An employee at Google helped me submit my resume through their referral system. Two days later, a recruiter contacted me and asked me to fill out some standard forms about my location preference and skills. Then another recruiter asked for my preferred dates for two telephone interviews.

There were two 45-minute interviews, and the interviewers were very well-prepared. The problems were standard data structure and algorithm coding challenges. They helped me throughout the entire process. It's important to think aloud and communicate your thoughts and concerns. Don't hesitate to ask if anything is unclear. Although I made some mistakes and arrived at the final correct answer/code after many hints, I was notified one day after my interview that I had passed.

Next came the host matching process. Some candidates, myself included, might have thought that applying early and passing the technical interviews would guarantee an internship offer because Google would match candidates to different hosts throughout the summer. However, this was not the case. There's a new policy now: if the recruiter cannot find a host who shows interest in the candidate within several weeks, the intern will be rejected. It appears many candidates who pass the technical interviews are not receiving offers because a suitable host match cannot be found.

After a host showed interest in me, we had a non-technical phone conversation, which lasted about half an hour. The host first asked about my resume experiences. Then, they introduced their project and asked if I was interested. We were both satisfied, and two days later my recruiter informed me she would prepare an offer. One week later, I received a phone call from the recruiter about the offer, and two more days later, I received the offer letter. It's an intern position at Mountain View. I was satisfied and accepted immediately.

No unexpected question.