Google’s Secret Interviews Seek Employees in Matrix-Like Fashion

Blue button, or orange button?
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Next time you’re searching programming terms on Google, Google may just offer you a job. That is, if you go down their rabbit hole and prove that you know what you’re doing.

Max Rosett tells The Hustle the story of how he was invited to interview at Google through unconventional (and kinda fun, albeit kinda creepy) means. He was on Google one day searching terms like “python lambda function list comprehension” when the search screen opened up to reveal a question:

Google secret test

 

Being “up for a challenge” paid off! Rosett clicked the blue button (it’s like, the opposite of the Blue Pill in The Matrix), which led him to a site called foo.bar (and no, you can’t just go to the site and log in with your Google account. I tried. You have to have been there before) that gave him all sorts of problems to solve. Those successfully solved problems led to an email from a recruiter, followed by a phone call, followed by an in-person interview, followed by a job offer!

It kinda reminds me of the crossword puzzle used to determine candidates for codebreakers at Bletchley Park during WWII.

You can read the full story over at The Hustle. And next time you’re searching programming terms on Google, pay close attention. they might just reach out to you from the other side of the Matrix.

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Teresa Jusino
Teresa Jusino (she/her) is a native New Yorker and a proud Puerto Rican, Jewish, bisexual woman with ADHD. She's been writing professionally since 2010 and was a former TMS assistant editor from 2015-18. Now, she's back as a contributing writer. When not writing about pop culture, she's writing screenplays and is the creator of your future favorite genre show. Teresa lives in L.A. with her brilliant wife. Her other great loves include: Star Trek, The Last of Us, anything by Brian K. Vaughan, and her Level 5 android Paladin named Lal.