I just had my second phone interview with google and it was an absolute disaster, so my chances of going to on site are slim to none.
The first phone interview was fantastic and very engaged. The interviewer was great and the recruiters were the best I’ve ever experienced.
The interview question wasn’t particularly hard. It was print a particular level in order of front last and I was able to solve that question fine and felt that I communicated well. The interviewer on the other hand wasn’t talking even after I asked questions. He didn’t seem to be listening at all. I had to prompt him by name just to get his attention. I’m pretty sure he was at home since I heard a cat numerous times and he was the most disinterested interviewer I’ve ever had…but I guess we’re all bound to get one… He didn’t do any introduction or gave me time to ask questions he just said oh we’re out of time…bye (not paraphrasing that’s literally how it happened).
The second part of the question was do it in constant space. I didn’t know any constant space tree traversal so I struggled trying to derive it on my own and I ran out of time. These are just one of those algorithms that are pretty much know it or you don’t which sucks that I didn’t know it (cuz if you can derive our own algos in 45 minutes for a new problem or something you’ve never seen before, let’s just say your name is probably in the history books and you’ve invented a game changing algorithm already - let’s face it, we have to look at the solutions to learn at some point).
Now my question is: Given the all star recruiters I have and how they always want to hear back how an interview went: Should I tell them about this bad experience? Or would that just cause them to reject me by default. And yes I am aware that I am probably gonna get rejected for not knowing a constant space tree traversal – but that’s a ridiculous indicator for finding good candidates (it just breeds false negatives). The interview honestly felt like an true or false exam – either you know it or you don’t but it doesn’t actually gauge your skills.