Expert advice on tech interviews !

about ferozeh

On Site Interview

I was after a few days invited for an on-site interview. Here are a couple of interesting things about my trip. I was asked to book flights from a travel agency called Carlson Wagonlit Travels. I was asked to fly in sometime on Saturday and leave on Tuesday. I wanted to go back early morning on Tue but was denied an early flight back and forced to take a red-eye at 11 PM, probably another of cost-cutting antics by google.

The schedule was as follows:

Saturday: Fly in Sunday: Scavenger Hunt & dinner Monday: Interviews & dinner Tuesday: Fly out

The Scavenger Hunt

There was a lot of hype created around the Scavenger Hunt but atleast for me it turned out to be a futile exercise. They broke up us in two different groups and actual APMs were assigned to accompany us. We were given a list of tasks to accomplish and some people who were from Stanford mentioned that it was similar to the Stanford Scavenger hunt.

It was a hot day and we practically roamed around San Francisco taking pictures of the tasks completed. The positive point was that I got to meet a lot of people but in my opinion the whole exercise was unnecessarily dragged along for so long. In fact most of us got tired and wanted to go back to the hotel.Furthermore, I also think that this exercise fatigues one unnecessarily for such an important day of interviews the next day. Initially I thought we would be judged for team-spirit or team play in this exercise but later on it turned out that this wasn't so. In fact some local candidates had chosen to miss out the hunt and showed up for the interview on Monday only.

One of tasks on the list was to get a makeover

Also do remember that the APMs who trot with you on the scavenge hunt might actually end up interviewing you. I got intereviewed by one of the guys who was with our team.