Google Assessments

Careers at Google

Google is an organisation focused on innovation. It seeks to recruit motivated individuals who share its mission to organise the world’s information and make it universally accessible for all.

The organisation offers several career opportunities for those at undergraduate, graduate, or experienced level across their nine specialisms:

• Sales, service, and support

• Engineering & technology

• Marketing & communications

• Finance

• Design

• Business strategy

• Facilities

• People

• Legal

Google also offers specific career programmes as routes into the organisation.

Google BOLD career internship programme : paid summer internship for students in their third year of a four-year degree programme.

Google Associate product marketing manager programme (APMM programme): open to students and those with limited career experience.

Google Associate product manager programme (APM programme - 12-week internship or a full-time graduate role): open to undergraduates who will graduate within 12 months of completing an internship or students who have recently graduated.

These programmes enable individuals to gain a specialist understanding of the projects that Google works on or build their niche skills and experience in designated rotational areas.

Applying to an organisation the size of Google can seem daunting to many candidates. The company runs a defined recruitment process comprising of fours stages:

• Online application form

• Online assessments

• Virtual chat

• In-depth interviews

While the application process at Google is rigorous, it is designed to understand who you are, your skills, achievements, and how your attributes and qualities match the role you are applying for. Google hires employees not just on the basis of the skills they have but their passions, interests, and experiences.

The first stage of the process is to search for a role that interests you and matches your abilities, career interests, and aspirations. Once identified, individuals can submit their CV/resume for their position.

Those successful at the application stage are invited to undertake several online assessments that may include a technical assessment.

If successful at the online assessment stage, candidates are invited to participate in a virtual chat, with the final stage of the process being a number of in-depth interviews.

It is worth noting that you can apply for up to three roles at Google within any 30-day window.

Google online application form

Google encourages candidates to self-reflect and consider their skills, attributes, and achievements when deciding on which role(s) to apply for.

Using Google’s career search tool,prospective applicants can search for vacancies that interest them. Once identified, applications are taken via CV upload.

Google encourages its applicants to consider their skills and experience but also their passional, interests, and motivations when applying for a role. The company is looking for a CV that is job specific and directly tailored to the position you are applying for, one that clearly outlines projects, accomplishments, and how these were achieved.

Google does not stipulate the length of the CV but does encourage applicants to be concise in documenting their information, encouraging information on the CV to be specific to the job.

Candidates have the option to submit a cover letter with their CV, but this is not a requirement.

Google Aptitude Tests

There are a number of online assessments that Google uses as part of their recruitment process:

• Technical assessments (specialist roles)
• Numerical reasoning
• Verbal reasoning
• Situational judgement test
• Mechanical reasoning (specialist roles)

These assessments are designed to assess your aptitude in key skill areas relevant to the role you are applying for.

Information on the tests will be sent by email to those candidates who have successfully passed the application stage of the process.

Google technical assessments

Candidates who have applied for engineering-related roles will be asked to complete a technical skills assessment.

In this 90 minute test, you are asked to provide answers to two questions. The content being assessed typically covers algorithm or data/structure questions. For example, coding questions can include topics such as

• Recursion
• Dynamic programming
• Graphs/trees
• Maths/geometry
• Strings/arrays

The level of difficulty varies depending on the question, with the aim being to assess a candidate’s level of technical knowledge and understanding within their chosen specialism.

Preparation is vital to ensure you showcase your technical abilities in this assessment.

Those that are successful at this stage will also have their technical understanding assessed in the latter stages of the recruitment process.

Google numerical reasoning test

Working with numerical data is an important skill required for many roles at Google. The numerical reasoning test allows recruiters to assess an individual’s ability to work with, understand, and interpret numerical data.

In this timed test, questions are presented in the form of tables, graphs, or charts. Candidates must use their understanding of mathematical principles such as algebra, ratios, fractions, or percentages to determine which of the multiple-choice answers given is correct.

The test is timed, adding additional pressure, meaning that you need to work quickly but accurately when completing the assessment.

Google verbal reasoning test

The verbal reasoning test assesses a candidate’s ability to interpret written information. Information in this assessment is generally given as short passages of text. Candidates need to read, understand and evaluate this information, then answer the questions that follow. Questions are presented in the form of short statements. Through interpreting the meaning behind the text, you then select whether the statement is true, false, or you can not say based on your understanding of what you have read.

All questions are multiple-choice and may include synonyms, analogies, and word coding to determine your understanding and interpretation of words when in the passage of text.