Google's GCA Interview

hi everyone welcome back to another live session as always so great to be here um thank you everybody so much for showing up week after week um you know I'm approaching approaching four years of going live um so it's it's getting really crazy I'm really looking forward to uh the 156th session of going live I know it sounds like a silly number but three full years of weekly live sessions somehow in my head it makes sense and that's exciting to me so uh today is 151 I think when we get to that three-year Mark um I'm going to be doing uh some special discounts some kind of special offer uh just because I think it's a it's kind of a fun and crazy achievement and I never expected to go live this often or just have this be a part of the overall uh YouTube process or whatever you want to call it but anyway um yeah excited that we've been able to do it for this long and even with the ups and downs of the viewership uh it's been a great great journey so let's just take a moment to talk about yesterday's video uh as always you know I do new original content every Monday I do think that the content that I create Now is better than previous content because I've learned and I've grown but yesterday was about really pivoting for an unexpected challenge situation problem the likelihood that you get a behavioral question about some sort of Hiccup or something messed up happening while you're in the job environment it's just a very very common question and so in yesterday's video I kind of highlighted a few of the specific actions that I'd be talking through and then we'd do a sample question and answer uh so if you have had a chance to check out yesterday's video uh definitely want you to do it as the crowd is starting to come in uh please always love those warm and fuzzies you can hear me you can see me uh where you're visiting the stream from and of course any in all questions and comments are welcome uh the real purpose of titling the lives is to have something to talk about in our downtime and so today our downtime can focus a little bit on Google's GCA interview I haven't really talked about this in a while so I thought it'd be an interesting topic to cover and maybe I'll do a few lives in a row just talking a little bit more about these interviews I know we've talked about them quite a bit but they continue to be challenging and they're continue to be some misconceptions and misunderstandings uh so again as you're coming in I always need to prompt come in say hello I know we have people on the stream now just let me know you can see and hear me that'd be great um let's talk about a couple things I'm going to prompt on my services really really quickly and then we'll dive in and we'll start the discussion so you can see in the banner below uh if you use the coupon code for the course all right thanks Brad uh if you use the coupon code for the course or the promo code for the AI tool just today till 11:59 Pacific time in the US 15% off either the course Andor the AI tool today um and I want to continue to kind of push some of these counts in the live sessions just so if people want to show up um yeah they so still doing one-on-one interview negotiation and strategy sessions obviously we still have that killer course and of course if you don't know I launched my AI tool a few weeks ago still getting tons of feedback and you know one of the things that I've learned is this is really an iterative process so we're getting people on there we're getting people to purchase it but we need to continue to grow and evolve it we're doing lots of things to help on the front end with user flow and then we're going to be adding a lot of items on the back end as well um if you like what I'm doing today smash that like button if you've never subscribed I do go live every Tuesday at 9:00 A.M Pacific time and then every Monday I will put out an original content video occasionally I'll throw a short out there you can see I'm not too great on the shorts but if you ever have short ideas that you want to bring up today or ever um I'm happy to consider it I haven't really push the short strategy as much as I should so okay let's dive in um thank you Brad thank thank you to the two of you for showing up and saying hello and of course as we go through this yes or focus in our downtime as Google's GCA interview but the reality is is that this is an open session we're I'm happy to talk about anything as anybody will tell you who streams we got to put some sort of subject area out there people won't show up so okay it's a little uncommon to not have any questions at the five minute Mark but I'll sit back I'll wait and wait for questions and comments to come in remember everything's on the table so let's talk about Google's GCA interview probably the most misunderstood of all the interviews and it's just a total misconception about the process and what this looks like and what it sounds like I can tell you in my time there and for anybody who's here it's been a long right but but that part of the process this interview has not changed if we are to cast the widest of wide Nets and we were to take a look at the thousands of these interviews that are being conducted on a yearly basis like tens of thousands if we really think about it it's a lot um is that typically you're going to get two hypothetical questions and one behavioral question so what does that look like exactly usually one of the hypothetical questions is going to be a little more random and less role related and a little more challenging the most common one that I bring up constantly and has been asked as recently as this year's like the open a pastry shop open a Bakery open a bike shop the reason why that question is challenging is because it's incredibly open-ended and so with any hypothetical answer what you really want to do is you want to answer like you're in the role so the most common group of people getting this type of question are customer Engineers so we're not solving it for location and whether we're going to serve blueberry muffins or uh I don't know lemon scones I'm just making it up but what we really would want to focus in on is how do we develop good point of sale systems how do we back up our and make our our system secure with Google Cloud so again we're g to get come in and get that one really kind of random hypothetical question and then the second one is going to typically be more role related a little bit closer to the role also hypothetical so you'll have to use the cast method and then when interviewers ask a behavioral question in a GCA interview it's typically what I would call a wiet question well what does that mean it means it's a behavioral question that you're likely going to have many examples for for example I will tell you mine mine was tell me about a time you enhanced an already complex program or project okay chances are in our careers we've added value to some bigger initiative and we've done it multiple times so the only real change on the behavioral question is you'll get more follow-up questions than typical and the most common follow-up question question what would you have done differently how did I answer that question I answered it with what wouldn't I have done differently I took a large project a large initiative that actually had nothing to do with the recruiter role it was from my time in an analyst role but I thought it was just a really good example for the questions so again two hypothetical questions one behavioral question one of hypothetical questions is going to be a little more random one will be more role specific in an open widenet behavioral question this just cast a wide M I had a client who had an all behavioral GCA interview really really uncommon but it's a pick and choose so interviewers are picking and choosing from a list of questions and some of those questions are behavioral so we just don't know um so you just want to be ready for anything the other really critical piece to remember about a GCA interview is it's a question with lots of follow-up questions why is that important because depending on your interiew some interviewers will ask you the question and ask you all the follow-up questions at the same time some will just ask you the question and then use those follow-up questions as prompts as they go through and and kind of poke at your answer after you're done it's an important item to know if they give you everything up front wow you're at a huge Advantage because you know all the follow-up questions so you really want to poke and dive into those items specifically but the other item I just want to mention really quickly and then we'll dive into Johnny's question and and please any and all questions are welcome uh this is not just about Google's GCA interview all questions comments even just saying hello it's great um the last piece to remember is some people think that that the GCA interview is the only interview where you get hypothetical questions you will get and I would expect hypothetical questions in every single job interview again because it's a pick and choose list and their pick and choose lists always include hypothetical and behavioral questions so it's more interviewer dependent than anything else and I can tell you as an interviewer in my time there I don't think this would surprise anybody but I only asked hypothetical questions you were not going to get behavioral questions for me it was not going to happen so that was my interviewer default and so again if it was me interviewing you or Sue interviewing you you might have a very very different experience I hope that helps again we can continue to dive more into this subject area and with the good audience we have now again please any all any and all questions and comments are welcome hey Johnny okay I passed all the interviews and waiting in team match but considering relocating one to three years one to three years to get my foot in the door but I don't want it to be permanent how is mobility within gcp yeah so it's a great question um the the benefit of not only like a Google but an apple or a meta or any of these big companies is is that they just have offices in so many different locations so if the expectation is you need to be in the office this is great because internal Mobility is great but the Stars really need to align right the the team needs that person they need to agree that they can take somebody who they can relocate etc etc so one year no probably not I would say to get into a job and really build up The credibility I would think a minimum of two years but two to three years is a really great time to build a track record so if you are thinking about and I'm just going to throw this out there starting in New York maybe you're in New York for a few years and then you want to transfer to the Bay right that would be pretty natural pretty common obviously there there are chances to go abroad I interviewed for three different teams for roles in London and you know the it didn't really work out um you know and part of that was just right opportunity right role and then the other part of that was me making the sacrifice to take the compensation hit and still moved to London which was very expensive in retrospect I think I should have done it but can't go backwards we can only be in our present moment today um so but internal Mobility is good you just have to really make it well known kind of as you're as you're diving in right like so within the first year you might want to be introducing it um but not too heavy push but once you've shown some credibility uh it'll be great and you'll have plenty of opportunities to not only relocate potentially within your home country but also go to other countries as well hi hi Jeff your content is great thanks uh I have four rks and one G&L coming up for a niche Hardware rooll what's the best way to prepare I tra I tried creating some custom gpts with the job roll in my resume it's okay um yeah I don't know that I would do like custom GPT as much and this may be what you're alluding to um I love the name I'm flying spaghetti by the way um but you know I do take the resume and the role and the resume and the job description and just throw it into chat GPT and have it ask me to have it create questions for me um yeah with these Hardware roles uh it's really interesting because you are going to get niched down into your Hardware expertise you know some advice I have is we get into more of the engineering role is still if you get asked how a specific Hardware product should operate and they're like well how should X work I strongly still recommend clarifying because our interviewers always have something in their mind and so even with straight technical questions we still want to clarify the path I still think cast works really well on straight technical questions um but I will also say you know and this is just for the entire audience if you are in a niche down or unique Hardware role I had a comp client without getting into any detail I had a comp client where we just we absolutely blew the compensation out of the water water on a hardware engineer role like at least a couple hundred K more per year than we expected I mean it was crazy so if it's real Niche down for Hardware I mean I'm talking about going absolutely Baller in the negotiation phase like I was just so blown away at the comp we were able to get this person and that's not to tout my services it's just to inform you that that Niche Hardware roles can pay really really well um gotta get through the interviews first I hope that answers your question um if you need more help let me um can you talk about what kinds of questions interview process for a Technical Solutions consultant role yes so absolutely um so for a tech Solutions consultant role those are usually typically going to be from what I've seen historically leaner um interviews meaning probably just an rrk a GCA and a G&L um in the rrk I would expect to get both hypothetical behavioral and technical questions um now with the Technical Solutions consultant a TSC I used to actually recruit for this Ro in my last year Google um and they will really look for some of that technical expertise um if you haven't gone through the recruiter screen and I see there's more comments below so we'll get to that the recruiter screen should go through some technical questions too so you should really be prepared for those but they have pulled back and made those R is a little less technical but you just want to be ready for the behavioral side the hypothetical side and then just the straight technical questions be ready but it's a pretty lean interview process also if jobs onsite does does anyone know that mean Google expect you to be in the office literally Monday through Friday I haven't seen a lot of that haven't seen a lot of that from any of the big tech companies with the expectation that you're in the office or we just want to reference it as RTO you'll see that a lot return to office usually it's hybrid so it's like two to three days a week that's what we're typically seeing a lot of Tuesday Wednesday Thursday but I think it's really dependent on the person's schedule the team the flexibility I haven't seen a lot of five days back in the office now some people go into the office five days especially at a company like Google because they want to go work out shower get food play a game if they want so some people will go in every day I think I had option now and we're still working there it's still going every day and that would mostly be for the free gym and free food um but I haven't seen a full like five days a week it's more like two or three days but that's always a question you can ask too just to find out what is the what is the policy for this specific role for this team because it will vary team to team as well location everything hi je I have an interview for a customer engineer in the gcp org can you share your insights on what to expect in the Googl and RK yeah so um the googliness and Leadership interview it it's kind of crazy it's the one interview that's basically the same across the board right so everybody going after any role is going to get similar types of questions there's really two questions that I've seen thematically over the last couple years that have kind of leaped up and this is what I focus in on when I when I talk to people about it one is decision making that kind of this is a number one how do you make decisions tell me about a time you made a poor decision and how you would change it how do you bring others into your decision-making process and that's a good lean into SE the second item which is inclusivity so a lot around how you make decisions how you've made decisions how would you make a decision in X scenario and then always bringing in that inclusivity lens is going to be really really important now on The RK side that's a mix of hypothetical behavioral and straight technical questions and for CE role you're going to have two rks um one will be a straight interview and then one will be the presentation interview I believe right now they're even the presentation interview to the end so if you pass the GCA gnl and RK you'll get that second RK please let me know if you have any additional questions around those subjects hey Ethan uh hope you're having a great day thanks good news you have a fit call tomorrow with hiring managers and wanted to see if you have any advice to nail it from watching your videos en joining your lives over the past couple months you've helped me so far also do you know what else I should expect during the candidate process for a data center Tech thank you okay so a fit call so I think I think if you have a fit call you're at the t- match stage which would be pretty common for a data center Tech which means um this is kind of it you just go through hiring committee they have that final Executive review that they brought back that they shouldn't have brought back but it's back there um so that would really be it you find the fit you go through hiring committee and then you go through Executive review and then you'll negotiate your offer um with the team match I really repeat the same things over and over again with the team match I'm standing there's a reason why I stand during these lives it's so I can get more energy more excitement sometimes when we sit we drag our body language can be bad but when we stand we're kind of forced to have a little bit more energy A little bit better body language you're physically capable I recommend standing we got to get this setup right if everybody could see my setup it's kind of funny I steal this little table uh from our common area I'm in a co-working space with my own office and I steal this little table every time and I just put it on top of my desk and put my laptop up there and obviously I have a nice mic but standing is really important secondarily great answers for tell me about yourself and why the company or why the role like you just can't miss on those simple questions what I really like with those simp answers is think in a rule of three and think one minute or less per question the biggest challenge area not everybody loves this advice but just stick with me the biggest challenge area I personally see is that the questions are very me focused I would flip it what do you love about the company what do you love about the role what do you love about the team what's the coolest thing you're working on love love love cool trust me there's a psychological trick there if they talk about what they love what's cool and that's the end of the conversation then they are going to hop off the video and they're going to think wow I really love that candidate that candidate's really cool it's intentional it's a trick but it's not only a trick it's important because if the hiring manager is like H it's okay oh we're really struggling the team's really not that great whoa if they're giving you negative energy it's a huge red flag you might want to talk with another team or teams so I like questions around them the typical team match they're going to find out a little bit more about you for a few seconds they're going to tell you more about the role they're going to ask you if you have any questions that's the standard you got to be prepared for anything they might throw stuff at you if I was a hiring manager going into the team match I can tell you exactly what i' do I'd come in and be like hey nice to meet you what questions do you have for me I would instantly put the ball in your court to see how prepared you were how excited you were Etc put that pressure on you instantly and I I think some hiring managers do this but just be ready for anything and good luck hey Jee applying for the internship program in GCS I passed interview and now I'm scheduled for two more interviews what types of interviews should I expect so um Rebecca what what I'm going to tell you is like that should definitely be something that your recruiter is sharing with you and if they haven't shared shared it with you um just ask hey I've completed one interview can what can I expect in the other interviews what was that first interview that I completed because it really a lot of times depends on availability so I actually don't even know the first interview you did typically for an internship yeah it's never going to be more than like three interviews and typically they're taking you through the classic interviews The RK the G&L and the GCA but ask your recruiter they're going to know best and they really should be answering that question for you if they don't here's a trick in the nicest tone and this Tone's not going to come across perfectly but in the nicest tone you'd say oh my friend Bob or my friend Jane uh their recruiters told them what the interviews were is there specific policy against sharing the interviews I think it would really help me because recruiters who don't candidates what interviews they're conducting it's ridiculous it's it's not uncovering anything that's confidential so just please ask um I'm always GNA just poke poke poke at the recruiter to get as much information as I can and good luck hey Jee I was curious if you had any insight into Apple's hiring process are they more likely to convert contractors and offer better stock options in places like Google I'm sure it depends yes so here's what I know about Apple um I I've obviously coached quite a few people trying to get into Apple I would say that Apple's hiring process is a little bit more like Google in terms of like I've seen a little bit more of a mix of Behavioral and hypothetical I'm obviously not an apple expert but I've I've coached enough people on it now with converting contractors yeah that is just it's so Ro dependent needs of the team what's going on like there's just so many X factors there that would be hard to determine now apple pays really well um I would I would say you know it's I really kind of put Apple up there with Google like they really do compensate well they really do take care of their employes um but better than Google I really again I I just have so much data to say that consistently I see all sorts of things said about Google and their compensation but they continue to be a top 1% in terms of compensation and apple would fall in that bucket too I would say that companies like meta and Amazon have slipped a little bit but Apple's still up there but I I rarely would say that apple pays better the only thing you could maybe categorize there is something that's really niched down in the design space because obviously at the end of the day they're not really a tech company they're a design company whereas Google is really a search company Etc um I hope that helps hey Jeff do you have any insight on promos right now at Google I heard it was much easier to get a promo in the past but I want to know how difficult it is to get to the next level in 2024 plus yeah I've I've I've heard similar um I've heard that it is is harder to get promoted now than it used to in the past and that they even had a recent scenario where they were like stack ranking and and they wanted to promo somebody but they said there were too many other people in line which sounded very corporate um which was really not the case when I was there um whereas you just if you did good work you'd get promoe no obviously you need manager support to get promoted uh the support of your manager is Absol absolutely critical in everything in every company right as we know um but how difficult it is really depends on you and I would also say just one other context item that should be helpful the lower your level the easier it is to get promoted I mean I know that that's common sense but going from a three to a four or four to a five is much easier than a five to a six where the where you really six you're really moving into more leadership even if you're still at an IC role your bonus percentage goes up obviously six to seven is tougher and then seven you can sit there for forever I mean you might never make it to the director level now of course that's dependent on so many things but I I've seen a lot of sevens stay at sevens for years the seven to director leap is obviously really really tough I hope that helps sounds great chef I get the offer I'll come back for negotiation help sounds perfect another question I'm being interviewed for both L5 and L4 roles at Google how can I frame my answers that lends to an L5 higher decision okay um I have different advice on this item than probably most people I think job interviews are incredibly challenging and difficult and so if we're trying to think about not only how do we structure our answers how do we organize the information within that structure what's the level of right level of detail then we try to add in the other layer to sound like we're at a higher level I don't think it works I think you answer the questions to the best of your ability and there's really nothing that you can do to control four versus five just got to crush the interviews and validate five but adding in certain key words I'm sure people would argue against this but I just think it's really hard the Google interviews are hard enough I don't like to add that extra layer and there's really nothing that you're going to tell me that's going to get you to that next level it's not like talking a little bit more about scope or leadership or anything again it's just going to come up naturally that's what that's the way I want you to think about it you heed this V advice with a grain of salt like I don't think it's the perfect advice but I do think that the interviews are so challenging that trying to utilize the right words or change things up to that next level is just it's really really difficult also if they choose me for both is it typical that they'll expect I'll easily get into all four no um I feel like I want I feel want a little more context so if they're interviewing for L4 L5 rolls is it rolls multiple or it's a singular roll and they're just looking at you at both The L4 and L5 level maybe we can get a little more context there and I can maybe add some value okay we are at the 30s I'm going to do the quickest of quick prompts on my services and then we'll get right back to it if you use the coupon code or promo code spring4 15% off my AI tool app practice.com and the interview Mastery course at practice interviews. comom that coupon code will expire at 11:59 Pacific time tonight still doing one-on-one strategy sessions one-on-one interview coaching and one-on-one negotiation coaching obviously we have the course the app launched a few weeks ago I'm super excited we are still iterating building improving making it better I go live 9:00 am. Pacific time every Tuesday and new original content every Monday because you like what I'm doing today smash that like button and if you've never subscribed consider subscribing thanks all right let's get right back to it hi I have a call with the recruiter would love your advice on how to Ace the situational questions and answering any comp discussions please okay so let's talk about situational questions behavioral questions are you going to get those in the recruiter screen it's really kind of an un uh I wouldn't ask you any of this um in a recruiter screen it's just it's not really I don't really see the relevancy I'm more just trying to figure out like hey do you have the skills for the job how are your communication skills did you show up on time are you gracious and kind do you listen do you kind of build off the paes ETC like these are just a few of the items that are going to be really really important um I want you to be ready for anything I mean I have had clients who were former people who interviewed with me at Google and and I mean it was just so many numbers I didn't remember them and they said I used to ask them all sorts of crazy questions which I don't remember doing but again you want to be prepared for anything now if you are thinking in the behavioral situational realm just be thinking about questions that would be pertaining directly to the role that's going to be really your best move but I would say it should be pretty casual and then ask great questions for them um there's just so many great questions we could be asking the recruiter how often should I expect to hear back from you what's your preferred method of communication how many other people are interviewing in the process what are the types of interview questions I'm likely to get I mean throw everything at them they may or may not answer you but um it's really important now on the second piece on the compensation piece I just cannot emphasize this enough they are not going to stop the process because you do not provide numbers so what what what's your compensation range what are you looking for you know I'd really like to meet the team and learn more about the role before discussing comp that's great but you have a number in mind what's that number I appreciate that you are looking to find out my comp expectations right up front but at this time again I'm I'm just more interested in speaking about the role I'm open and negotiable for the right opportunity they push again what's the salary range for the role know your Market know your state laws like in California in New York and multiple other states if they push you you can push back and ask them for the base salary range at least if they don't provide it for you it's actually illegal and many states if you ask for it they have to provide it for you but just deflect deflect deflect and if they just keep pushing and they're like I need these numbers just confirm and validate them I understand Jane I'm just obviously we're making up recruiter Jane I understand Jane that you're doing your job and it's important for you to ask for those numbers in the first step unfortunately I'm not going to give you those numbers today just because I want to learn more about the position and the role speak to my network before providing those numbers I'm happy to visit that subject in the future and then if they continue to ask you will continue to to deflect why we get better numbers when they decide they want to hire us then we can negotiate strongly I hope that helps hey Jee what's your view on L4 being a new terminal level terminal level it used to be L5 and I do wer myself as a forever L4 s okay terminal meaning like I guess I guess we're thinking about terminal in the sense that um yeah like you you'd land there and you'd never get promoted let's go to your second one and then we'll go back to the other one um I haven't had recruiters reach out to me like they did a few years ago I suppose that reflects on how the market is it may be best for my for my comp to interview in other places but not actively looking okay um yeah I mean again going back to we were talking a little bit about this earlier I think Pro promos have gotten harder um but I would never I wouldn't stay at an L4 you know in perpetuity because the reality is is that after four years if you could stay as an l4u for four years you're comp's going to drop quite a bit after year four because without a promo probably not going to be held up on comp meaning that you'd let's say you came in an L4 and let's say an L4 total comp year one Bay Area 320 right well it could be 320 then 300 then you're at like maybe with the merits and the refreshers then you're staying around that 300 number but in year five you might drop down to 250 or 240 and you're going to say I wouldn't do that so um I hope that there aren't terminal levels you're also going to see a lot less hiring of s at the L3 level as AI can generate more bug-free code right um we're going to see hiring of s only happening at the higher levels in the near future right now just just my two cents I hope that helps let me know if you have additional questions okay so it's so we're going back to this and just for context for the rest of the community in case anybody missed it um this was the original comment interviewing for both L5 and L4 roles and I just wanted a little more context so it's technically multiple roles but where The L4 role would typically evolve into the L5 role I sled the second hm interview and he said he saw me is more of a fit for the L5 role but I only have six years of experience so um there is no set amount of time to land at a certain level um now it's got to be validated and backed up with really really good interviews but I've seen I even had a client I want to say it was I it was a while ago beginning of last year and this client went in for a four um and ended up at a six uncommon in terms of years of experience they definitely didn't match the typical six and we crushed it on everything from the interviews to the negotiation but but it it can happen um so I don't want you to feel too rigid uh on the on the years um that's okay if you're crushing the interviews it can validate that you're at that level at an earlier stage in your career I hope that helps I haven't heard recruiters I haven't had recruiters reach out to me like they did a few years ago wait a second did we already answer this one sorry I'm going back oh I jumped sorry I jumped up let me go back to here sorry I forgot I already answered that one okay he Jeff do you have any examples of GCA questions for the account rooll and ads business um no uh so with GCA questions you know two things you can do to get practice GCA questions one dump the job description into chat GPT and say create 20 practice hypothetical job interview questions you need to add a second note there make sure the questions are hypothetical and not behavioral chat GPT and some of these geni tools can confuse it a little bit so just give that additional prompt that will give you your role related GCA hypothetical practice questions then I would follow up and I would say let's make the questions more random let's make questions random and maybe not role related but I can answer them with this role for example and see the questions it spits out because you're going to get something random that we just couldnot prepare for you will still focus in on like your in the ads business that's going to be the best way to handle a random question correlate it back to ads all the time but use chat GPT to create these questions for you it's going to be the best advice I can give I hope that helps to clarify terminal level meaning G expected squeeze to get promoted to L5 but now I believe it's L4 and it's harder to get to L5 now yeah I mean I think we've seen a little bit of promos getting harder but I just like I also want to call a little bit of BS on that not from you but just like in general like if you crush it they're not going to hold you back you crush it they hold you back you leave it doesn't benefit them it hurts them so I always go back to the story of two of my colleagues I'll leave their names out of it but I worked with two amazing colleagues two of my friends still to this day who both started as l3s and I saw them go L3 L4 L5 L6 and consecutive years why they deserved it were they better than me 100% in every aspect in the way they communicated in the way they handled their job in their organizational skills better in every single facet and so that's why they got promoted year after year and I always use those two examples because I think that we see all this negative stuff online but like why would I hold you back I wouldn't hold you back if you're an exceptional performer holding you back just guarantees you're going to leave the company so yes I do think holistically maybe it's a little bit harder to get promoted and you're kind of waiting in line a little bit but at the same time if your performance is great they shouldn't hold you back hey Jeff thanks for the valuable information you're awesome thank you I have an RK interview for a data center architect any advice on how I should stand out yeah so with the DC architect whenever I get architect in my mind I think like Architects more on the front end more like building crafting helping with the vision right and so really think about how you're going to support your team from the architecture standpoint like more on the front end of the process that's just kind of always the way I connect to it and see it um in this RK interview it's going to be the trifecta it's going to be hypothetical question behavioral questions and Technical questions I always say the same thing on technical questions I've already said it a few times today I just I don't like technal questions being answered straight up I would definitely use cast I'd clarify set tone for how I want to organize my information I'd make a few assumptions and I'd solve because I believe that most people in their minds they hear things they have a specific vision for those items and if it's not fully aligned and we just answer a technical question straight up they might have been thinking about it from a completely different angle so I just always want to go have more of that clarification mindset um I hope that helps let me know if you have more questions awesome awesome good luck hi Jeff I've applied to several positions at Google they are low lower level entry wow that's tough to say lower level entry than my experience do you think I'm rejected because I'm overqualified any suggestions so yes if I see somebody going in for an entry level role they have three years or five years well not three years sorry but if you have five 10 plus years and you're going after entry level roles I'm I'm simply just understanding and looking at all the steps of the process I'm specifically thinking about hiring committee and hiring committee being like we're not gonna hire somebody with 15 years of experience for an L3 role like they're past this so I do think it matters I also cannot emphasize enough that applying to jobs again it it it remains to be the toughest way to get into these companies and and especially if we're talking about Google in particular like your application's going to get lost in the shuffle we gotta be networking we have to have to have to network and what's the running joke the running joke is that networking is the easiest way to get into these companies and then when my YouTube content and I talk about it um our networking videos are never watched our networking tools are never used because it's hard and people don't want to do it and that's not a poke at anybody here just to say it's hard but applying you know when we talk about a Google for example the percentage of people who get the job after applying very small percent definitely single digits so what are the 90% of other people doing a lot of them are getting referrals a lot of them are just not taking the traditional application path to get and they're either getting sourced or they're getting referred those two most common paths I hope that helps thanks for the story Jeff I can vouge for that too where some of my colleagues are doing well and they are likely to get promoted this year to L5 okay yes and thanks for validating that like we got to think about like sometimes we got to bring in the logic right and sometimes the logic is is like am I really GNA let my best performers go because they've been there a shorter period of time like no you you've hired a lot of smart people at these organizations to say like whoa like there's no way we would let this employee go because we don't want to promote them because we're waiting on these other people who are okay but they're great right so um I hope that they're making the right decisions and we've seen it look it's we all want these companies whether it's Google or Amazon or meta to be the same companies they were when it started but they're big corporations now and so they got lots of red tape to follow all these items and rules and lots of process and all those things and those are all items that need to be considered when joining these types of companies it's been frustrating not growing in my role as rapid rapidly as I'd like so I'm trying to find satisfaction I guess without having to strive for promo and higher comp yes so so for anybody what I would say is it's beneficial in these days to move companies we no longer live the Loyalty model that loyalty model disappeared a long long time ago I would say that loyalty model disappeared probably starting in like the 2000s early 2000s but year over-ear the Loyalty becomes less and less especially as companies have shown no mercy when it comes to layoffs especially big tech companies you feel like you're stuck start interviewing start seeing if you can get a compensation that's much better outside the company if we stay at companies for long periods of time we are definitely making less money than if we had moved so every two to three years move now again it depends on how the comp structure works promos how everything's going but typically those that are moving every few years are making more than those that St so something Le hi Jeff what is the Google hiring assessment should I also have it have a reference or not okay so yeah we needed to I did a quick uh YouTube short I did a Tik Tok and I wrote a Blog on it um it was just popping up too much the Google hiring assessment in 2024 unfortunately everybody has to do it now you want to get to the interview process you have to do it it's like 50ish questions they're on something called the lyer scale and the liyer scale is pretty simple it's going to be strongly agree agree disagree strongly disagree and it's trying to get you to have an opinion one way or the other the questions are going to just be reworded and rephrased but they're going to seem the same so it's looking for themes of consistency and a high moral standard um they're really not test that you can prepare for you should be able to crush it really quickly slow down think through every question but that's really all it is and then I would say from a reference point anytime we can have a reference or referral it's great the ones that really matter are the people who really worked with you and know your quality of work really well just getting a random like kind of reference isn't going to be as helpful as somebody who really knows you and somebody you've worked with I hope that helps hi jefff loving your content thank you for that I have an interview tomorrow for a customer success manager role is there anything someone should focus on for that role yeah I mean you know it's all the standard stuff like so anybody in customer success they're going to get hypothetical questions behavioral questions maybe some more straightforward questions about customer success in general but with customer customer success we think about these like customer client facing roles as all external driven and the piece of advice I give to anybody in an externally facing role at a corporation don't forget about your internal teams the internal work the internal collaborations the proof of Concepts the use cases all that good stuff we cannot have success with our customers or clients we're not utilizing internal teams to drive that success and I feel like when I work with clients in these types of roles they try to really move to the client too fast but we got to do the internal work first so just consider those internal teams and your answers and you'll do great and good luck let me know if you need have any other questions good and I want everybody to understand that when I say networking of course applying to roles is lwh hanging fruit and and we're not I'm not trying to never apply to roles but but the reality is is that um networking should be the vast majority of the way that we're getting into companies and applying should be one-offs where we really know we're not going to have a chance to get in front of that role other than applying I have applied for L4 have Googling this around tomorrow I have done some research but what are a few things in things about Google in general that I should be aware of well the googliness and Leadership interview is pretty straightforward obviously I have done a ton of videos on that subject definitely more than anybody else I think so um definitely take the time to check out those videos today uh we did answer this question earlier so I'll go through it a little quicker but really decisionmaking decisions you've made in the past good and bad decisions around collaboration and that's not just behavioral it's hypothetical too how would you make decisions if you were put into X Y or Z scenario so your ability to demonstrate how you make decisions is really important and then of course needing to work from that inclusive lens so everything should have inclusivity thinking about others Etc um is going to be also very very critical there's a little bit of a misconception that these interviews are behavioral they're behavioral and hypothetical you can get a googliness and leaders ship interview that's all Behavioral or all hypothetical so be ready for both and good luck how beneficial efficient do you think moving teams within G on comp to see relationship with my manager or performance improves but one would have to on board okay so um I my strong strong recommendation to anybody working in big Tech or considering working in big Tech do not move teams until you're promoted um again like if you have a really toxic hiring manager sometimes you just need to get away from them or lead or whatever but um it will set your clock back it it's like resetting your clock so uh I'm pretty against moving teams but once you get promoe like once I got promoted I wanted to get away from my lead and manager as quickly as possible like I I needed to get off that team asap I got promoted and I was on another team within a month um so I really timed it well um I wouldn't say that I made all the best decisions like I moved almost too quickly to not really do all my due diligence and research but um I always recommend moving after a promo because then it's like your clocks reset at a promo anyway um but but moving before promo it's not my recommendation what's your feel for big Tech hiring in LA and Boston not optimistic on getting offers better than G except maybe meta um well I I love those markets I think they're they're great markets I love uh silicon Beach up in La I think it's just cool um and La is definitely a growing market for Tech um and Boston you know Boston and Cambridge um you know in the Boston metro area are both going to be great and the Cambridge Google office I I have a personal love for that office my funny story and I always occasionally give a story and I'll do it right now um I used to work for MIT forever ago um and when I worked for Google I'm I'm originally from Boston so I'd go come home see my family and then uh I would work from the Cambridge office at Google where my desk used to be at MIT was where the treadmill was at the Google office it was just mindblowing to go back and very surreal but both those markets again I was digressing a little bit but both those markets are really good markets um Tech is growing they both pay very well they're both expensive markets too right so we have our Premium Plus markets for cost of Labor there's only two of those Bay and New York and then we have our premium markets there's only a handful of what I would call Premium markets a lot in California that's kind of La Orange County San Diego then we have Seattle then we would have maybe a boulder and Boston and that's it because I don't even include DC in there because the cost of living is high but the cost of Labor isn't as high so there's not a lot of Premium markets um but LA and Boston are two of those so the pay is really good I love both those markets but yeah it just depends on opportunities I hope that helps I kind of went on a tangent so let me know if I your question another question what are your tips on negotiating comp I know Bas is usually not as much negotiable but RSU and sign on can be unless I'm wrong do you have any specific tips from experience um okay and this is regarding Google thank you so yeah I I I really like to to be as transparent as possible I've negotiated over 500 offers with Google so I did over 200 in my time there over 300 since I've left those numbers might be low I don't really keep track but I know it's in that ballpark and I just need to strongly recommend anybody watching this video you have friends you have family you have anybody you know who's interviewing at Google go all they do not resend offers so if you ask for a million dollars a year they're not going to say hey we're not GNA offer you the job they just probably want to understand why now is that actually my recommendation no but I had somebody reach out to me on LinkedIn this is now like a week ago and they said I got my initial offer I'm thinking about asking for a little more and I literally had to beg them over a LinkedIn message they never responded me I said please please please go big because there's no negative there but where we go big is we definitely go big biggest on Equity so for a lot of offers the initial Equity is going to be really low it's going to be 150k over four years 200k you can easily double that with a good negotiation easily double triple so go big on the rsus yes we should ask for sign on um sometimes we get them sometimes we don't it's totally random but when negotiating with Google just go big and be gracious and kind that's it and you're negotiating on your year one comp you're going to really look at year one Android year one and year two so you go in and you go with that total number my year one expectation is 326 750 you give that year one expectation and then you see how they respond to everything they say you do it with graciousness and kindness thank you I appreciate that I understand really would love for you to advocate for me I'd really love for you to partner with me and take my expectations back to the comp team it's really easy um but you need to go big if you're negotiating with Google I cannot emphasize that enough spread that message it's important but also do it with graciousness and kindness what's your advice on exploring startups after big Tech total comp is likely to be a significant drop off right it depends but I would just say I fall in the bucket of people who I'm just going to call the options the equity BS right like and that's that's not like totally appropriate but let's just say don't count the equity as anything it's valueless if you go to a startup you just cannot be guaranteed that that Equity will ever have value now if you're going to a larger startup that's pre-ipo you find out that those shares can be sold on a secondary Market okay that's different but usually higher base higher bonus Target and that's the big difference is the bonus so I'm going to go to a startup I'm really looking for that higher base and then I want a bonus of 30 40% if they're not going to offer me that I'm probably not going to do it now I would never go work for anybody ever again that's my personal decision I um I like being My Own Boss a lot it's really got its own unique challenges um when you have good days and not the best days and obviously everything's on you but um you really want to see Bas and bonus and then if there is a bonus the one thing with startups if they say okay we're going to pay you a 200k base with a 30% Target bonus what is that Target bonus paid over the last three years for this type of role is that a company an individual performance-based bonus or just individual performance-based or just company based because the more it's company based the less attractive it becomes to to me because I can't control that but I can control individual performance so a couple items to really focus in on but what percent has this bonus paid out for this team on average the last three years if they can't answer that question go get them to find the answer for you because it's a really important question if they just throw out 30% but it's never paying out it's a data point we need to have do you think TVC is a good way to prepare for being a googler well I would prepare the same for a TVC as an FTE but do I like that path yeah I'm partial to that path that was my path right so I started as a TBC and I went to I was really lucky like there's just there there's nothing else to say about it my friend and I were actually having a conv about this on Sunday and just saying like luck plays a role there's just no we have to stop pretending like it doesn't and the reason why the TVC to FTE thing worked out for me was just kind of The Perfect Storm first of all in the TVC interviews I had a couple of people drop off in the TVC process of people who I met and I know those interviewers I would have really struggled with but I got the right interviewers then um I was being asked for my resume like three months in um to interview for a full-time role but it was just we had lost a lot of team members I had taken on a lot of work I had shown exceptional performance really early on um but I like the TVC path it's a door opener so I always recommend taking that path if you can get in the door and then getting in there and proving yourself makes it much much easier to land the FTE role uh but I would prepare for the TVC and FTE interviews in the same way okay we have run out of questions but I'm happy to hang out answer additional questions why don't I do this let me go into my wrapup phase and then if any additional questions comments anything else comes in I'm more than happy to answer them let's go here so special offer today um just for today if you use the the coupon code or promo codes spring 24 15% off the AI tool and or the course that that codee's going to work for both okay um that will expire at 11:59 Pacific time today still doing one-on-one strategy sessions resume review LinkedIn review networking strategies one-on-one interview coaching for your job and rooll one-on-one negotiation coaching to maximize your comp and obviously we got that killer course the AI tools been out for a few weeks it took a long time so we're really excited we're getting tons of good feedback and and it doesn't stop because you launch an AI tool it's just getting started we're iterating changing like we even made a we even shipped a change to our onboarding process this morning that will continue to iterate and change we're going to add more features based on what the users want so that's been really fun um if you like what I did today smash that like button uh if you've never subscribed I go 9:00 a.m. live Pacific time every single Tuesday and then I do new original content every single Monday if you like what I did today smash that like button did I just say that and again if you like my overall content Please Subscribe um it looks like we're out of questions so I think we're at a good breaking point just over an hour today um thank you everybody so much for being here um and I will be back next week at 9:00 am Pacific thanks so much have a good one bye

Channel: Jeff H Sipe - Practice Interviews

Views: 1,456

Keywords: jeff h sipe google, jeff h sipe google interview, jeff h sipe gca, google gca interview, google gca interview questions and answers, google gca, google gca mock interview, google gca hypothetical questions, google general cognitive ability interview questions, google general cognitive ability interview, google general cognitive ability, google interview, google interview questions, google job interview questions and answers, google job interview, google job interview questions

Id: 3dvbmo_ehrc

Length: 65min 27sec (3927 seconds)

Published: Wed Mar 20 2024