If there are two programmers who are equally good, but one knows Java and the other knows C++, Google would hire both. Really. But, does Google prefer, on the margin, C++ over Java? Not really. Java is actually easier in some ways in that you won’t have to worry about memory management and pointers in [...]
After using Google Voice as my exclusive phone number for about a year, I finally gave it up and went back to a regular ol’ number on Verizon. There were a lot of things I loved about Google Voice — being able to send online, having a history of all my texts, being able to [...]
This week, I delivered two keynotes, both to middle school and high school girls interested in technology careers. The first one was for the Philadelphia area awards dinner for the Aspirations in Computing Award, and the second was for a wonderful event called Girls Exploring Tomorrow’s Technology. I’ve printed my message below which addresses why everyone [...]
As arguably the most desirable tech company to work for, Google is surrounded by myths about the “impossible Google puzzles.” But most of these are just that: myths. As any Google insider will tell you, Google has no interest in discovering what you would do if you were nickle-sized and stuck in a blender. Seriously. [...]
Somehow, many candidates have gotten the impression that the interview process is some elaborate system, and if their process is different from their friend’s, it must be a reason for it. The truth is so much more straightforward than that, and once you get, everything will make sense. Or that’s my hope, anyway. Here’s how [...]
UPDATE: Share this with your friends to improve your chances at winning a free copy! UPDATE 2: Raffle has completed! Thanks for playing Since everything is best in rhyming form, I will open this with a poem from an anonymous (and awesome) reader: If you’ve ever wondered how to navigate the Amazon forest, Or pondered how [...]
We call it many things – online job applications, the resume database, etc – but perhaps the most applicable is the “Black Hole.” Thousands of job seekers submit their resumes each year, hoping to get the chance to interview. But the reality is that standing out from a stack of resumes is extremely difficult. So how [...]
When I was at Google, I referred a number of candidates, and ran a little (informal) experiment. How well could people judge their performance? After each candidate completed their interview, I’d ask them how they did. Then, I’d look up their actual performance. And guess what? There was no correlation. None. Zip. Zero. Zilch. Why [...]
Years ago, rumors used to circulate about Microsoft interviews. They were the hot, new company that everyone wanted to work. With envy came the urban myths. These rumors have since been transfered to Google, and will surely be transfered to some new company in due time. Bloggers – always desperate for links and traffic – [...]
Last week, TechCrunch re-posted snippets from an email list for former googlers. This article was set up to make an obvious conclusion: Google is not the fairy tale land of employment. Wait, wait, you mean not everyone loves their job at Google? Shocking! A logical person might point out that what one person loves another [...]