My Google Interview Experience

I remember it like it was yesterday, end of the 5th semester after a long, strenuous , irksome and mentally grueling semester ( the adjectives are to give the effect) , I was back in my domicile in Hyderabad. Two days into the holidays, I get a call from the HR department of Google Hyderabad asking me whether I was interested in the internship program that I had applied for a few months back. Of course I was interested, then why would I apply ,I thought to myself before answering the receiver with the most innocuous of tones that I could muster, "Yes, yes I am very much interested in the program." , I said to the lady at the other end. "OK Anirudh , we will contact you soon and fix the date and time for the Interview , Bye." CLICK , End of conversation.

The next day the Google Lady (GL)( is kept anonymous and short for obvious reasons) confirms my interview two days from that day. It was supposed to be a telephonic interview but since I was in Hyderabad, instead it would be a personal interview. The initial plans of keeping Google handy when attending the telephone call to search for the answers to any difficult questions were annulled by the fact that it would be a personal interview, on the bright side I may get to see the office and hopefully some young, hardworking and "beautiful" female employees, so I wasn't that bothered about it.

Two days I slogged , mugging whatever I felt was closely related to Computer Science, crammed my brain with difficult algorithms either through understanding or by rote. Read the e-book on "101 Ways to crack an interview", "Interview Biggest Secrets Finally Revealed". Not knowing what the portion is for the test made things a lot more harder.

D-day. With the help of my friend, I reached the office , half an hour before the expected interview time. I saw the familiar Google Logo displayed on every piece of item in the Visitors Lounge, from the Desktops to small mugs, it was everywhere. Then the GL comes and introduces herself. Disappointment, she was old and probably married, something that her cherubic voice over the telephone belied. As I was toured around the office, I noticed that most of the workers were not in formals. I saw pets in the office, people getting bumps, people playing video games. There was not even an ounce of corporate culture in this office, not even an iota of corporate etiquette. It felt like it was just another university dormitory, man how I wish I could work in this office for the summer.
The interviewers come in and at first glance, being a prejudice, I judged them to be someone from a local college in Hyderabad who went through one of those computer language coaching centers and got through the interview, they probably know little and I thought I could work my way around the interview. BIG MISTAKE!!!! As I would find out.

The interview commenced not with the usual "Tell me about yourself" or "Why Google?" or "Why should we select you?", no Google was far too nerdy for those questions it was "What algorithm would you use to solve an anagram problem and how would you make it more efficient by reducing the complexity?". What! what is an anagram solver?, so much for the two page essay on the "Why Google" or the one page essay on "Tell me about yourself" that I so meticulously prepared. As I got down to understand the problem first and then probably look for a solution, I began to hear the continuous clicks of the keyboard, apparently they type each and every single thing that you do in the test and occasionally laugh to disconcert you, some type weird stress test. Something I can't do is that I cannot work when someone is scrutinizing me while I am working, I am fine with working alone, getting the solution and then being scrutinized. So it didn't help with the interviewers one foot away from you, boring with their eyes. Write an anagram solver , what the hell is that...finally I gave a solution , a brute force method, they told me thats not good enough, Can you optimize the solution?. I optimized it . Can you optimize the solution further??...I optimized it. Can you optimize the solution further???.. What ! thats as far as it is algorithmically possible to optimize it I told them, thinking that this was just one of those interview technique to see the candidates thought process. But as I was told later , such a solution existed and worse I fuzzily remember it being taught, thats what you get for sleeping in the class. One by one and one after the other they asked questions which had me confounded. Even the attempts of equivocating the answers to confuse the interviewers, were scotched. Lesson number one, never underestimate the interviewer, Google does not hire fools! Lesson learnt.

I had two rounds of interviews, one and half hours each, where I was thoroughly screwed. I could have given you an analogy to that but then there are sensitive audiences reading this. Finally when it was over, the interviewer says "Any questions you would like to ask?". Yeah ,"Why Me? ", I thought to myself. I asked him "How did I do?", and I could make out a restrained chuckle and then a condescending reply saying "The fact that you play basketball might help."

I hope so too.

Completely dejected by my poor performance in the very first interview of my life, I vented my anger on my bike, riding with such recklessness that I had several close calls, much to the horror of my friend sitting behind. Once I got back home, it wasn't that good either with people asking you "How was the interview?", "How did you do?", trying to make you remember the things that you are so desperately trying to efface. What was worse was the wait, it took them a whole week to send a email that read-

"Dear Anirudh,

We would like to thank you for taking the time to interview with us for an
Engineering Internship opportunity. After carefully reviewing your
experience and qualifications, we have determined that we do not have a
position available which is a strong match at this time.

Thanks again for considering Google. We wish you well in your endeavors
and hope you might consider us again in the future."

One whole week just to tell me that I am not selected, I was livid. But my anger was obliterated when I told my mom what the mail read, "they didn't have a position for my qualifications" and to that she goes,

"Does that mean you are over-qualified?"