Interview Experience

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Interview Experience
2008-2-27 18:34:02
By Alex 

    The job hunting season is finally coming to an end. It’s time to get it wrapped up and archived. Finding a job feels pretty much like looking for love. You started aiming high and ended up with something that is off your expectation.

Google
I started the job hunting process in early April and started dropping my resumes around. I applied for Google during one lunch break and was not expecting any feedback. But surprisingly, I got a reply 3 weeks later. And an phone interview was scheduled right away. They were on time and efficient. The first round was on the phone and all general questions. Easy to handle. I made it to the next round. The second round was a video conference call with an engineer in Beijing office, since I was in Tokyo then. So I went to Google Japan office to have that interview. The whole process was smooth though the interviewer was late for around 20 minutes. I made it to the third round. The third round was phone based. I was interviewed by a peer-to-be. I screw it up. The phone was not properly set. I was not able to talk on the head-set. I have to hold the phone for nearly an hour. I was nervous. And I prepared for it in the wrong direction. Too focused in the network related stuff and neglected most of the algorithm stuff.

BKMs:
Strive for a F2F, video. If you can see the interviewer, you can get more feedback during the interview and that could help you do better.
Do not easily buy the interview tips on the web. The content may vary from position to position and from interviewer to interviewer.

Fuji Xerox
I have to mention Fuji Xerox. I spent 11 months there and learnt a lot from my mentor. But finally I turned it down. Living in a non-English speaking country alone does not seem to be a good option, especially after the wisdom-tooth incident. The package was not so attractive. The work I am supposed to do was not interesting.

DOW chemicals
Two rounds of interviews, simple and easy, all general questions.
1st round: some girl from HR with a dead fish face kept asking questions.
2nd round: 2 rounds inside this round, each interviewed by two interviewers. Still, not surprisingly, general questions.
Got offered hours after the second round.
Package no good, not promising future.

SAP
One day interview at SAP Shanghai office. Group interview in the morning, Soft skills & hard skills in the afternoon.
Group discussion, prepared speech and presentation. “Asking questions and getting to the point” were the keys.
Hard skills: not so hard, knock the interviewers with brief intro of your projects.
Soft skills: flexibility, performance under pressure. “Apply a problem-solving framework”, Be tough.
Got offered a week later
Package no good, too much travel, not too promising future development

Eike Consulting
1st round Phone interview:
2nd round F2F interviewed by VP of Wicresoft
3rd round interviewed by EC, bombarded by 5 rounds of interviews: general questions and technical stuff.
4th round interviewed by my peer, technical stuff that I didn’t handle well.