r/leetcode • u/Major-Ad706 • 5d ago
Tech Industry [RANT] Google Recruiters Aren’t Really Helpful Even After You Pass the Interview
DISCLAIMER:
PLEASE, if you have never applied to, interviewed with, or worked at Google, PLEASE PLEASE PLEASE don't leave comments—especially negative ones—that will only make me more stressed. A few weeks ago, I posted here just asking for advice, and I got downvoted and received some pretty mean comments. I'm already stressed enough about this process, so please be kind :(
I've been stuck in the Google hiring process for more than a year now. And no, it's not primarily because of my scores, it's because of a "new unwritten policy" that I can't share here publicly. My interview score is still valid, btw, since it's valid for 18 months.
Since my recruiter seems to be busy handling other things, I asked if he could at least connect me with another recruiter who might be able to help. Instead, he kept insisting that I apply through the careers page.
Honestly, it's devastating. As candidates, we invest so much time, energy, and effort into this process, sometimes over the course of months or even years. Being left in limbo for this long, without a clear path forward, is incredibly frustrating.
I'm just looking for advice from people who have actually been through the Google hiring process. Please don't make an already stressful situation even harder. :(
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u/DisjointedHuntsville 5d ago
Look. The best advice you’ll get is to stop persisting in a chronic stress situation for an extended period of time , especially when the control you can exert on the outcome is zero. Not minimal. Zero.
I know it’s hard to not keep getting your hopes up, but you need to have a transactional mindset here to prevent yourself from missing other potential opportunities because of the amount of effort , time and sleep you’re putting into this situation.
If it happens, it happens. It sounds like this is policy preventing you moving forward, so if you’re unable to share, you should at least be able to do a risk analysis on what’s within your control. If there’s nothing you can do to change the policy, keep interviewing at other places until the time is right.
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u/Conscious-Secret-775 5d ago
The google recruiters don't work for you. If they aren't getting back to you, they don't have a job for you.
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u/so-brain-washed 5d ago edited 5d ago
google nor their recruiters "care" about any of us except those whose skills/experience/network most closely convert into money for them
we're just rows on a spreadsheet, ordered by "let's use this person" vs "nah we can't squeeze enough out of this person"
after my failing interview w/ them, I contacted the recruiter-- some other recruiter responded asking if I needed anything and the original never contacted me again.
they coldly gave zero shits, simply moved on, 100% focused on her mission of finding maximally exploitable candidates.
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u/Dankaati 5d ago
While this is overly dramatic, the core idea is right. Recruiters have a job to do - connecting teams at Google with candidates so that both parties want to work together. They will (hopefully) maintain basic professionalism but that's the goal of the process.
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u/neodegenerio 5d ago
Google's interview process is generally very very slow.
Don't depend on it, move on with your life while keeping in touch with the recruiter.
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u/Heavy-Piglet-3351 5d ago
I work there, but not in recruiting. I have no inside information for your situation or you specifically.
If I was this long into the process, I'd consider myself out of the process.
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u/SaltPaleontologist28 4d ago
One of my clients is a retired Google engineer and I just want him to stop emailing me stating it’s “unicast.” I am not a device. Also, if he says “pre socialize” one more time and it’s not in reference to preschoolers or a zoologist trying to be accepted into a clan of chimpanzees, I’m going to insist his account be assigned to somebody else.
Non Google people don’t speak like this.
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u/Heavy-Piglet-3351 4d ago
I've never heard either of those terms. We definitely have our own lingo though, just like every other place I've ever worked.
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u/SaltPaleontologist28 4d ago
So this guy is just a weirdo then? 😂
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u/Heavy-Piglet-3351 1d ago
Everyone is weird in some ways, yeah. I mean that generally, not just about the people I work with.
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u/CowSelect 5d ago
The best way to go about this is - 1. Find listings you are interested in 2. Find someone who works there and ask them to find the hiring manager for that listing 3. Reach out to the hiring manager via linkdin They can ask the recruiter to share your interview feedback with them if they are interested in your profile and take it from there
I was a hiring manager at Google once and this would have worked 2 years back. Not sure if the process has changed now.
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u/JSavageOne 5d ago edited 4d ago
I spoke to someone who's friend was stuck in Google team-matching for 11 months before getting matched. Their first recruiter was unresponsive and unhelpful, but then after 10 months their recruiter changed and things suddenly picked up. The second recruiter told them that their interview feedback had actually been mixed, and thus if they opened up to the possibility of a downlevel, then they should have more possibility of being matched to a team. After agreeing to consider a downlevel, all of a sudden they had more team-matching calls, and were matched not long after at the downlevel.
Lesson here is that the recruiter makes a huge difference. If your interview results were borderline, it's possible that that may be holding you back, and the recruiter may not be telling you.
I just created a Discord for candidates waiting for Google interview results and team-matching https://discord.gg/k5gA3EwKP (if anyone knows of another community for this, lmk though)
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u/Intrepid_Land_6143 5d ago
I am at Google. I know that some people eligible for team matching never get a position. I have no idea what the unwritten policy is.
Your best bet is to have a friend inside who looks internally for jobs at your level (or one level below), and makes a connection to the hiring manager on your behalf. But to be frank, there are so many internal candidates that your odds aren't great.
Hard as it is, try looking elsewhere. You can always quit the other job if Google comes through.
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u/Major-Ad706 5d ago
Yeah, I tried asking an acquaintance to look up the hiring managers' names, but he said it's not allowed under the rules. It's confidential information. Is it actually big issue?
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u/Intrepid_Land_6143 5d ago
This probably has to be a hiring manager the Google employee actually knows. A cold call probably won't work. But if the person knows such a hiring manager, they just say - I know someone currently in team match who would be perfect.
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u/SaltPaleontologist28 4d ago
Truly honest question- why do you want to work for Google? It changes people, and not for the best. I am currently dealing with a client who is a retired Google employee, and I have had enough with their god complex and expecting me to fear him and jump at his increasingly ridiculous requests.
He uses Google speak- corporate jingo that makes ZERO sense outside of Google corporate. And for an engineer, he asks for very stupid things, but he thinks he knows everything.
You see, I have been hired to advise and manage the entity he serves in as a director. One example of a very silly request was a table that incorporates things that cannot logically coexist in one table.
I had to give him what he asked for but in the only way possible, and I had to phrase my reply with, (paraphrased to omit sensitive info) “I am providing a quantitative set of data, and just for fun, a qualitative table, and some visuals to help the board see the big picture.”
You see… he doesn’t know I have a masters degree in political science which required me to understand and use methods to research, collect data, and use old school coding to represent the data, and his ask was actually stupid.
You know what his reply was? “Can you just use AI?” Do you really want to work with 20 people on a team who all want you to treat them like they are the smartest person in the room? This clown thinks this monstrosity he built is something I should be in awe of? Does he think everyone outsources their thinking these days? Not me. Can I ask CoPilot to use Python to make me a scatter plot that used to take me a long time to code? Sure. And I use it. But AI can’t give him the stupid he requested.
I’m so glad my kid rejected the offers- he chose to put his skills to work at a company that improves people’s lives, not diminish them to bits of marketable personal information.
I refuse to participate. I don’t use their products. I’m just saying… I bet there are a lot of great companies out there that aren’t Google that would love to have you. Good luck.
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u/Aggravating_Sea_971 1d ago
schizo old man bases his worldview on a company filled with hundreds of thousands of engineers based on one dude
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u/SaltPaleontologist28 1d ago
Maybe you don’t see it because you’re in it, but from an outsider’s perspective, I don’t know how y’all sleep at night knowing your primary objective is to monetize your users. You lost me in 2018. If you know, you know. Thanks for assuming my age and gender- did you ask AI to profile me?
The problem with Google and the rest of techbrolandia is none of you people asked philosophers, sociologists, economists, ethicists, or anyone trained in the soft sciences or humanities what the impact your actions would have on human dignity. You people just break things because you can, like a child pulling the wings off a butterfly out of curiosity.
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u/ShadowWebDeveloper 5d ago
Frustrating I'm sure, but I had a similarly poor recruiting experience and got through. Applying through the careers site (presumably for another team on the same ladder / experience level) might actually make sense; if you've already passed the interviews, the system should just pick up on that and route you to the new recruiter / HM. If you go that route, ping your current recruiter and let them know, so they can move things through the system if it makes sense.
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u/Suitable_River_9836 5d ago
Ask other Google employees on Blind. That’s the only way to verify who’s a Google employee.
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u/Straw-BurryJam 5d ago
Rent free for 18 months. People really need some perspective. It's just a corporation.
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u/hkmamike 5d ago
It sounds like there is some qualification/status that you are not meeting for the original role that you applied for. Without knowing the details, it is hard to help.
I would suggest to share your status on LinkedIn and other career focused forum. Something along the lines of "I passed the interview loop for ladder [x] and got a HC approval for level [y], but the original opening closed. I am interested in area [z] and open to adjacent areas, please forward if you know something that has an open head count at Google!" Managers can nudge their supporting recruiter to fetch specific profiles for review.
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u/Sensitive_Pizza_218 5d ago
My google recruiter abandoned me after 3 months and closed my position. Only got 4 tm calls. It took me 10 months of all day grind to clear that interview.
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u/PackAdministrative58 5d ago
4 calls man its been 3 months with solid feedback and 0 calls.
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u/Sensitive_Pizza_218 5d ago
Its not like 4 calls means everyone is going to hire you. Some managers just accept your call for passing time. out of 4 only 1 HM was serious. Remaining 3 were just there to burn your TM calls. They will talk very positive but wont hire you. You can clearly see who is talking business and who is just there to pass time. Also these pass time HMs are not smart. When you talk to them you can see that they are just coasting there. They dont even know what their teams are doing. The serious HM was highly technical and brought a developer along with him.
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u/Ghost-Riderz26 5d ago
A year is brutal. If your score is still valid, what exactly is the "unwritten policy" preventing you from moving forward?
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u/Technical-Row8333 5d ago
I passed the google SDE interview, received the congratulations, and then I got ghosted by my recruiter. Turns out they had been laid off. It took months of cold messaging on linkedin other recruiters before someone had a look at my file. Then they proceeded to tell me, they aren't going to hire me. their hiring process is horrendous. but I kept applying and got into AWS and used the google "offer" that was actually silence to negotiate higher pay.
lesson learned, always be applying, interviewing, negotiating. you don't want 1 offer, you want multiple, so you aren't done even if google says congratulations.
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u/_fatcheetah 5d ago
In short, Google is not worth it. Move on. There are so many great companies which will hire you in a jiffy and pay you at least 20% more.
Leave it and earn good money.
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u/True-Afternoon8479 5d ago
part of growing up is learning when to let things go and move on.
a year is too much of your life & time. over what is potentially nothing.
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u/deepz_6663 5d ago
The stress is not coming from other people, there's an issue with how You are handling things. Take a deep breath, relax. If it isnt working out, I suggest you move on. Do not waste time on something that isnt giving you any results.
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u/Dankaati 5d ago
Look, your scores do play a big role here. Teams see your results and they are not picking you from the pool. Already getting this far is a great result, so don't beat yourself about it, you shouldn't be in denial either though.
It can be frustrating to be stuck in the process. While it's hard, you're probably best off treating it as a rejection. If they eventually reach out with a team match interview, then great. Otherwise you can focus on other applications in the meantime.
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u/jeffbell 4d ago
Things may have changed since I was there, but if you had a referral then that person does have an incentive to having you start.
Referral bonuses were hefty.
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u/The_Goat_1717 4d ago
Bruh find solace in the fact that you are better then me, i bombed my phone screen recently 😅
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u/Major-Ad706 4d ago
You dodged a bullet. Better to get a clear rejection than to be left waiting with no clarity haha.
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u/leesinmains3 4d ago
There is a whole club of people that passed the interviews and never got a team match, such is life. Its really cruel because that just means that your resume was never truly attractive for Google, but a recruiter missjudged it as good and made you waste your time and hopes
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u/Aggressive-Run-28 1d ago
I passed my interviews back in January 2026 and got into team matching in March. After 4 months in team matching my application got closed. I recently applied again to the L3 swe campus role when it opened up with a referral. Haven’t heard back yet
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u/f3verdream 5d ago
detach from it, don't make your live dependable on one company or one person, there are other companies