First call was w/recruiter. Then after an in-person interview with several people, I had several separate calls w/individuals in different departments at Google. Great interviews with great people, but I was never told I was out of the running until I called the recruiter after not hearing for several weeks.
1
No offer
Negative experience
Difficult interview
Application
I applied through an employee referral. The process took 3 weeks. I interviewed at Google (Mountain View, CA) in May 2008
Interview
I had two brief interviews with Google's legal department. The first one was a pre-screen with a recruiter, and it lasted about 30 minutes. The recruiter was very nice, asked a lot of substantive questions and scheduled the next round to interview with someone more senior in the department. I had a quick phone screen wiht that person. It was a very rushed interview and seemed immediately obvious that I did not have the experience this particular person was hoping I would have (and which I never claimed to have had, either in person or on my resume). I never heard from them again. Many of my friends and colleagues have interviewed at Google, to varying degrees of success, and I am told that it's an excruciating process. My impression is that they didn't have a clear idea of what kind of experience they were looking for for this particular role, and it had been a posting that had been up for a very long time, which indicates that there is disagreement on what the candidate profile should look like.
I applied online. The process took 2 weeks. I interviewed at Google (Mountain View, CA) in Jan 2014
Interview
Phone interview with recruiter followed by in person interview on-site with team. Initially interviewed with a New York team, found out quickly that my skills didn't match theirs and was referred to another team where I ultimately ended up spending the summer.
I applied online. The process took 4 weeks. I interviewed at Google (Mountain View, CA) in Sept 2011
Interview
They are very into skills. They quizzed me on the phone in one of my 3 phone screens about random knowledge. Eg., they asked me acronyms to see if I knew what they stood for. Very quick stuff so I couldn't look it up on the internet. But very pedantic. Then, on site, they gave me a bunch of hypos - each meeting had 2 people who worked there - and one would ask the question and the other would write down comments on the laptop. Very much had the feel of an oral exam. Very skills/knowledge oriented and little to no focus on cultural fit.