Former Google manager Jerry Lee said the company evaluated candidates based on four attributes, saying that Googleness requires an objective set of soft skills. Lee said his best interviewees to date demonstrated his Google-ness through his personality.
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This essay is based on a conversation with Jerry Lee, 29, a former Google manager and co-founder of career consulting firm Wonsulting. The following has been edited for length and clarity. Business Insider has verified his educational and work history.
I worked at Google from 2017 until the end of 2020. He was hired as an analyst and gradually worked his way up to senior strategy and operations manager, retiring at the end of 2020.
During my time at Google, I interviewed several potential new employees and ranked them based on their “Googleness.” I’ll explain what this means to me and how you can bring it to your interview.
I was trained to score candidates based on four attributes
After about two years at Google, I was promoted to Strategy and Operations Manager and underwent interview training to interview new employees. I participated in asynchronous and synchronous sessions with members of the recruiting team to discuss best practices. I then completed an online training module covering the scoring criteria.
I remember Google evaluating candidates based on four attributes: general cognitive ability, leadership, role-related knowledge, and Google-ness.
I tried to rank candidates based on their Google-likeness.
Google-ness is not an objective, quantifiable term, but here’s what Google-ness means to me based on the information I got from my interview training. Googleness captures a wide range of soft skills needed to collaborate with colleagues, including reliability, helpfulness, and a willingness to go above and beyond.
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But if there’s one quality that separates Googleness from simply having soft skills, it’s the ability to be resourceful and work across the company.
Google is such a big company that I don’t think there’s much need to look outside the company for answers. If you need access to research or data points, there’s a good chance someone at Google has done it or thought of it. It’s your job to reach out to them, connect with them, and talk to them. I don’t know if this is still the case, but employees had access to an internal search engine and had access to all the information that other employees had worked on. It was very easy to find the data and teams I needed to talk to, even if I had never worked with them before.
I’ve heard anecdotally that in some other large companies, knowledge comes primarily from internal team collaboration. However, in my experience, Google encourages a culture of collaboration between companies. Sharing anecdotes that demonstrate teamwork and resourcefulness is a great way to prove your Googleness.
Here’s what you can learn from the most Googlers I interview
When a candidate was interviewing for a role on my team, I asked them a very standard question: Why did they want to work at Google? Almost every time I asked an interviewee that question, they mentioned influence, size, or some other corporate buzzword. This person took a different approach.
They told me I wanted to work at Google. Because without Google, we wouldn’t be where we are today. They explained that most of the students in the high school come from areas where they don’t even graduate, let alone college. But it was thanks to Google that this person was able to find out how to apply to college and then attend college.
Their answers stuck with me because they spoke directly to their resourcefulness. I thought that if that person could figure out how to apply to college without any guidance or success models, that person would be very resourceful and willing to go beyond the status quo in the workplace. . We offered them jobs and they are still the best interviewees I’ve ever had.
Many candidates focus too much on proving their technical and role-related skills and neglect to prepare for the personal questions. Remember, Google-ness is primarily defined by personality. When answering questions in a Google interview, make sure your answers are honest, company-specific, and demonstrate your soft skills.
If you’ve hired an employee at Big Tech and would like to share your experience, email Tess Martinelli at tmartinelli@businessinsider.com.
