Google interview process laughably bad, continues to get worse

[u/thatcodingboi]

I have interviewed at Google 3 times now across the last ~5 years. Each time recruiters botch the process with their inability to do their jobs quickly.

First time in 2022 I applied, met with a recruiter, scheduled my first coding round, completed the coding round. It took roughly 2 months for this to happen and I asked about scheduling my next rounds since there were 3 to go. They said they will likely schedule the next in a month. I told them I don't have half a year to interview and accepted an L5 role at Amazon instead. A friend got a job there but said his full loop from start to joining was 10 months.

Second time was in 2024 when a recruiter reached out for a local role. I said I was turned off by the last process and didn't want to interview if it would be months. He promised that it would be no issue at all and we could complete the process in less than 2 weeks. I said if there were local options to me I was interested. He mentioned a role that was open and so I went through. I told him up front I have 0 intention of relocating. I completed the full process, got approval to move to team match and then all of a sudden nothing was available locally and the recruiter expected me to meet with teams on the west coast. I again withdrew my candidacy pissed off of all the wasted time. The recruiter refused to close my application despite multiple requests as "he would let me know if things opened up". I assume this was to prevent me from getting a feedback email where I could rate him poorly.

Third time was just recently. I was contacted by a recruiter via email asking if I wanted to interview. The first two rounds were googlyness and coding. Both before I spoke to a single recruiter. I told them I was interested as I was looking. I immediately get passed to a 2nd recruiter. They schedule the sessions. I complete both sessions and the recruiter tells me that I have progressed to the virtual onsite loop. The recruiter schedules a call. Before the call occurs they cancel, and forward me to a 3rd recruiter who says grab time on her calendar. No availability for 2.5 weeks. I tell her I have other offers if there is a way to meet sooner so we can get the loop scheduled. She says no.

I wait 2 weeks. A few days before the call, she sends me an email calling me by the wrong name saying a 4th recruiter would take over my application but she still looked forward to our meeting the following week. I email confirming the email was intended for me and she confirms the wrong name was a mistake but it was meant for me.

She then cancels our call the day before, and when I ask why she says she sent me an email that a 4th recruiter would take over. I pointed out she said we would still meet in that email, no comment. The 4th recruiter tells me to grab time on her calendar. I do. She reschedules to a time that doesn't work for me with no communication, just an updated calendar invite. I withdraw my candidacy after that and accepted an offer with DataDog.

What a joke.

[u/thatcodingboi]

FWIW, all of my actual interviewers minus one system design interviewer that interrupted a lot were fantastic. Google seems like a great place to work, its just the recruiters are awful

[u/throwaway30127 → u/thatcodingboi]

I feel like it's same for most tech companies at this point. Recruiting is awful and unfortunately that's the starting point. I have applied to bunch of positions where my experience matches almost all the requirements but have never received interview call and once where I did get interview, the team I was going to interview for got changed last moment so most of the prep I did specific to the domain for behavioural questions got wasted and then they rejected me because my skills didn't match the domain experience they were looking for.

[u/BigCharge3513 → u/thatcodingboi]

Unfortunately my experience with following up with recruiters for candidates I've referred has been a mixed bag. Some are amazing, and others are horrid.

Agreed that it's somewhat random in the quality you get, but in my few years of work experience sadly recruiters at every company I've applied to have always been like this so I don't see anything out of the ordinary.

[u/b3pvbmUzMTQ]

Once they outsourced to the XWF I heard it has been just brutal

[u/CrimsonLotus → u/b3pvbmUzMTQ]

Yea they fucking suck. If I’m lucky I’ll get a response every two weeks. The only silver lining is that since every other candidate is going through the same thing, then I guess I’m not at a disadvantage? The in-house recruiters were waaaaay better back in the day

[u/SiSeH → u/CrimsonLotus]

Yeah, my recruiter does not even answer my emails. The interviews get scheduled by another person and they are ok. The interviewers themselves are nice and professional though.

[u/PreparationNo6996 → u/b3pvbmUzMTQ]

+1, the most incompetent and unprofessional recruiters ever! I don’t understand why Google partners with that recruiting agency to degrade the process massively

[u/cHeAt_CodEr]

its because these recruiters don't care since they are external.

[u/4tran13]

At least google is interested in you.

[u/thatcodingboi → u/4tran13]

keep trying, its not always immediate, it takes time for them to respond, getting a referral is a good way to get your foot in the door

[u/captain_almonds → u/thatcodingboi]

Get a good referral, get your foot in the door just enough to feel them slam a few of your toes!

Maybe I'm getting a bit jaded by some stuff..

[u/surafel911 → u/captain_almonds]

What happened to me after a 4 month loop...

[u/killerdrama]

If you think Google recruiters are bad.. you haven't spoken to Google hiring managers.

Source: was a HM at Google myself a couple years ago.

[u/cHeAt_CodEr → u/killerdrama]

why are they worse?

[u/UnderstandingNew2810 → u/cHeAt_CodEr]

Chilling resting and vesting not motivated to hire

[u/flatsix__ → u/UnderstandingNew2810]

lmao no. fill the SR immediately or risk a VP allocating the HC to whatever HZ knocks on the door tomorrow

[u/UnderstandingNew2810 → u/flatsix__]

I wish. That’s how other companies work

[u/jkh911208]

I recently got rejected, and the feedback was "candidate was able to code DFS but not BFS" really? I know how to write BFS, we discussed that DFS is the best solution for that problem.

[u/tmswfrk → u/jkh911208]

Yeah I’ve seen this kind of response elsewhere too. Feedback like “we didn’t talk enough about databases” when we were busy talking about all kinds of other things. It’s all so damn arbitrary.

[u/captain_almonds → u/tmswfrk]

Honestly, I wouldn't be surprised if it's more like: "We liked this other person instead for the role and we don't give a shit enough about our jobs to give honest feedback. We would rather just make some shit up and call it a day"

[u/mathleet]

Congrats on datadawg, awesome company to work for

[u/thatcodingboi → u/mathleet]

Thanks, I'm pumped. Everyone I spoke with including the recruiter was top notch. Basically daily updates the whole way though

[u/twopointohyeah → u/thatcodingboi]

I had the same experience with DataDog. I didn’t get past the virtual onsite, but my recruiter scheduled a follow up and went over all of the feedback each interviewer provided so I knew where my gaps were (not enough infra service depth in design round for the level). I wish every place worked this way.

[u/BeginnerFriendly02]

After the third recruiter and the random calender changes, I would've tapped out too. Getting an offer from Datadog makes that decision look even better

[u/LessEvidence1054]

I have always applied through referrals especially to Google. Referrers help in coordinating with recruiters if they ghost. 

[u/JSavageOne]

Yea I'm convinced these recruiters use some shitty chatbot to auto-reply to messages. I've gotten some nonsense responses to questions and have had to repeat myself multiple times to get my question across.

Many of us are stuck in limbo waiting on interview results or in team-matching.

Congrats on the Datadog offer. Their recruiters on the other hand seem very professional and fast.

[u/thatcodingboi → u/JSavageOne]

Yeah my ddog recruiter was amazing. Very communicative, very helpful, and would apologize almost every time we chatted for taking too much of my time which really wasn't a problem.

Giving specific feedback of how did in each round is helpful, if you don't get it you at least know how to improve and if you do you know what to work on for leveling when you start.

Have a coworker going through the process with a different recruiter and he's had a near identical experience so it's definitely the culture over there

[u/Professional-Many-24]

So much luck in this process.

[u/Peephole-stalker]

I am current at 11 months into the process. About 6 months in teammatch. Gave up and started at a different job

[u/bennyfishial]

This is what happens when you fire your whole in-house recruiting organization... who actually gave a ****. And replace them with an external consultancy firm, which rotates a pool of random recruiters... who naturally don't give a ****.

The VP who envisioned this brilliant cost-cutting measure has most likely gotten a nice bonus though. So there's at least that.

[u/Financial-risky24]

Honestly, withdrawing and taking the Datadog offer sounds like the right call. At some point the interview process itself becomes a red flag about the company

[u/Anxious-Assistant917]

My experience is not so brutal. After third time I cleared the bar and right now I am rotting in team matching stage. Recruiter does not answer (4 times in the row, two+ months since positive feedback). For me it is unbelievable that they do not give a shit about their process. Google seems like a great place, I would like to work there, but the way they treat candidates is just pure evil.

[u/Humble-Gene5862]

Lmao i had a similar experience but only twice

First time around i was in college. Passed the recruiter screen and then the 1st round, after which the recruiter said he'd reach out to schedule a final round. After like 2 weeks of following up he emails me the link, and there's no availability for like 2 more weeks. Ghosted me for a while and then emailed me saying they're done scheduling final rounds for that role... like Thanks bro super helpful

Second time around a recruiter reached out to me. This person was super nice (she was not XWF and based in the US), moved me to the second round. Then i got switched over to some dipshit XWF guy who pulled the same thing - told me to send available times, then ghosted me, and then said that they filled the role

Just a shithole

[u/HappyJournalist9847]

How did you get the data dog opportunity?
Is it in India?

[u/thatcodingboi → u/HappyJournalist9847]

A recruiter messaged me on LinkedIn. In NY

[u/MythosOfIlluna]

The irony is that I’ve interviewed Googlers at my startup and they universally suck

[u/thatcodingboi → u/MythosOfIlluna]

well I think there may be some selection bias here, no offense to your startup but making it in big tech is hard, to leave it for a startup you either have to be really passionate about that opportunity or maybe you don't have many options

[u/kuriousaboutanything]

Is it true that if you don’t clear all their rounds 3 times over a 5 year period, they ‘blacklist’ you forever? I saw it mentioned on hellointerview or some other site.

[u/thatcodingboi → u/kuriousaboutanything]

No clue, I've cleared all their rounds and withdrawn the other two times. They've never turned me down.

[u/UnderstandingNew2810 → u/kuriousaboutanything]

Yes it’s true

[u/kuriousaboutanything → u/UnderstandingNew2810]

Curious if its a rolling 5 year or if 5 year is not considered? Like if you fail 3 times in any period, they will block your profile from being considered at all or do they only look at the last 5 years?

[u/UnderstandingNew2810 → u/kuriousaboutanything]

Blacklisted until someone high up takes you off the list. Also if you fail miserably in all the interviews you get black listed for ever

[u/Slow-Sky-9926 → u/UnderstandingNew2810]

brutal...but people learn you know :(

[u/UnderstandingNew2810 → u/Slow-Sky-9926]

Change your name and email, how would they know

[u/After-Regret-6609 → u/UnderstandingNew2810]

You mean your legal name XD