Google Recruiter Tips On Offer Negotiation, Interviews, And More

what's up everybody how's it goin this is the second part of the two part video series that I did with a real-life living breathing existing Google recruiter Amy Miller if you haven't seen the first part I'd encourage you to do so I'll put the link in the description below in this part we really focused on offer negotiation how to get the best offer possible dealing with interview feedback all that good stuff and at the end of the video I asked Amy a bunch of back-to-back questions that you wanted me to ask her from the community post so be sure to watch until the end and I really want to emphasize something here which is that between this video and the first video that I did with Amy you really have a wealth of knowledge if you want to get into a big tech company like Google and if you pair that with a great coding interview prep platform like algo expert my company algo expert o yo use the promo code Clem see LEM for a discount on the platform you'll really be super well equipped to maximize your chances of landing that dream job at Google or any other big tech company of course there are no guarantees in life but really with these two videos and something like algo expert you have all the tools at your disposal with that I really hope that you enjoyed this video and oh one more thing a very wise person once said with great content comes great smashing of the like button responsibility you know what to do enjoy the video okay so we've talked a lot about that initial part of the process trying to get that interview getting the recruiter to give you that opportunity hopefully we've addressed a lot of these common questions I didn't want to talk a little bit about what happens after the interview process so when you're at the the offer stage or maybe not offer stage maybe the best way to approach this would be to to throw some misconceptions or some myths that I've heard at you and see if they're real if they are actually myths so why don't we start with a candidate gets an offer they get an offer from Google for instance should they even try to negotiate or are they risking getting their offer revoked something yeah great question I would say that yes I have not at Google so this is pre Google I have revoked two offers in 20 years and these are like many moons ago for reasons that had to do with more like background checks and things like that all right so the idea that you're going to get your offer revoked because you're simply trying to make the best deal for yourself is absolutely a hundred percent a myth I even if I know you're gonna decline the offer I'm still making it I mean you have earned a Google offer letter I am going to put it in your hands come hell or high water so as far as negotiating and going into that conversation I like to talk about money pretty early I mentioned it in my very first call like hey this is gonna be important we don't have to figure it out today we've only just met but thinking about expectations once you interview you'll have a better idea of what we're asking you to do you can tell me what that's gonna cost and just know that my goal is to find the magic number that you and the company could feel good about that said I understand that sometimes especially for candidates who really just don't want to tell me that information the first number or the first offer can sometimes feel icky just tell me that say hey you know thanks for the offer I really am looking for X cool let's see if we can get there or maybe we can get close to X so no you know that's you see this is super useful information good I think people just naturally have these misconceptions they feel that awkwardness of like I don't want to seem ungrateful or I don't want to you know put my relationship with this recruiter at risk but it sounds like it's just better to be honest because at the end of the day you know you want both parties to be happy but I'm the bigger risk honestly for what it's worth the bigger risk is withholding information if you're not helping me help you I start questioning like are we really friends are we in this together or not this brings me to the next question then were the next potential myth are we really friends are candidates really friends with I mean you and I are friends but but are is is the candidate really friends with the recruiter or is the recruiter potentially trying to lowball the candidate right I don't know if you saw this tweet but I actually said this in writing that if you are recruiter who lowballs candidates you are dead to me I put that in writing and then I thought so here and here's why okay here's why I can't tell you with any confidence that it absolutely never happens because there's eight billion recruiters on the planet and I don't know them all however if I'm an agency recruiter I'm actually paid based on your offer and so if I make your offer lower I am also making my own paycheck lower recruiter is Chris that's right secondly as a company recruiter so you think well that's great for agency Ames but you work in you know big Corp and whatever I have never in all the companies I've worked for ever been rewarded or bonus in any way by low-balling candidates what I have done is played myself by making an offer that I knew was gonna be too low was it ultimately gonna make the person happy and then I'm back filling them six months later so that was a dream yes and I learned many many years ago you know trying to do the right thing and you know the company saying oh we can only pay I'm not pushing back so I won't tell you my job now and the way I feel about this is yes mindful of budget mindful of internal equity mindful of the labor market but ultimately if the offer doesn't feel good to you you're either not gonna take it which then I'm redoing all the work I've just done for six months or you're gonna take it and bounce at the first real offer you get from someone else I am NOT interested in duplicating my work I think this is super important because it it should really give you that confidence as the candidate that not only is it in the best interest of the company for you to actually get a good offer and you'd be happy because then you're gonna leave like you said six months later you're gonna be unhappy not perform well but it's also in the best interest of their recruiter because otherwise the recruiter has wasted like you said a pretty long process yeah I gotta tell ya I will will make this claim that you know well I don't make offers that get rejected and I don't take off for declines or whatever and I will tell you I did a study at Microsoft with a client team where we had a 50% decline rates and Wow kind of looking back and it was a very small segment of the population is a very specific team doing very specific cool AI ml stuff and what we learned is that of the you know six offers and and yeah we made 12 offers six were rejected all six of them was based on comp and went to Google Facebook or I think LinkedIn I can't remember the third company but they went to other you know big tech companies and so my argument was look this is why I come at you asking for money this is exactly so if it's gathering that data we being very clear I'm the only one that can push that internally the contrary it's not getting on the phone with you as a candidate the hiring manager doesn't always have authority there depending on the company so it's it's up to me and it's a lot of pressure and a lot of work for me but you and I if you're my candidate like we need to be in lockstep we need to be helping each other out so yeah maybe it's a great friendship maybe we only talk once a year after you're already here but yes we're the time that we're working together we got to be close so then here's a follow-up question to that I think that this negotiation process let's call it negotiation for now it's almost it's almost not necessarily negotiation but let's call it negotiation it sounds like it's almost a skill that can be developed to to about to in to interact with these recruiters now the problem with that is that most candidates don't go through this process or you know the process of refining the skill a billion times in their life they probably do it you know maybe a handful of times or two handfuls if they're really going to a lot of jobs so for instance speaking for me I know that I didn't negotiate at Google that was my very first job offer I just took it I was so happy about it I just took it and then when I went to Facebook I didn't ago she ate or at least you know I I did a lot more of this of you know telling the recruiter things and all that but I don't know if I felt super comfortable doing it at first do you have advice for people who find themselves in this situation and perhaps even for recruiters as well they might have advice for recruiters on how to make that that part of the process more seamless how to make it the best thing ever yeah yeah for sure so practice I do a lot of mirror talk and I will have a negotiation discussion and I think the same thing as a recruiter when I got an offer from Microsoft I've been a you know agency small company girl never thought I'd be in big tech Microsoft makes me an offer and I you know talk to my friends got some labor market info did my research and so there's lots of ways we can talk a little bit about research if that's helpful but lots of ways to kind of get a sense like okay this is what I should be worth this is what the market says you got levels dot fYI which is gonna give you some insight things like that so I had a number and let me tie I was pumped up I'm not taking less than this and I know what I'm worth and you know all that and I get the offer and it's like ten thousand more than the number I had in my head and I was like oh god I know I don't know what to do now like I was ready to fight you know your recruiter be straight with me am I being tested should I negotiate here and he starts laughing he's like Amy do you like the offer yeah take the offer okay that's not always the case so it starts with knowing your personal thresholds yeah he recommends you know interviewing having conversations with other recruiters that you're not maybe involved with talking to your friends not every offer is created equal so don't come at me with well you know six of my friends got hired at Google and they all make more than me well maybe they're better than you I don't know you know maybe they for better in the interviews or something like that got it okay do you want to gather as much intelligence as you can and then also remember that this is again remove the personal out of it it doesn't matter that oh well I just want our house on a mortgage is this oh well we're having a baby and so we're gonna have like those things are irrelevant don't even go there focus on I'm giving you this labor in exchange for this money right let's make it let's make it fit so yeah practice I will also tell you this I will offer up 30 minute consult to any of your listeners first ten that hit you up and want to talk about this I will gladly hop on the phone and give them some tips first ten being key because otherwise you might get if they're coming to work at Google that might be weird but if they if they're in a situation where they're not sure how to approach it I will gladly offer up some time probably after working hours to to give them guidance 101 oh cool so it's interesting it really does sound like you're your best bet as a candidate is just to be open to know what you want to tell the recruiter don't try to hide it don't try to do weird like hiding tactics here's another question I guess about that which is is there anything that candidates can do just to get a better offer all other things equal let's say we're dealing with two entry-level candidates or to mid-level candidates at the same level at the same company in the same location is there something that they can do to get a better offer just right off the bat earn as much is it it pains me to say this out loud having competing data is very compelling I certainly will never tell a candidate bring back some opera letters like that just feels gross I would never say that right but I'm pragmatic enough to realize that labor market information and documentation gives us much-needed grounding I hey you're a software engineer with five years of experience and you've done big things and this is kind of where we think you should be I can make some assumptions based on what I've learned but if you're coming to me just like that case study I did back at Microsoft like we finally realized like looked at the data and said holy crap this is where we're falling down so yeah by having you know some some clear specific documented labor market information that helps but I think also interview feedback if you nail the interview if you're someone that we're like oh my gosh we can't lose this person no matter what that gives you some significant power right and this is because of the interview feedback or your performance on the interview is the only real signal that companies have about you absolutely it really is we can make assumptions based on where you've been references perhaps you know internal references at Google or a big deal things like that like it all adds to the overall dossier with that interview feedback and that kind of working you know 45 minutes times five is critical to give us a peek behind the curtain of who you are and how you'll perform right and here I joked with Amy last time I didn't pee me to say this this actually naturally came up in the conversation but this is a great exactly but it's a great time to to plug in algo expert my company which helps you prepare for countries like the ones at Google because at the end of the day like even even if you don't take algo expert writing you you just practice for your coding interviews it's very important it's gonna be that thing that that that gives that company the best signal and then compared it ended up when competing data and all that then you're you're golden oh absolutely about the interview process and especially hiring leaders I mean these these folks have done this for twenty thirty years they've built companies I mean they I actually started this job really nervous like am I gonna like spill something on my shirt and like I even full of having conversations with these amazingly smart people but here's the reality you're coming into a test environment so to your point about interview prep and whether it's it's your service or whatever people are using would you go sit for the SATs without brushing up you might be great at math you might be the best mathematician in your family but now you have to come and prove it in a test environment and that's what an interview is so please please please whatever service tool you leverage prep right it's super important and also like when you realize just how much is on the table how much is that stakes that should even be just be a no-brainer right if you really want to get into Google and don't go to the interview without prepping that's it I think that should speak for itself right right one question that pops up sometimes here it popped up in my community post is about what happens if you don't get an offer you know you got rejected and you're wondering why did I get rejected maybe you actually felt pretty good about the interviews yeah absolutely is it allowed for recruiters to give you like feedback about interviews how they went I feel like I've had different experiences depending on the recruiters for sure for sure yeah it's it's definitely no no sadly we're especially I think I think this is it may be more of a big tech issue because we are so visible and we are you know everybody's like oh you know because a big thing I get calls it's no good but it's typically we can't share specifics one thing that that I've heard and another recruiter say which actually makes a lot of sense it she's like I can't give you specific feedback because I wasn't there you know whether in the room I was a part of the conversation however and this is my stance as well I want to give you as much high-level insight as I can I can also tell you and I tell this to my candidates look generally it's the Google bar it's the technical bar where people just don't quite get there whether it's a coding or whether it's system design whatever it is that's almost always where we see people fall short and therefore we can't move forward with an offer so I will at least give you that insight I also tell you things that went really well a large number of people at Google today interviewed more than once you are in good company if it took you 2 3 4 tries believe me yeah so especially for folks that are a near miss I'm gonna be like look here's the things that went really really well keep doing that here's where we didn't get the right signal you know specifically around system design or whatever here are some resources to brush up please call me in a year please let's try again because we don't want to just you know reject and then move on so yeah it's okay to ask the one thing or two things I would caution is one understand that we're the messenger please don't shoot us I mean we're just you know we could only parlay what we have and what we're giving and two we can't change it I've had Kenya over the years who well that's not fair and this happened and I disagree it's like I get it and even if I get your side and I think you're right I can't overturn this it's a consensus driven process so but let's try again yeah but so that's interesting I think that it really comes down to maybe this is a very simple way to say but it's not rocket science most likely you just could have performed a little bit better you have to perform better next time maybe that means more prep maybe that means trying to practice more like your communication skills or something if you can't get something from the recruiter that's awesome but also don't hold them up to it as if it's like their fault that they can't give you more actionable feedback yeah frustration I mean this is it's a tough message especially if it's if it's your dream company whether it's Google or somewhere else and you've wanted to work there for 10 years I get it I cried after rejection calls more than once believe me on both sides of it rejecting candidates as well as being rejected so yeah it sucks but just know that especially if you're if you're kind to us and we just can kind of you know spend a couple minutes commiserating and then agree to stay in touch like believe me I will be your biggest champion the next time around yeah I guess this brings me maybe to the final question at this point someone asked in the community post is there anything that they should do or should be on the lookout for if they're reinter viewing with Google it's the second time around I guess it's hopefully you've prepped more hopefully you've taken whatever feedback you got to heart but is there anything else that you would recommend yeah I think you know and part of it is gonna depend on how much time has passed like are we coming back you know 12 months later and it's still somewhat fresh are we talking about it's been five years and it's a whole different role so I think the the bigger the gap and certainly the bigger the difference between the two roles put the old stuff aside don't even think about it don't even sweat it you're coming in fresh this is brand new signal yeah this is a brand new opportunity so I wouldn't worry too much about that but I think there are some other scenarios especially where if someone's been like a really you know near miss and let's say even you know during the approval process the decision was made oh we need more we need more signal bring them back for another coding round or bring them back for more people till what that means is that we like you a lot and we really want to make this work but we need just a little bit more info so again that is in almost kind of immediate turnaround where I'm gonna say like you said really hone in on prep take some time take a week if that's what you need figure out you know how do i how do I really prepare for this this kind of second chance yeah awesome awesome advice Mimi this is really I think this is really helpful and I think it's eye-opening because on the one hand you you've shared a lot of like new nuggets of wisdom on the other hand some of the stuff that you've said is stuff that I think a lot of candidates kind of expect that's they think and now it's good to hear it sort of solidified like okay it really is just that all right so the next few minutes are some back to back questions straight out of the community post that you wanted me to ask enjoy okay here's a question I think I know the answer to this question but can excelling in competitive programming help in getting an interview call definitely that just kind of adds to the portfolio right like I scored really well in this and it's kind of a lot of the same lines as the the side projects and apps and things like that I mean it's just it's just another data point that says I'm good at what I do exactly oh this one's interesting so this one is sort of nothing to do with with recruiting although maybe we can guide back to recruiting what do you think sets a Google apart from other companies especially the fang companies the big tech companies what do you I think sets Google apart from other paying companies oh my gosh at our heart and you could you could probably speak to this as well I think at the heart and soul of the company is engineers you know it is the engineering prowess it is the the cool stuff that we're building it's keeping the user at the center of everything I mean we are an engineering company we're not a sales company it is an engineering company and I think that's that's something that we're really proud of that's our legacy in my opinion cool that's a great way to put it I don't think I would have put it better than you oh here's another one another interesting one can you be considered for a full-time sweet job even if you're working on a master's degree or are you expected to start as an intern I don't see why not yeah I think if you meet the qualifications for a full-time sweet job go for it absolutely I would not hesitate to apply if I met the qualifications for sure how much of a disadvantage if any is there to apply for Google software engineering job as a mechanical engineering graduate I think that's fine and I think you know again like any other role as a new grad higher to I have experience as a software engineer already like we don't even have a degree requirement to be frank so that's not yeah care about that it really comes down to again do I qualify for this role whatever the responsibilities might be whatever the basic qualifications that's the key you want to look at in a job description if I meet those qualifications I'm good apply please exactly and that degree is not the be-all end-all thing doesn't matter we will we will end on the on this last question I'm very curious to hear how you answer it how do you become I'll read it I'll read it verbatim okay how do I become the CEO of Google parenthesis seriously how do you become the CEO of Google I would ask sundar he's done it ah not not an open position I've been asked to work on the CEO of alphabets yeah I think like any any role any leadership opportunity I think you you come in at the level that's appropriate for you you learn from the ground up you make relationships you do great work and you you will your star will ascend like like centaurs oh yeah yes Amy you you you said it yourself we need to ask sundar so sundar if you're watching I'm sure you must watch my videos sundar then come on in and let's have a phone call and ask you how to become the CEO of Google and alphabet now would love to be a fly on that wall let me tell you all right well Amy I think this was this was super awesome why don't you maybe say any last words that you might have like if you want to plug in you know ways to contact you or resources like your blog definitely so yeah as you mentioned the I do have a personal blog recruiting in yoga pants com you can also buy this t-shirt there if you're interested but can be code yeah but that's always my response to somebody says something stupid about a candidate but can they code like let's get back to the point you know right but yeah so check out the blog WWF you teen in yoga pants calm you can contact me there you can read tips and tricks and get that template we talked about I'm also really active on all the social medias LinkedIn Twitter everywhere so yeah let's just keep in touch to ask me questions I do my best to write posts that answer specific problems you guys are facing and gals are facing so always happy to do whatever I can to team defy the job search process thanks so much for having me awesome thank you so much Amy this was super awesome and I think people are gonna really enjoy it oh I hope so that's gonna be it for this video if you made it this far I really really really appreciate your viewership I hope that you appreciated the content don't forget to subscribe if you haven't already and also let's all give a really really big thank you to Amy she was so nice to do this she gave absolutely fantastic advice and tips and knowledge in these videos to really thank you Amy and I hope you all thank her as well and of course all of her social media is linked in the description below if you want to go follow her or connect with her with that thank you again and I'll see you in the next video

Channel: Clément Mihailescu

Views: 136,413

Keywords: google offer negotiation, how to negotiate salary after job offer, how to negotiate salary software engineer, how to negotiate salary for a new job offer, how to negotiate salary tech, google salary negotiation, google recruiter interview tips, google recruiter chat, google recruiter email, google recruiter interview, google software engineer, google software engineering interview preparation, google interview tips, offer negotiation tips, amazon offer negotiation, google offer

Id: 1rAWA6CsAGU

Length: 27min 19sec (1639 seconds)

Published: Thu Dec 19 2019