My Google interviewer had a toothache. I didn't get an offer. Their recruiters are notoriously independent; not sure that's a good thing. I was actively sought out, but had no chance because the interviewer had a bad day.
Question: is it more important to keep out the bad ones but lose some good ones, or vice versa? (ie, what's the correct balance between false positives and false negatives?)
I've heard from several Googlers that false positives are orders of magnitude worse than false negatives. In reality, I think it's more clear-cut - there are those developers who know all about tries, algorithms, parsers, GC strategies, unit testing, OS level details, networking, etc., and those developers who know how to program in Blub for Blub libraries. For most positions, Google wants the former.
Question: is it more important to keep out the bad ones but lose some good ones, or vice versa? (ie, what's the correct balance between false positives and false negatives?)