I applied to Google as an after-thought, I had bought the hype and I honestly thought I wasn’t smart enough.

Executive summary: I’m not

Apply 3 times, twice by accident and once with incomplete forms. This is convienient because you can get a phone call inviting you to an interview and an email saying they aren’t interested at the same time.

Don’t fill out the Self Evaluation: Google sent out a self-evaluation along these lines:

On the scale of 1-10 (10 is the best), how do you rate your HANDS ON experience in:
1. If you rate yourself a 10 that means that you wrote and published a book on the subject.

I filled it out on Google Docs, published it and sent them the URL… for a random comic I found on reddit (damn CTRL-key!). So rather than discuss my competance as a C programmer, I decided to tell them that MIT graduates didn’t like girls.

Ignore their phone calls: Go to another country where you have no cell-phone reception immediately after giving them your cell number. Bonus points if it is to visit Microsoft. More points if you can’t use your answering machine.

Have a phone interview at work, I think my boss finds it flattering the Google is considering poaching his most moronic employee. Assume yours feels the same way.

Loudspeaker: May I have your attention please — the Department of Homeland Security has raised the threat level to (ominous voice) Orange (/ominous voice).

Well, they finally got my swiss army knife. I’ve remembered to put it in checked luggage every other trip, I just didn’t check anything this time. Apparently you can store things in a zip-lock bag for $1 a day, but they couldn’t tell me how to get it back if I did — they seemed honestly confused as to why someone might not want to just throw such a useful thing away. Again I wonder how much anti-Americanism is the result of people trying to visit, aren’t we past the idea that someone can take over an airplane with a pen-knife yet. some good news though, apparently inhalers aren’t a problem any more and my laptop can no longer be a bomb, maybe they just bug every person for only one thing.

Also, I don’t mean to be rude, but if you can’t fit into the seat without raising the armrests, that means you’re flowing into me, and it’s uncomfortable.

I just had a conference call to prep me for some interviews Wednesday and Thursday. A 30 person conference call is weird, it keeps being interrupted by “mrmmrmrmlle has joined the conversation” and it’s so awkward when they ask everyone to introduce themselves. Actually the whole thing felt a little like a summer camp.

Apparently I should expect to answer questions like “how would you design a vending machine in hospital” rather than trick questions. That and I should review my 200 level CompSci courses (that’s easy, I only took one).

I’m heading into over seven hours of interviewing, four of one on one interviews, three of activities (tours, a discounted shopping trip), a lunch and a dinner.

The weird thing is I’ll know by Thursday night if I have the job and they want an answer Thursday night. Which is a bit tight. There are maybe 30-40 of us being interviewed as product managers and they’ll probably hire 40% of us. There are 19 groups I could end up at depending on who likes me.

It was weird what some people were worried about, for instance: would there be whiteboards involved? And they stressed that casual clothes were acceptable to no end.