The Wall Street Journal, a few weeks back –Remember then? Last year? Whoa: talk about the way-back machine - had an article on the oh-so-clever questions that Google asks when it interviews folks for a coveted position there.
The first poser was how you would survive if you were shrunk to the size of a nickel and thrown in an about-to-start whirring (Wearing) blender.
I know that the Googs have to weed out a lot of folks – the odds of getting a job there are nearly an order of magnitude worse than the odds of getting into Harvard – so they have to start somewhere.
Presumably, they don’t jump this sort of question on, say, a prospective receptionist. Or marketer.
Most of the Google questions had a high mathy-physics-dweeb factor.
I guess they’re not that into wordplay, or anything that I’d be good at. (Like trivia.)
Maybe it’s just me who would find these questions off putting and just plain weird. Personally, I never needed anything beyond budget-managing math, and erect a portable trade-show booth physics, to do my job. (Okay, this is not quite true. I was once the product manager for software that did state-space modeling… But I would never have gotten that job if anyone had shrunk me to the size of a nickel and thrown me in a blender.)
Even non-tech companies are moving beyond the “where do you see yourself in five years” questions of yore. (Now that I think about it, I don’t imagine that anyone asks the five-year plan one these days.) I would sure do better on the more prosaic, less AP physics questions that the likes of AT&T, J&J, and BofA pose:
"If you could be any superhero, who would it be?"
"What color best represents your personality?"
"What animal are you?"
At least I think I would do better: Wonder Woman. (Boring, but is there anyone else?). Teal. (Or periwinkle. I’m such an equivocator, I’d never get the job.) Pygmy chimp. (Sorry, Jack. I did consider black lab.)
Although these are probably completely twentieth century, I can think of a few good interview questions – drawn from old-timey, real-life situations - that would pretty much work for any company. Here’s one for marketing:
Explain what Google (or company x) does in 25 words or less.
Better yet,:
Explain what Google (or company x) does in a tweet. (Hey, I can be hip and happenin’ too.)
This would gauge your ability to express yourself with clarity and brevity. I’m (obviously) in love with the long form, but I can do brevity, too. All marketing people need this skill.
Here’s one for figuring out how someone manages their manager.
It’s 3 p.m. on the afternoon before a long Fourth of July weekend. Your manager was in the presence of the CEO, when he said “Wouldn’t it be something if we said ‘to hell with the Internet’ and developed a whole set of printed marketing materials.” Rather than laugh in his face, your manager called you and told you that, by Tuesday, you and your team would have to create and produce a dozen data sheets, six case studies, and a white paper. Doing so will f up your weekend, as well as that of everyone under you. Plus you can’t believe the CEO really wants this. What is your response to your manager?
And how someone might manage their directs:
You’ve just learned that someone on your team has done something incredibly stupid to a very senior person in the company. What do you do?
These questions obviously come from someone who worked in the old, hierarchical world – not in the flat-earth, collaborative, shifting spheres workplace of today.
Good thing I’m not looking for a job at Google.
But I do have one question that Google might want to use to immediately weed folks out:
Fill in the rest of this line:
Barney Google….
Answer: with his goo-goo-googly eyes
If you know this answer, you are way-way-way too old (or too retro) for the likes of Google.
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