Google Offcampus Placement Process
Gain an insight into the Offcampus placement process at Google India
Overview
Google is the technology giant, probably one of the best companies to work for in the world at this moment, they have a very diverse business which spans entire AI Stack (right from chips to the models and the data), their most revenue comes from ADs, they run youtube, they run google cloud and the list goes endless, Deepmind is another powerhouse within Google responsible for all AI Stuff!!
Pathway
Firstly, the most important thing is, to apply!! Never shy away from off-campus opportunities because of low-confidence or just the belief that hardly anyone gets a response from off-campus opportunities. The responses are random in nature, but you never know when you get your chance.
I applied to Google offcampus, 3 times (in 1st Year's end for Step Internship, in 2nd Year's end for Summer Internship, in 3rd Year's end for Full time role)
- Yes, the only thing to do is keep an eye on Careers Page (turn on Alerts)
- Being an ICPC Regionalist helps a lot, it can almost gurantee an interview call
- Summer Internship at some MNC also increases your chances of a response
Phase 1
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There are no online assessment rounds at Google for Full-time opportunities, someone from the HR team at Google (generally having an xwf in name), will reach out to you if you are a match
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They will seek you to fill an interest form, fill that at earliest
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You will receive an interview mail from Google Team soon, usually they schedule 2 interviews together (round 1 and round 2)
Round 1 & 2
- These are purely DSA rounds, and in each round they ask 1-2 DSA questions, the difficulty of these questions is generally leetcode medium
In my first round I was asked to implement a YouTube ADs class and the solution involved use of 2 heaps, and it was basically a highly modified version of this leetcode problem
The interviewers again look for 2 things
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Your ability to weigh the trade-offs, and build a good solution and communicate the entire thought process nicely to them
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Your code clarity, they call is neat code, and interviewers often remark positively to you if your write good code, which basically means making sure you maintain good indentation, use meaningful names for variables etc.
Google, shares a doc link, and you code on the google doc, without use of any IDE, but don't be too cautious of missing a ; or an indentation issue, if you notice it, the interviewers are usuallly chill about it, also at the end of interview which usually has a time limit of 45 minutes, you do a dry run with the interviewer to verify correctness.
Round 3
If your round 1 and round 2 went well, you will receive the link for 3rd Round of interview, this is again a DSA round, and usually takes months to come to you
- Expect leetcode hard questions
- The process is same as round 1 & 2
- After this round, the HR asks for a transcript
Additional Rounds
This may or may not happen for you, if the Hiring team is satisfied they won't schedule your 4th round, if they are not they may schedule a 4th round, and usually they do schedule a 4th round, this could be a DSA Round or an Googlyness Round depending on which aspect the Hiring Committee wants to test you
- If its a DSA round, it will be just the same as round 3 with increased difficulty level of problem you get
- If its a Googlyness round, then you will get an HR-Manager type round where they wish to test whether you are a good cultural fit or not, and it is usually in form of situation/scenario based questions
Team Matching
After you get great response and if hiring has not freezed, you should proceed to team matching where you may be reached out by different teams at Google for potential match of skills and cultural fit, enjoy this phase and wait for your offer
Reaching this phase mostly means that there is a very high probability you will make it to the company!
Good Luck!