Google Behavioral Interview Questions: Googleyness and Leadership

Almost every Google behavioural question starts with "tell me about a time". The session is usually called Googleyness and leadership, it runs about 45 minutes, and it is graded like the coding rounds.

Google has described publicly what it looks for in candidates: general cognitive ability, emergent leadership, role related knowledge, and Googleyness. This session covers the leadership and Googleyness parts.

Emergent leadership means stepping up without the job title. Googleyness covers how you work with others when the goal is unclear.

The questions, in the wording candidates report

• Tell me about a time you took on work outside your role.
• Describe a time you had to convince a team to change direction.
• Tell me about a time you disagreed with your manager.
• Describe the most difficult technical problem you have solved.
• Tell me about a time you made a decision without enough data.
• Describe a time a project of yours missed its deadline.
• Tell me about a time you helped a struggling teammate.
• Describe a time you had to learn something new very fast.
• Tell me about a time you received criticism you did not agree with.
• Describe a time you simplified something complicated.
• Tell me about a mistake that reached users, and what you did next.
• Why Google, and why this team?

What about the brainteaser questions

You may have read about questions like being shrunk to the size of a coin and dropped into a blender. Google said publicly that it stopped using brainteasers after finding they did not predict job performance.

If something like that appears now, it is a rare exception rather than the format. Prepare for structured questions about your real work.

How to build an answer

Use four beats and keep the whole answer to about two minutes.

Say "I" more than "we". The interviewer has to write down what you did, not what your team did.

End with a measurable result wherever you can. "Cut the build from 22 minutes to 6" is stronger than "made things faster".

The mistakes that lose this round

• Answering in general terms. "I always communicate early" is a claim. A dated example is evidence.
• Telling a story with no conflict. The question asks about difficulty, so a smooth project answers nothing.
• Blaming other people. Describe the disagreement, then describe how you moved it forward.
• Running past four minutes. Long answers crowd out the two or three other questions.
• Using one story for everything. Prepare five, so you can pick without repeating yourself.

How many stories you need

Five well prepared stories cover most of the question list. Choose them so they differ in shape, not just in subject.

• A project you led or rescued.
• A conflict with a person, not with a system.
• A failure that was clearly yours.
• A decision made with incomplete information.
• A time you changed your own mind after feedback.

Write each one down once. Then practise saying it, because the written version is always too long.

How to Prepare

• Write the five stories, then time them. Anything over two minutes gets cut before the interview, not shortened while you speak.
• Put a number in every result. Time saved, errors removed, users affected, revenue moved.
• Practise with a structure. Grokking the Modern Behavioral Interview covers how large companies grade these answers.
• Prepare the "why this team" answer too. It is asked in the same session and it needs specifics.
• Read the wider question list. See the most common behavioural interview questions at Google and what kind of questions are asked in a Google interview.
• Do not let the technical rounds slip. Most of the onsite is coding, so keep working through Grokking the Coding Interview.
• Place this round in the process. The five rounds of a Google interview and the Google interview guide show where it sits.