It was the most bizarre experience I had ever had.

With years of experience as a software developer, and working agonizingly on my resume for so long, I had scored an interview with Google. I was excited!

I was interviewed by at least four engineers. The interviews went well enough. What was strange was – what was not asked in them.

No one asked me a single question based on my resume. Not a single one! My resume was irrelevant!

Instead, everyone asked me to solve computer science problems from scratch on the white board.

It was an exercise more suited to identify who was more prepared for clearing the exam than to identify who could best do the job. It reminded me of GRE / GMAT / LSAT.

I thought I was done with that kind of exam preparation. That was for kids with no experience – not for me. Here I was with years of experience and still had to write the exam! I mean, no one even said – “tell me about yourself”.

I never quite understood the phrase “adding insult to injury” until Google completely ignored my resume!

This incident occurred over seven years ago. Since then, I have heard that this practice has been widely adopted by the industry.

Bizarre!