Hi Leetcode community, I recently had my Google final onsite and while I am waiting for the decision I thought I will share my experience here. I am on NDA, so please don't come ask me what the question was, what you should study. I will try to mention everything needed in this post. Open to questions, if they are of relevance. Also I applied last year for another role for which I completed the Google Hiring Assessment (behavioral) and passed, but then got rejected at the resume review stage. I used JAVA. PS: I go to a T50 school Masters, had internship at a startup, also 1+ years of SE experience in a firm which isnt that great, but good enough.

Applied: Sep 30, 2025

October 7, 2025: Got a rejection mail

October 14, 2025: Recruiter reached out for the rejected role

Advice: Attend Google's career fair and/ or any conferences. Have a solid resume. I consulted advice of FAANG engineers using ADPList (trust me this is not an advertisement).

OA: October 23, 2025 (1 Easy, 1 Easy - Med). I think I did it in 20 - 30 minutes.

Advice: Neetcode 150 would be good enough. You wont get an easier OA for any other company. By this time I did almost 285 problems. I was very good with basics. I did Neetcode 250. Also I used to revisit the problems again and again until I felt very comfortable with the basics.

Got the congrats email on the same day. Scheduled my Round1 for December 12 (Rescheduled twice 1. I requested, 2. Interviewer had something)

R1 (Dec 12, 2025):

Googlyness: Went well ig. Interviewer seemed happy. Must be a "Hire".

Advice: Keep your stories short. Try to build a rapport with the interviewer. Follow STAR. Have some stories to the basic behavioral questions you would find on internet. Practise using ChatGPT. Dont sleep on this round.

1st Technical: Medium design question. Came up with the brute force solution. Explained a more optimal one. I knew the most optimal one, but the interviewer asked me not to optimise it further as there was a follow up. Coded it perfectly. She asked me not to do dry run as she said "This will work, here is the follow up". Follow up was hard. Came up with a binary search solution. Interviewer asked me to code. But then told me she had something else in mind. She explained her solution even tho she told that "my solution would work". I coded that up too. Had no time for questions. Probably a "LH" or "H".

Advice: By this time you should be comfortable with Neetcode 250/ basics and should be able to solve most tagged questions in 1 or 2 hints (max). Within this 1 month I jumped from 285 to almost 450 problems on leetcode. Advice is to revisit Neetcode 250 and do most tagged and revisit the problems. Another advice I would want to give is to "stop coding". Yeah, if you get the intuition stop wasting your time on coding that on leetcode. Only code if you doubt yourself. Its gonna take up a lot of time. By NC250, you should be able to code if the intuition is thrown at you. So stop coding and give most of your time for intuition building. Also, by this time most common algorithms should be on top of your head. If you hear reverse a LL, you should be able to code with your eyes closed, same for dfs or bfs. Not saying you should memorise the code, but you should have done those problems many time that basic algorithmic structure should be a muscle memory.

Got the congrats email the next day. Scheduled my final onsites for Jan 20, 2026. The onsites are in-person.

In this 1 month time I jumped from 450 to 700 problems. I was mainly doing NC 250 and most tagged. I would mark/ star the questions I wouldn't be able to solve in first attempt, so that I could revisit them again. I think this is very important. One mistake I did was trying out the Strivers sheet. I was hearing a lot about it through reddit and I spent a week on that. But I think its an overkill. Stick with NC 250. Majority of time I was revisiting forgotten problems. Also dont code atp. Just see if you could build intuition. If you are not able to code atp, even after knowing the intuition you should diagnose yourself.

Technical 1: Easy design question. I think she was going to make it a graph problem. But my head couldnt wrap around the solution quickly. I took too long, had some red flags, but finally came up with an O(N) solution, coded it up, did the dry run. Made it O(1). Asked her 1 question. Had no time for follow up (Could have been made a graph problem as follow up). I messed up this round. Must be a "No Hire"

Technical 2: Medium - Hard Binary Tree question. I felt like it was a mix of 2 medium questions that I saw. No brute force, explained the optimal one and coded up that. It was a 2 pass solution, we discussed further if we could do it on one pass. I initiated this thought. After the discussion, he gave one more problem - medium interval question. I used the whiteboard to explain the approach, he asked me not to code and was satisfied with my solution. Could be a "SH" or "H".

Probably gonna get rejected because of the one round.

Update: Got Rejected

Final advice: Stick to NC 250, should be able to solve most of the problems with 1 or 2 hints on leetcode. Talk clearly. Do dry runs and search for edge cases. Do most tagged, you will like get variations of them. Honestly, Google isnt that brutal compared to other companies in terms of trick questions - dont get me wrong when I say this, Google is still hard and if you are someone who doesnt understand what happens behind, G would probably be the most difficult one for you. Stick with the basics. Use your brain. They are not gonna hit you with extremely tricky questions ig. You need to be smart (dont memorise, understand the solution). Their process will tell you they are looking for smart ones than the lc grinders. Peace!!

Edited: Please guys, I dont feel in a position to advise anyone or do resume reviews. Please dont come ask me for any extra advices or resume reviews. I have outlined every basic advices you need over here.

I’ve now seen multiple recent graduates on my LinkedIn receive offers from google but I haven’t see a single new grad listing from them. Are they just applying to the entry level roles that ask for 2 years of experience? Or are they being reached out to by recruiters?