This was one of the worst hiring processes I've experienced during my internship applications. I was referred by an employee in early September and didn't receive any communication until mid-October. At that point, I spoke with a recruiter about my interest and to schedule back-to-back phone interviews.

1. First Phone Interview (60 minutes): The questions focused on variations of permutations, which can easily be found on LeetCode. Interestingly, the recruiter had informed me that I would have only one interview per phone call, but this one consisted of two interviewers. One of the engineers seemed unfamiliar with backtracking and had to mute the call for about five minutes while the other explained it. I coded up all the solutions and had about five minutes left to ask questions.

2. Second Interview (60 minutes): This interview went very well. The interviewer had a better accent and was able to provide clearer expectations. I finished three problems in 30 minutes and chatted with him for about 15 minutes more before we ended the call.

I was notified two weeks later that I had moved forward to the host matching process. Another three weeks passed before I found out they couldn't match me to any project.

Overall, I feel that Google's host matching is a very poorly conceived idea. It's disheartening that LinkedIn has adopted the exact same procedure this year, making it even worse. I went through a lot of emotional ups and downs during the process and sometimes felt disrespected by my recruiter due to her lackadaisical attitude when I asked if they could expedite the process because I had a competing offer.

I strongly suggest abandoning this host matching system, or you risk losing top tech talent to startups that will eventually challenge your dominance.

Search on Leetcode using the "LinkedIn" tag, and you'll see. I don't really want to spoil the question here, so people can memorize the correct answer.