SPEAKER 1: Hello.
Welcome everyone,
to this YouTube Live
event about Google's information
technology residency program.
For the agenda, we'll share our
stories about Google's culture
and why we feel it's
a great place to work.
And of course we'll talk about
Google's information technology
residency program.
We'll talk about what
the programming entails.
You'll hear personal experience
from our IT residents
themselves.
And then we'll finish off
by answering some questions
from our live
audience listening in.
Also, as a reminder,
please send your questions
via the chat window
throughout the presentation.
Our chat moderators will be
answering your questions live
throughout the event.
Our chat moderators include
another ITRP recruiter, Lauren,
and an IT resident Colton.
So they're very well versed
to answer your questions,
so ask away.
So welcome again, and
let's jump right in.
We'll start off
with introductions.
My name is Ariana.
I work in our Sunnyvale office,
which is still considered
Mountain View headquarters.
I work on a university
recruiting team
as a recruiter specifically
hiring for the IT residency
program, along with
Lauren, as I mentioned,
who is one of our
chat moderators.
I've been at Google
now for two years,
so I'm excited to
talk to you all today
about this awesome program.
And I'm joined here today with
two current IT residents, Jamie
and Tanmay.
So I'll let them go ahead
and introduce themselves.
SPEAKER 2: Hello, everybody.
My name is Tanmay.
I am an IT resident
currently working
from the Mountain View office.
I've been with the program for
about a year and a half now.
And I'll let Jamie
introduce himself now.
SPEAKER 3: Yeah, sure.
So my name is Jamie.
I work also in the Mountain
View office at Google.
I've been in the program
for about six months.
And really enjoying it so far.
Pretty new.
And yeah, really
having a good time.
SPEAKER 1: Awesome.
Well, before we jump into the
details of the IT residency
program, we want to talk to
you about Google's culture,
and why we feel like it's
a great place to work,
and the best place to work.
So we do this through our
benefits, our workplace design,
perks, and culture.
These perks are designed
to allow our Googlers
to do their very best work.
And as many of you
know, some of these
include free food-- and
awesome free food might I add,
that's a big one.
Micro kitchens, they're
small break areas
for people to always be
in the vicinity of snacks.
And to meet and discuss
strategy every once in a while.
The gym.
And we're also
very dog-friendly.
So it's not uncommon to
see dogs in an office
or on a shuttle,
which is pretty cool.
So, those are just a few
of the perks that we offer.
But I do want to turn
over to our IT residents
again, and ask each
of you, what is
your favorite perk at Google?
And we'll start with Tanmay.
SPEAKER 2: For me, I
think it's the convenience
of getting things done.
Working at Google I don't
have to worry about my laundry
or getting around.
Laundry is taken care of.
And within Google you can
move around with shuttles,
and there's a Uber Lite
service within Google
so you can get from one building
to another just using an app.
And there's a ton
of different things.
You can book a car for yourself
for three hours or more.
It's amazing.
It's super convenient.
[INAUDIBLE] that we
get working for Google.
SPEAKER 1: And Jamie.
SPEAKER 3: Yeah, so my
favorite part is actually
a company-wide meeting
that we have once a week.
And we call it TGIF.
And it's a really good
chance to meet other people
that you work with, or maybe
that you've never worked
with or interacted with before.
It's a great chance to
grab some free food,
hear what's going
on in the company,
and what's happening in
different parts of the company
that you maybe don't
interact with as often.
And also, there's free beer
too, so you got to love that.
SPEAKER 1: Awesome, that's
always a great perk.
But it really isn't
just all about perks.
We want Googlers to have
meaning to their work,
know what's going on, and be
able to express their voice
in a way that works for them.
It's these principles and
our people that really
make our culture as special.
And with that in mind,
that's why we truly
believe that every
voice matters at Google.
SPEAKER 3: Yeah, so just
like Ariana was saying,
every voice really
does matter at Google.
And in order to
be successful, we
need those voices to offer
diversity of perspectives
within our own teams.
And I think our CEO,
Sundar, said it best
when he said, "Whether
you're building a company
or leading a country, a diverse
mix of voices and backgrounds
and experiences leads to
better discussions, better
decisions, and better
outcomes for everyone."
And that's why we're committed
to increasing diversity
both inside Google and
across the tech industry.
Diverse perspectives are
really critical to building
good products that
work for everyone.
SPEAKER 1: Great.
So we know it's just not enough
to find and hire Googlers
with different voices,
backgrounds, and experiences.
We also need to create
an inclusive environment
where every Googler
can be themselves.
We want them to bring
their whole selves to work.
That includes their family,
their hobbies, interests,
their sense of
humor, because that's
what enables them to
thrive in their careers
and make the greatest
impact for our users.
So I have seen this
in my experience
at Google by expanding the
ways that we find and hire
our next Googlers.
Myself, along with
many other Googlers,
have taken the
unconscious bias training,
which is a training that
brings awareness to the ways
that we bring unconscious
bias into the workplace
and focuses on the ways
to address these biases.
I have also attended
several events or volunteer
opportunities put on by our
employee resource groups
here, who are a set of Googlers
to support or bring awareness
to an issue or cause.
So those are a couple
of ways that I've
seen the way our company values
to diversity and inclusion.
And, as always as we're
doing in this presentation,
we'll open it up again
to Tanmay and Jamie.
How have you seen your personal,
or in your personal experience,
with diversity and
inclusion at Google?
SPEAKER 2: I personally
feel that Google is
a very culturally rich place.
And every culture,
every community
that we have internally,
has its own way
of celebrating different
things and so on.
In my personal experience, I'm
a part of the Indian Googler
Association.
We celebrate different
festivals at different times.
Just a few weeks
back we celebrated
Diwali, which is the
Indian festival of lights.
It was a great celebration.
A great community
outside of home.
And that's just one example.
SPEAKER 3: And that's great.
And those groups are
so great, and they're
so good for becoming a part
of something bigger at Google.
And there are other groups too.
There's a group
called HOLA, which
is for the Hispanic Googlers.
There's a group called
their Grayglers,
for a little bit older,
gray-haired Googlers.
And even if you don't fit
into any of these categories,
you're still more than
welcome to join and become
part of something bigger,
a bigger community.
And I think that's the key
to diversity and inclusion.
It's diverse groups
that celebrate
specific things but welcome to
everyone and open to everyone.
SPEAKER 1: Awesome.
That's wonderful.
Thank you guys for sharing.
Those are wonderful examples.
So in summary, we really believe
diversity and inclusion brings
so much value to our workplace.
We want everyone voice
to matter and thrive
here so that Googlers can
truly be themselves at Google.
And speaking of Googlers,
that leads us to tell you
about, I think, our
single best perk,
and that is Googlers themselves.
Everyone brings different
perspectives and experiences
to the table, but there
are certain common traits
every Googler has.
And we call this Googliness.
I think it's a term that
can't be neatly defined,
but it's what enables Googlers
to thrive and contribute
positively to our culture.
You'll often see a lot of smart,
passionate, fun, funny, and
just kind people around here.
What that Googliness
means, if you're
comfortable with ambiguity,
have a certain dose
of intellectual humility,
have collaborative nature,
you think like an owner,
can adapt to change,
those sorts of
things are what we
are looking for
in the traits when
we think about someone who
is Googly and someone that we
want to join Google.
So it's hard work,
but I think working
with Googly people makes complex
challenges even more fun.
So if you are excited about
the aspects of our culture
that we've discussed and excited
about the potential of being
a Googler, and on top of
that, IT is your passion,
then you'll be excited
for the next part
of the presentation, which
is talking about Google's IT
residency program.
SPEAKER 2: All right, so I
myself am an IT resident.
What Google's residency,
information technology
residency program is,
it's a 26-month-long road
designed to jump-start
your career in technology
at Google or beyond.
You will learn what it
takes to support and scale
Google's technology from
our corporate infrastructure
to end users, using various
support channels including
chat, phone, video,
in person, and email.
You will be helping Googlers
with all sorts of challenging
and supporting issues.
You will encounter
a sophisticated user
base working on all major
desktops and mobile operating
systems.
I think to add here is
that we at Google believe
that it's very important to
keep Googlers productive.
And we are one of the
very few companies
in the world that offer all
platforms for you to work on.
A plus point of
that is that we get
to support all of
these platforms
and get to learn on
each one of them.
We have locations in Mountain
View, California, Ann Arbor,
Michigan, and New York.
And the program has start
dates in January and July.
What this slide shows you is
a view of one of tech stops.
And each Mountain View office
has a peculiar and unique
design to it.
I currently work out of the 1201
tech stop within Mountain View.
And it is design based
on Star Wars, which
in itself is fairly cool.
And every single building here
has a unique accent to it.
SPEAKER 3: And the information
technology residency program
also offers a couple
of other things.
So first, it offers great
training and development.
Your first three
weeks in the program
will be a sort of
boot camp where
you get to learn all
about Google itself,
its systems, its processes.
And you get some
specialized training
in networking, infrastructure,
and multi-platform system
administration.
As part of that,
you're also doing
a lot of customer service, soft
skills development, project
management, communication.
And throughout the program
you get refresher trainings
on these various topics
so that you always
stay to date with
what the latest
greatest is both at Google
and in the industry.
You also get some great
travel opportunities,
and this is a huge
opportunity that
is really unique to Google.
But depending on
the availability
and the need of staff, you can
get domestic or abroad trips.
And you get typically
four weeks minimum
providing IT support at
another Google office.
That's a really
great opportunity,
not only to get to
travel and explore,
but also to see how different
Google offices function
and they all function
in their own Googly way.
The next thing you get as
well is an ops rotation.
So that's a three-month
rotation with an operations team
in your local Google office.
There's a lot of
different rotations
that you can become a part
of, but potential ones
include networking, development,
site reliability, engineering,
and system administration.
And finally, all those
things, they ultimately,
too, just making
some real mission
critical contributions
to Google as a whole.
You get to work directly with
all levels of the organization.
You get to support
and test new products.
We call that dog fooding.
And you get to grab the
keys to the kingdom.
You get access to a
lot of amazing systems.
They trust us with a lot,
and it's our responsibility
to use that access to
support Google and keep
Google running really well.
SPEAKER 1: Awesome.
So thank you guys
for summing that up.
This always makes me feel like
I majored in the wrong thing
and wanting to go into IT.
But as a recruiter
on that side, I'll
tell you a little bit about
our interview process.
So we get candidates
from three channels.
That's online applicants,
referrals-- so Googlers
that refer other folks--
and source candidates.
There's a team that
proactively goes out and looks
for candidates that are fit
for the IT residency program.
Once you are approved
to move forward,
then you will go through
the recruiting process.
Which is, first we'll ask
for a self-assessment survey
to evaluate your
technical skill set
or how do you rank yourself
on your technical skill set
for your interviewer to refer
to during the interview.
You'll get set up for
a phone interview.
If that all goes well, then
you'll have two Google Hangout
interviews.
And these interviews
are all focused
on your technical
skill set and done
with an operations engineer,
so someone who is technical
themselves.
Once you move on from
that, the feedback
will be reviewed
by our hiring team.
And we use hiring
committees to make sure
that you're asked fair
questions, to make sure
that your answers to those
questions are fairly assessed,
and to make sure that you'll
be a fit for Google long term.
We want to ensure that
Googlers will add value
across various teams
throughout their careers here.
And if all of those
approvals go well,
then the offer is extended.
And at that point is
when we would fly you out
to whichever office
it is that you'll
be working out of for you
to visit and get a taste
and feel of what Google's
culture is like up front.
And then in terms of
what we're looking
for when you go about
your interviews,
and what we're looking
for in that process,
is we want to see how you
think, your thought process
as you go about trying
to solve the solution.
Ideally, right, getting it to
a correct solution is great,
but along that way we're
also just as curious
about how it is
that you're thinking
about it and your
problem-solving skills.
Leadership is something they're
going to be assessing too.
And that can be
basically on your campus,
in your professional
experience, we're
looking for ways that you've
made an impact in those roles,
so that you can come in
and imitate that way when
you get to Google.
Obviously, we're also looking
for role-related knowledge,
which means that your
troubleshooting methods
and how you do that, your
knowledge of IT concepts,
platforms, et cetera.
We want to make sure that
you can come in and be
successful at Google.
And then lastly, of
course, is the Googliness,
which I think by now you
guys know a lot about.
SPEAKER 2: So, how to apply.
So if you've enjoyed
what you've heard today,
and if you're excited
about Google's culture,
and have a passion for IT,
then visit google.com/students
to apply online.
Upload your resume
and your transcripts.
Unofficial transcripts
should be fine.
Just click Submit.
SPEAKER 1: That's it.
Thanks, everyone, for
listening to that part
of the presentation.
We'll now jump into the
Q&A portion of the event
and see what questions we
have from our live audience.
So, from Juan Urbina,
do you get to decide
if you want to work in Ann
Arbor, Michigan, or Mountain
View, California?
The answer to that
is yes, you do.
You will get a choice in
the beginning of the--
once you make it to a certain
part in the interview process,
you will get a choice
of which location
you want to work off of.
Because you're providing both
in person and remote support
in both offices, you'll
get a chance to choose.
From Minnie, what happens after
your 26 months in the ITRP
program?
SPEAKER 3: I'll take that one.
You're done, that's it.
Just kidding.
So after, at 20 months,
you are actually
eligible for converting to
a different full-time role
at Google.
That's a really exciting
part of this program.
But it's important to note
that this program isn't just
designed for converting
ITRs to Google employees.
It's actually designed for
making you into a better IT
person that you can use your
skills in the entire industry.
So while that is the
goal of some people who
are IT residents, it's
also the goal of many of us
to just go on to do awesome
things at other companies that
are out there.
But basically, after
month 20, if you
do want to convert to be
a different Google role,
you just go through the
Google internal hiring process
for that particular role.
And we have previous
ITRs that have moved on
to become corporate operations
engineers, site reliability
engineers, software engineers,
so there is definitely
lots of great
opportunities at Google
if you do want to stay here
after those 26 months are up.
SPEAKER 2: Yeah,
and to add to that,
the program itself is quite like
university education itself.
You get to decide
what is it that you
are more interested in.
On your own, you begin to
gain those specific skills.
By the end of the program,
you know exactly what you like
and what you don't
like within IT.
And it's a great place where
you get all this time and such
a good environment what is
good for you and what not.
So in that sense
it's a great program.
SPEAKER 1: Awesome.
Next question from Santosh
is, is this IT program
for bachelor's student only?
That's a great question.
It is not.
We welcome a variety
of different degrees.
So you can have a bachelor's,
you can have a master's, you
can have an associate's.
You don't have to
have a degree at all.
We're really looking for
that experience in IT
and providing support.
So that's a great question.
You do not necessarily have
to have a bachelor's degree.
Next question, from May.
Do you have a preferred major?
That's is an
interesting question.
You do not have to.
We don't have a preferred
major, I suppose.
It is nice to see information
technology, information
studies, things
revolved around that.
But, however, it
doesn't mean that we
don't consider other majors.
If you do have a
major outside of that,
then we are definitely
still open to considering.
Again, because it falls
around your experience.
If you didn't get a
major in that background,
but you have been
working at your IT help
desk for a certain
amount of years,
you have been building computers
since you were young and have
that experience, and so
that's really what we're
going to be mainly focusing on.
SPEAKER 2: To add
to that, I would
say yes, it does matter
as to own how inclined you
are towards IT.
And out of experience,
there is somebody
I know in the program
who has a music degree.
So it doesn't matter.
It matters to some
extent, maybe.
But it's the influence or
the inclination towards IT
that matters a lot more.
SPEAKER 1: And from
Hunter, when do you
start hiring for each class?
So we hire year round.
Obviously, before the start
date or before January,
we're kind of looking
at around August
to December that
we're looking for.
And then for July, we kind of
start hiring moreso in January
up until June or
so for those class.
It really does depend,
because we hire year round.
Sometimes the
person can't start,
or we get their application
a little bit beforehand.
There are some cases where we
will start hiring in advance.
But closer to the
start date, I think,
is best for when we'll
start putting you
through that interview
process to start.
To Tanmay and Jamie, for
you guys, what advice
do you have for students for
the technical interviews?
SPEAKER 2: I guess I'll start.
Be good at one thing.
I think this is a general
thing about people at Google.
Everybody isn't an
all-arounder, but everybody
is really good at something.
And every other
person that you meet,
there's always something
to learn from them.
Because they're,
everybody is, so unique.
So I would say, make sure you
know at least one thing really
well and you understand how
the world works within IT.
For interview preparation
tips, understand networks.
I would try and see if you can
understand how Linux works,
Windows to some extent, Mac.
Just a basic overview of how
these operating systems works
and be good at one of them.
SPEAKER 3: Yeah,
and I think to add
to that, something
that's also a good idea
is know how you troubleshoot.
And don't just know
what will fix something.
More importantly, know why
something will fix something.
And be able to drill down really
into the specifics of whichever
step you're taking
towards resolution.
So you may get asked
questions about scenarios
and you really want to be able
to dive into this scenario.
And you want to
be able to explain
why you took a
certain step, and what
you think that step will do
towards the problem being
resolved.
That's really important.
There are a lot of
people in IT who
can just throw a bunch
of steps and ideas
at a problem that
will likely go away.
But the important and
distinction, distinctive part,
is knowing what
steps do what things
and why they're likely
to fix a certain issue.
And that will be
really important
for you to display that
knowledge on your interview.
SPEAKER 1: Awesome.
Great answers.
And from Genesis,
is prior experience
working in an IT setting
required or preferred?
That's another great question.
Yes, it is.
Just because when we
say IT setting, having
some sort of experience that
you can list on your resume,
that shows us that
you do have experience
in troubleshooting and
providing technical support.
And sometimes it doesn't
have to be at a help desk,
it could be in other areas.
But having that prior experience
is essentially necessary
because we want to set
you up for success.
When you go in these
interviews, they're
going to dig a little
bit deep, they're
going to expect you to be
able to show that knowledge.
And so in that case, yes.
Having prior experience before
getting in to that interview
is going to be in
your best benefit
so that you are setting yourself
up to be the most successful
in that interview.
So next question is from Andrew.
What kind of day-to-day tasks
are common for ITRP members?
And of course, I
defer to you two.
SPEAKER 2: Sounds good.
So as I mentioned
earlier every ITR
takes a path that they like.
So me, for example, I
like automation and I
like developing
tools for the team.
So there's a part
of the program where
you have this ops rotation.
I rotated with the
mobile platforms team.
I did a big chunk of
development there.
And we would then support
certain automation projects.
So as an ITR, I support
Googlers, I fix their issues,
understand what's wrong, and
try to fix day-to-day tasks
through automation.
SPEAKER 3: Yeah,
that's really good.
And some other things that you
do besides the opportunities
for travel and ops
rotation is you're really
the face of support for Google.
And that's a big
responsibility, but it's also
a really fun responsibility.
Googlers are super nice
and super understanding
and patient, and you get
to support them and help
them make sure their technology
is always working for them
and not becoming a blocker to
whatever they are working on.
So you do a lot of
troubleshooting,
you work on tickets, you
take walk-ups from people
and help them in
person, you might do
chat support, or phone support.
And so there's a lot
of things that you
get to do as the face
of Google support
that will help our
fellow Googlers
continue to innovate and move
Google forward as a company.
SPEAKER 1: Awesome.
Great.
That looks like that's all
the questions that we have.
So, thank you all for joining
us to watch this YouTube Live
event.
And enjoy the rest
of your evening.
