A recruiter contacted me. I responded and didn't hear back for two weeks. I emailed the recruiter again and she finally responded with apologies. I chatted with her on the phone and sent her an updated resume. The next step was a phone screen with a designer. After that was a design exercise. They give you three problems to choose from and ask that you complete it in a few hours. I completed the exercise, which by the way took much longer than a few hours if you want to complete it with any amount of quality and thought, and sent it in. The original recruiter passed me off to another recruiter. They asked me to come to the campus for the final round of interviews. I presented both my portfolio and the exercise to a panel of designers/researchers for an hour and then met with each of them in 1:1 interviews for the rest of the day, breaking briefly for lunch at the cafeteria. During lunch, a designer gave me a brief tour of the campus. Each 1:1 interview included a design exercise and a set list of questions (to prevent overlap). At times, the interviewer focused more on getting through the list of questions than on connecting with me as a human being. The interviewers did not know each other. I did enjoy the exercises and though I may never know how I did on them, it did help create more engaging interaction between me and the interviewer. In the weeks and months following, I checked back in several times without getting an answer. The holidays were partly to blame. When the recruiter finally called me to tell me they weren't moving forward, I asked for feedback on why. She said she couldn't share that with me. Google then sent me several follow-up emails asking for MY feedback on their interview process. Considering the amount of data they already have on me and the amount of work and time I put into the process, I was deeply offended that they didn't at least give me information on how to improve not just as a candidate but as a designer. It truly demonstrated for me the pitfalls of working for a large company that looks at people as numbers, loses them in the masses, and demands everything without giving anything in return.

The interview process felt quite unprofessional. HR emailed me on the same day and asked me to choose an interview time that day, which felt very unreasonable and gave me almost no time to prepare. After the phone screen, I was supposed to interview with the hiring manager, but the coordination seemed to missing something. No interview was scheduled, and I only found out something was wrong when I followed up during the interview week. I then received a last-minute calendar invitation. After the interview, there was no follow-up at all. I finally received a rejection email about a month and a half later. Overall, the process showed a lack of respect for candidates.