Students: Applying to Google
Ready to apply for an internship or a full-time job at Google? Here’s what you’ll need:
- An updated resume
- A transcript from your university (unofficial is fine)
- In some cases, a cover letter, short essay, or additional information listed in the job description
Focus on your resume
Your resume is the first piece of information we’ll see about you. Here’s how to highlight your achievements:
- Align your skills and experience with the internship or job description
- Be specific about projects you’ve worked on or managed. What was the outcome? How did you measure success?
- If you've had a leadership role in a volunteer organization or at a part-time job, tell us about it. How big was the team? What was the scope of your work?
- Include your GPA, as well as school-related projects or coursework that demonstrate relevant skills and knowledge
- Keep it short: Aim for one page. If there’s additional information we need during the hiring process, (like a portfolio), your recruiter will work with you to collect it
Prepare for the interview process
- Once you’ve submitted your application online, our staffing team will review your resume, transcript, and any supplementary materials
- The next step in the process is a series of interviews—which may be on the phone, via video conference, or in person—to assess your skills
- For technical interviews, practice coding on a whiteboard, in Google Docs, or over the phone. You can find sample coding questions on sites like CodeLab, Quora, and Stack Overflow. The book “Cracking the Coding Interview” is also a good resource
- Structure your interview answers: It’s important to show how you arrive at a solution, so think out loud
About the process
Committee and executive review
After your interviews are done, independent hiring committees made up of Googlers at various levels of the company review your candidate packet, which includes your interview feedback and scores, your resume, references, and any work samples you submitted. Hiring committees help make sure we’re holding true to our hiring standards as we grow.
If a committee recommends hire, the panel’s feedback is added to the candidate packet and sent to a senior leader—who provides another layer of objectivity—for review.
Your offer
Once a senior leader approves your candidacy, your packet (with a summary about you) goes to executive review for final approval. And then you get your offer.
In most organizations, you join and still have to prove yourself. At Google, we’ve all gone through the same hiring process and know we can trust in each other and new team members from day one. Welcome aboard.
Helpful questions to think about as you prepare:
- How do you work best, both as an individual and as part of a team?
- What challenges have you faced at school or at work and how did you overcome them?
- Which of your skills or experiences would be assets in the role and why?
If you don’t understand a question, ask your interviewers for clarification and take the time you need with responses.
