I was contacted by a Google recruiter in September about a new grad Software Engineering position in Mountain View. Following an initial phone call that briefly reviewed my resume and discussed my interest in Google, the recruiter scheduled a 45-minute phone coding interview. Unfortunately, no one called me for the scheduled interview. I contacted my recruiter, and she rescheduled it.

After this interview took place, I was contacted about a week later. They informed me that they wanted to conduct a second phone interview before deciding whether to invite me onsite for final rounds. I had that interview set up a couple of weeks later. Within a week after that, I heard back that they wanted to fly me out for onsite interviews.

At this point, I was transferred to another recruiter who managed onsite interviews and the rest of the recruiting process. I was flown out in early November for a day of four 45-minute whiteboard coding interviews. A lunch break was scheduled between the first two and the last two interviews. Overall, it was one of my better onsite interview experiences, and the interviewers were receptive and actively participated in the process (not just presenting the problem and remaining silent). I even had one interviewer who took extra time after the interview to explain another way I could have solved the problem. The engineer I had lunch with was also very pleasant and provided a good picture of what working at Google would be like.

Following this, my recruiter kept me updated on the review process. I heard back in about a week that my interview feedback would be going through the hiring committee. A few days after that, I heard back that I passed the hiring committee and my package needed to be submitted for executive review. About a week after this, I received an email from my recruiter stating I had the offer! We discussed the details over the phone, and I accepted the offer the following week. All in all, from the onsite interviews to receiving the offer took a little over two weeks.

While it was certainly a lengthy process (September to the end of November), this was not entirely Google's fault. I appreciated the recruiters keeping me updated every step of the way.

I wouldn't say there was a specific most difficult or unexpected question. However, I'd recommend studying "Cracking the Coding Interview" and also be prepared to write code on a whiteboard.

Another thing to remember is to keep talking out loud and explaining your thought process along the way. I thought I did poorly in the phone interviews, but I believe that this strategy helped me get to the onsite.