.

• Successes at work with new products or features
• Failures or mistakes that helped you grow
• Teams you’ve worked in and times you’ve shown leadership

Look through each of Google’s core values and find a moment in your past that hits on each of them.

Use these stories as you practice answering the sample questions above. Find ways to weave past successes and failures into your answers to give a full picture of yourself to the interviewer.

Keep Your Answers Short And Concise

You finally landed an interview at Google. You’re excited and eager to impress!

But remember to keep in mind that your interviewer likely has dozens of candidates to interview. Long-winded answers to Google interview questions may be hard to follow.

Spend only about 30 seconds setting up your answer using the STAR method. Don’t waste precious interview time explaining why you got your last job because you happened to be at Starbucks at the same time as the hiring manager!

Then, when you get to the meat and potatoes of your answer, don’t waste time either!

Focus on only the essential details. Don’t bore your interviewer with long-winded stories that aren’t relevant.

Highlight your skills, how you solve problems, and stick to the facts.

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