Just realized I do have something to add…

Ok so, being a hotshot MBA (almost) and all, I applied to Google, just for the heck of it, coz they were hiring for Google India. I applied for the role of Account Manager in Delhi, and Product Manager in Bangalore.

So I get a nice e-mail from the HR person in Google Bangalore saying I have been selected for a phone interview with a Google Dude, who will be calling me from Mountain View, California (Google HQ).

My first reaction when I got this e-mail was.. “OH SHIT!”. While most people would be happy, I’ve heard that Google asks some the worst questions out there. I mean they really try to screw you. Apparently. Well they didn’t really try to screw me. I was just terribly unprepared, and so couldn’t answer the questions they had. What did they ask?

Well, i was being interviewed for a role regarding Google’s AdWords. What are AdWords? Those little tiny ads that appear on the side, and along the top of Google’s search pages, are displayed based on the keywords you enter into the search bar. AdWords also powers the ads that appear in Gmail. Anyhoo, he asked me if I knew what AdWords were, and I said kind of, and then he asked what they were, and I blabbed nonsense till the point where the interviewer had to break it down for me in chunks, i.e. “If you were starting afresh - where would you place ads on the page?” and then “How would you determine which ads can make it to the top of the search listings, or which ads appear first”.

Y’argh, I struggled with these basic questions big time. Lesson #1 - PREPARE PREPARE PREPARE!

Then the next question asked went as follows, and I quote now:

Imagine it’s 1996. You are working for Microsoft. Bill Gates comes up to you, and he says there’s this new company called Netscape that is up-and-coming and he’s worried it will kill Microsoft. So he asks you destroy Netscape, and you come up with IE4 and hand it out for free and kill Netscape

Now fast forward to 2001. Bill Gates comes to you again and says there’s this company called Google, which is up-and-coming, and may be a threat. He says he wants you to destroy Google. How would you do it? (Legally, of course).

Naturally, this questioning is asking you to figure out where Google makes its money, and what its weaknesses are if any. I answered this question very poorly as well, but it was agonising, both for the interviewee and interviewer, having drag all this shyte out of my mouth. I have to say, the interviewer was a tad bit rude in his tone, but then, considering how dumb I was, I’m not surprised.

Finally, the dude asked me if I knew what a “session” was (in terms of web programming). But I was just so dulled and drained from everything else I couldn’t even answer that. So there ends the Google Interview. Argh.