today I'm going to be walking you through a little bit about our interview

process first we'll be going over an overview of the interview process and

what you can expect when you're going through our interview secondly I'll be

going over how to build a strong response what is the framework you

should utilize third we'll actually have an opportunity to practice a leaked

Google interview question together and lastly we'll go over some interview

basics so Google is made up of incredible people and there are some

core central tenets we're looking for as we're hiring folks one is how a

candidate thinks how does the candidate use data logic and reasoning as they're

responding to a question two is their leadership skills that doesn't

necessarily come in the form of a title what leadership means is emergent

leadership how are you proactive how are you taking

leadership initiatives on campus or in your job 3 is role related knowledge

that doesn't necessarily come in the form of an fancy internship what that

means is transferable skills do you have the basic skill set to transfer into the

role that you're looking for at Google and lastly is googliness googliness is

this really nebulous word that we kind of made up and essentially means

intellectual curiosity it means are you willing to collaborate work with other

people and think 10x or at scale but today in this presentation we're going

to be focusing on that first tenant I mentioned which is how a candidate

thinks so after your resume screen oftentimes we'll be invited to a

interview at Google or on the phone and you'll be invited to a GCA interview GCA

stands for general cognitive ability and that sounds like a fancy word are really

scary phrase but in reality it's just how do you break down complex problems

and come up with really thoughtful solutions the GCA interview is broken up

into two parts the first part is a behavioral part of the interview those

are past behaviors and assessing those past behaviors so a sample behavioral

interview question could look like tell me about a time when you let a team tell

me about a time when you communicate it effectively tell me about a time when

you failed the second part of a GCA interview is the hypothetical or

situational part of the interview and those are questions that are assessing

real-life Google situations that you may actually face we'll walk through that in

a second we ask these questions for really specific reasons one it's an

evaluation of your problem-solving skills how are using reasoning and

rationale and data to solve complex issues secondly it's an insight into

your working style and lastly it's an opportunity to talk through problems

that you actually may face at Google or other Googlers have faced in the past

you may have heard that we ask really complex questions like how many golf

balls can fit inside a 747 jet we actually no longer ask those questions

and instead have moved towards those hypothetical or situational questions so

what is Google assessing when we ask these sorts of hypothetical or

situational questions one it's your understanding of the question so

oftentimes your interviewer will give you too much or too little information

we want to make sure that you're understanding the core and central issue

so making sure that you're distilling through all of the excess noise and

excess words and making sure that you're really getting to the core issue at hand

second is your preparation strategy we don't mean how much you study the night

before about Google what we mean is how much information that's been given to

you are you able to actually thoughtfully parse through that

information and formulate a coherent and dynamic response third is your ability

to identify solutions so these responses are often open-ended there is no right

or wrong way to answer these GCA questions more importantly how are you

able to identify a solution justify that solution and communicate that solution

to your interviewer so now we're going to walk through a framework of how to

build a really strong response please keep in mind that this framework is not

prescriptive there may be some questions that require all of these elements of

the framework some questions that only require a couple we just want you to

keep this in mind as you're going through the interview process the first

part always take a moment before responding these questions are often

complex or have a few layers please make sure that you're taking a moment to

respond even feel free to ask the interviewer to repeat the question or

say can I have a moment before responding also feel free to bring pen

and paper and write down the question as the interviewer is asking it secondly

ask clarifying questions like I said earlier oftentimes who get too little or

too much information and you want to make sure you're extracting out all the

information from the interviewer so that you can appropriately and effectively

answer that question third share logical assumptions

once again you're not going to have all the information that you need to answer

this question so you're going to make some logical leaps in order to formulate

an appropriate response don't worry we'll go through what this looks like in

a second for is show your work so that doesn't necessarily mean showing your

interview your pen and paper with all your notes what that means is

communicating to your interviewer your thought process communication is

incredibly critical during this time as you're thinking and as you're iterating

through your solution make sure that of course you're writing it down but also

communicating it in a succinct and coherent manner to the interviewer so

let's say you come up with an incredible solution and you communicate this to

your interviewer don't just leave it there make sure that you consider pros

and cons or you think about how you would measure success and lastly tie it

back to the role if you can oftentimes these questions are role related meaning

that the question that you'll get will be really specific to the role that

you're applying for and so if you can tie back your answer really nicely to

the role that you're applying for now I'll invite my colleague Kelsey up

and we're going to work through a leaked Google interview question together now

I'm here with my coworker Kelsey and we are going to go through a leaked

interview question together hey Kelsey hey hi everyone the first question is

imagine you are in charge of organizing the grand opening event of a new Google

office how would you plan this event awesome so please remember the steps in

building a really strong response so first always take a moment before

responding and secondly remember to ask clarifying questions here are some

clarifying questions and I would ask where is the new Google Office Cambridge

Massachusetts is there a budget you can decide the budget there was a similar

event in the New York City office last year and their budget was $50,000

wonderful and how many people are attending one hundred people so Kelsey

took a moment were responding to the question she also

asked him really thoughtful clarifying questions and now she's going to share

some logical assumptions here are some of the assumptions that I would make

assumption number one I will assume that there is a facilities team on site to

help me organize this event assumption number two I'll also assume that the

objective of this event is to welcome new Googlers to the Cambridge office

assumption number three since New York City is a larger City than Cambridge

I'll assume this grand opening will be smaller

I'll also assume we have a ten thousand dollar budget across 100 people remember

the framework first Kelty took a moment before responding secondly she asked

those really thoughtful clarifying questions third she shared out her

logical assumptions and now she's going to show her work which means actually

sharing out her thought process so far I'm assuming we have a budget of $100

per person I'm also assuming I will have the capacity to coordinate with someone

in the Cambridge office lastly I will also assume a logistical needs can be

solved by local vendors here is an example of an ideal Google solution

first I'm assuming there is a facilities team on site to assist with this project

and all logistical efforts can be supported internally I would reach out

to that team to begin planning and to assess if I will have to use outside

vendors second I'll assume we'll have a budget of $100 per person therefore I

know I'll have ample budget for food drinks and decor third because the

objective of the event is to welcome new Googlers to the office I would ensure

that I am inclusive of all Googlers in my planning and finally I would collect

an experienced feedback survey from the New York City event and incorporate it

into my planning so once again Kelsey took a moment before responding

she asked those clarifying questions she shared out her logical assumptions she

showed her work but remember don't just leave it at the exemplar answer take it

to that next step and either consider pros and cons or think about how you'd

measure success here is how I would measure my success

for my solution sending out a post-event survey to the attendees to measure

impact against the intended objective capacity to stay within budget number of

attendees and will my project plan be used to plan future grand openings so we

just walk through a leaked Google interview question together not so bad

right now you'll have the capacity to actually practice at home we'll share

another leak to Google interview question with you and feel free to take

some time to practice at home as well so here is another linked Google interview

question that you can practice at home imagine you're working on an email

product and a competitor starts charging a $5 monthly fee for their product how

would you assess the situation and what recommendation would you make to your

team so here's what interviewers are thinking as you're answering these

questions one - the candidate understand the

question and including the basic problem - did they ask clarifying questions

remember clarifying questions are incredibly important to get to that

right answer 3 what relevant information stakeholders and variables were

considered please keep in mind that the interviewer may say things as you're

asking those clarifying questions such as you decide or you pick or you choose

feel comfortable in that ambiguity and continue to work through using your best

assumptions - the candidate identify multiple solution options remember there

is no prescriptive way to answer these questions there are multiple right

answers just choose the best one that you can justify were they able to

reasonably justify why their solution was the best option communication is

incredibly important during this process so making sure you're communicating why

you're justifying this particular solution and lastly did the candidate

incorporate any feedback hints from probing questions the interviewer is

there to support you and to help you through your journey as you're answering

this question so if they're giving you feedback make sure to incorporate that

feedback and pivot as necessary thank you so much for tuning into our

interview prep guide we hope you found it helpful we hope to see that Google

one day Bye