Context

Ok, before I actually talk about the worst interview I've done, I should state some context. All the interviews I've ever done were with startups - 50 to 100 people maximum. Not all interviews went well of course but I'd say they are always interested in learning more about me, the projects I've done and certainly learn my motivation behind these projects. I was talking to a human being. They'd ask insightful follow up questions and they certainly talk more about their company. I generally feel more energised after one of these interviews!

I decided to apply to Google because Mr.Raunak, regional HR of Singapore, came down to my IT2900 class and gave us a talk about the amazing culture at google and the cool work they do. He mainly talked about the topic of developing others and how that's an important aspect of their culture at google. I applied sometime in October 25 but I didn't think they would get back to me because my GPA is quite honestly subpar and they're known for being quite competitive to get an internship with. I also applied because I facing some issues with my NOC internship so I thought I'd apply as a back up. Fast forward to the last week of December, Google got back to me with asking for a 15 minute HR interview. However, by this time, I had already accepted a great offer for a company in San Francisco, Podpitch, and could no longer accept commit to the Google internship.

I emailed the recruiter about this issue and asked if I should still continue with the interviews so that we can talk about future opportunities and she said congratulations and that we should still chat.

The interview

I was certainly nervous. The past few weeks I've been busy with preparing for the move to San Francisco - everything from shopping to learning how to cook (albeit that was a disaster). So I wasn't really in the right headspace to answer questions like "what was the hardest technical problem you faced and how did you overcome" or if she asked me more technical insights into projects I have done. Nevertheless, I felt this was a great opportunity and quickly read through all of my past projects and quickly recollect and cool insights. Just to foreshadow a little bit - that was all useless.

My first impression of the interview was not great. She joined a couple minutes late - not that big of a deal. There was some niceties and wished one another happy new year and then I realised her camera was off - which again I thought was quite weird. She gave a 3 word introduction about herself and asked me to introduce myself.

My interview strategy

I love taking risks and solving problems using tech - and so I normally just start off with that. Normally, I'd also start off with something more personal - and I did but I got no acknowledgement whatsoever about the personal stuff. So I took that as a note that she did not care whatsoever and quickly transitioned to the tech stuff. I usually have a list of stuff that I cover to ensure I hit all the cool stuff I've done and its mostly about the projects I've already talked about in this website but with additional insights like interesting problems I had to overcome.

One example that I used in this interview was SCDF Mywellness. Since I'm working with the government, I had to comply with the Official Secrets Act and couldn't really use third party LLM providers like OpenAI and neither can I use vector DBs like pinecone to store sensitive issues. So, I had to resort to PGvector and local LLMs like Mistral and run it on virtual machine. BUT I can't use EC2 or stuff like that either because that's still uploading sensitive information online so I would have to get a PC, run it locally, and then use some sort of tunnelling with cloudflare to access it from a public domain to work with my other API's that don't hold sensitive information. Interesting right? Not to the recruiter apparently :(

This ideally, shows me as both technical and as a problem solver - and this strategy generally works. Back to the interview.

The interview - continued

I was slightly, rambly, because I just hadn't practiced doing this in a while and I could my voice was nervous so I slowed down my speech and got my points across. After I talked about SCDF MyWellness, I didn't really hear much feedback apart from a couple of "Hmm"s so I asked if everything was ok and if I should carry on. She said,

"Hmm yeah haha thanks"

I was immediately thrown off. Did she not hear me right? Was she not listening? I was confused. She then began asking me a string of closed ended questions, which I also thought was very strange. She asked me the following questions

What's your favourite programming language?
- Answer: Python. I elaborated that it's closest to natural language, and I can use it for everything from backend development to AI.
- Response: Thank you for acknowledging.
How many projects did you work with Python?
- Answer: All of them, haha. I asked for a moment to count (because I honestly have worked on a ton), but I said 5 because those were the big projects.
- Response: Thank you for acknowledging.
Do you learn DSA?
- Answer: Yes.
- Response: Thank you for acknowledging.
How long did you learn DSA?
- Answer: I have been in tech since primary school, so the easier stuff like arrays and lists I've done for a very long time, but for harder things like recursion and trees, I learnt more recently in school.
- Response: Thank you for acknowledging.
On a scale of 1–10, how strong are you in DSA?
- Answer: I'd say 8?
- Response: Thank you for acknowledging.
Do you know dynamic? Dynamic programming?
- Answer: Yeah, I learnt it along with recursion and other DSA algorithms in school. For dynamic programming, it's more about framing the problem correctly, and if you do that, the implementation is much easier.
- Response: Thank you for acknowledging.
Do you do LeetCode? If so, how many problems did you do?
- Answer: Yeah, and I don't know how many problems I have done?? Maybe around 100?
- Response: Haha no worries. Just send me a screenshot after the interview. Thank you for acknowledging.

I was completely thrown off at this point. It felt like I was talking to answering machine with all the "Thank you for acknowledging" and I was very distracted by the fact about how different this was to all my other interviews. I had to interrupt her before her next question and clarify something.

The worst part

I asked

"Sorry to interrupt and I just wanted to ensure that we're on the same page. I'll be heading off to San Francisco for an internship for a whole year, this year as per my email"

She then replied saying yeah no problem. She then continued to say this program is for 11 - 12 weeks in the months of May, June, July. This just made me more confused and I couldn't tell if I was missing something or she didn't get me. So I reiterated that I will not be in singapore for the rest of the year and it was like something clicked.

I was a bit annoyed at this point because I had emailed her to ensure that I wasn't wasting both our time with this and I told her that in my email I had already mentioned this. She told me we cannot continue then because I'd need to be in Singapore and reapply for next year. Hence, this whole thing was moot.

Conclusion and areas of improvement

The worst part for me was just that I felt I was not able to kind of communicate whatever I wanted to, regardless if it was a HR interview. I asked around with my friends with their interviews and they said it wasn't anything like this (with big tech and trading firms). It felt like she was just going through a checklist to see if I fit. If I were an employer and I'm trying to hire talent that will work for me for a long time, I'd ensure that at least their first impression is a good one, to start building a relationship. Most of the questions asked could have been asked in a form. This simple interaction had me rethinking working for these kind of large companies, where I'm guessing they would have a bunch of processes like this.

Of course, I wasn't perfect. There are things that I learnt and things I should do from now on. I guess, at the start of the interview, I could have clarified what to expect for this interview and how much elaboration she was looking for. I could have also summarised my pitch a bit more. It is around 5 mins long haha and if I'm nervous, I tend to add extra things, potentially making it longer. I should probably prepare a 1 minute elevator pitch which talks about the absolute highlights of what I have done so as to not overwhelm or bore the interviewer and also tweak the pitch to the role. Most of my pitches are super problem-focused and impact heavy.

Perhaps I should've also researched a bit more into specifically Google SWE internship HR interview tips or something along these lines. Regardless, it was an experience with just different expectations and realities. Maybe the next interview with big tech won't be so bad. Also got to start grinding leetcode, although I say this every year :)