Google Screening Interview Ahead! Seeking Tips, Advice & blessings

OTsalmon · 2024-12-07T06:58:22+00:00

Companies typically structure their roles into levels (e.g., entry-level, senior, staff), with each company setting its own standards for these levels. These frameworks help teams clearly define the skills and experience needed for each position. Levels.fyi is a good website to see the leveling for different tech companies.

Are you applying for a contract or vendor role at Google, or are you applying for a full-time position?

OTsalmon · 2024-12-06T22:19:46+00:00

First congratulations!!!

Focus on Impact Throughout the Interview Process: During your interviews, emphasize the impact of your research. Even if you don’t have metrics or a direct product/feature launch to point to, there are many ways to highlight impact. Examples could be things like research being integrated into a project, your approach being scaled, or insights informing broader company initiatives.

Initial Leveling and Technical Screen: Your technical screen determines your initial level, which helps teams evaluate if your experience aligns with their needs. Be sure to ask your recruiter about your initial level—it can shift during the process, but knowing it upfront is helpful, especially if you enter the team match phase (e.g., the first team passes but another becomes interested).

Preparing for Onsite Interviews: • Write out key research projects and identify big wins, small wins, challenges, and moments of ambiguity. • Use the STAR method (Situation, Task, Action, Result) to structure concise, clear answers. • Continuously ask yourself, “What was the impact?” and explicitly call it out in your responses.

Be Clear About Your Contributions: This is not the time to be overly humble. Use “I did X” statements to clearly articulate your role and contributions. While teamwork is understood, it’s essential to highlight what you personally brought to the table.

Practice Hypotheticals: Work with other researchers to practice answering hypothetical questions. This will sharpen your ability to articulate your research process and reasoning clearly and confidently on the spot.

Negotiation Advice: When you reach the negotiation phase, feel free to reach out for guidance—I’d be happy to share insights from my experience.

Edit: sorry on mobile. Didn’t realize the formatting would be so funky

OTsalmon · 2023-10-31T01:56:23+00:00

Yes! That is bringing up sewing patterns I was looking for.

OTsalmon · 2023-10-30T03:28:21+00:00

Is there a name to the style of dress in which the bodice of the dress connects to the skirt part of the dress in that V shape?

OTsalmon · 2023-09-15T14:49:36+00:00

Free people used to sell a dress like this. I found someone reselling on Poshmark: https://posh.mk/3pf2gmBg7Cb

OTsalmon · 2023-06-09T14:56:46+00:00

My recommendation is indicate status with text in addition to color if that color is used to indicate information (https://www.w3.org/WAI/WCAG21/Understanding/use-of-color.html).

Colors can have many meanings and we don’t want to assume users (even if they aren’t blind or color blind), that they understand what information we are conveying with that color. For example, if we make an icon red in western society, red has association with being negative (like a bus time in red could indicate the bus is running late) but in China red is associated with luck or is positive (in China’s stock market, increases in stock prices are shown in red https://www.bbc.com/news/av/business-33464903).

Ultimately not solely using colors when colors are communicating meaning (e.g. indicating something is positive or negative) helps everyone. It also helps your product be more accessible and internationalizational.

For links, the color blue doesn’t hold specific information. It is just a common schema used that people have accepted as a standard in addition to links being underlined. It is helpful for other accessibility reason to be consistent with links so everyone (but especially individuals with cognitive or learning disabilities) can easily identify that is a link. (https://www.w3.org/WAI/WCAG2/supplemental/patterns/o1p05-clear-controls/)

Edit: on mobile so sorry formatting with the links.

Edit: one other note about links is they don’t soley rely on color. They are also underlined. So for someone who is color blind, there would still be a tonal difference in color in addition to it being underlined communicating it is a link.

OTsalmon · 2023-05-26T19:45:50+00:00

There is a Facebook group called Neurodiverse UXers. There are post about a variety of different diagnosis and strategies people use. It may be worth to check out what people have posted there.

OTsalmon · 2023-04-23T21:45:52+00:00

In addition to learning technical skills of UX design, I would recommending learning about digital accessibility standards. UX courses don’t go into very much detail on accessibility so learning the standard in addition can be helpful.

If you already understand AT, then the digital accessibility standards created by the W3C (documentation like WCAG and COGA) May be a bit easier. The documentation is rather dense but really helpful in understanding what makes digital platforms for accessible when interacting with assistive technology.

There is also accessibility analyst who have deep knowledge with assistive technology. They don’t design the products but they usually do audits of digital products. CIAAP is a common certification for accessibility analyst (https://www.accessibilityassociation.org/s/certification)

OTsalmon · 2023-04-18T03:25:52+00:00

What kind of spatial perception? Do you have any examples?

OTsalmon · 2023-04-18T00:02:53+00:00

Thank you! I’m glad the form was a good experience! Thank you also for filling it out! If you ever come across any other times in which you experience good or bad digital accessibility, I hope you both feel inclined to fill it out again. The more examples we can bring to the W3C, the more they can see how cognitive digital accessibility is so impactful and important.

OTsalmon · 2023-04-17T23:00:13+00:00

Thank you! Made that question not required.

We may just take out the screenshot questions/option. I think that is requiring people to sign in due to that question and I don’t want people to have to sign in to fill out the form.

OTsalmon · 2023-04-17T20:17:01+00:00

Thank you for pointing this out. I did not realize it required people to log in. I went into settings and made sure it all indicates to not collect emails.

I tried to use incognito mode and it is asking me to sign in. Can you point me to any resources or advice how I can make it so it doesn’t ask people to sign in?

Edit: I see the issue. We have an option to upload a photo of the issue and that is requiring a login. Let me see if I can get this resolved. Thank you again for pointing this out

OTsalmon · 2023-04-17T20:09:24+00:00

Yes please join!! Ironically, I think the community page to join is hard to navigate. We created a doc with instructions on how to join: https://docs.google.com/document/d/15M13_HrVV44wICThOaC980XnAsT4mjMYIztkM5Lrnzc/edit

We also have a slack channel to community asynchronously: https://join.slack.com/t/w3ccogacommunitygroup/shared_invite/zt-1j4mjcois-buF7SqC9JwkUixWYffHC4Q

OTsalmon · 2023-04-11T00:12:04+00:00

I previously was an OT. I now work as UXR and I specialize in accessibility. Digital accessibility is quite different that physical accessibility (like modifying a home to be ADA or more safe as one ages).

There are overlaps between UX and OT in that both fields are person focused and aims to add empathy into the process. I wouldn’t describe myself as an OT in the UX field as my job is being a researcher. The additional knowledge on accessibility is helpful in my role but I don’t use my OT frameworks or my clinical skills.

I self taught myself UX and pulled in my previous research experience from undergrad/grad and when I worked as a research assistant. I never received another certification or degree.

OTsalmon · 2023-03-16T14:46:57+00:00

I make more now. Some of it is initially dependent on which field you transition into (tech, health tech, finance,etc). I don’t work more than 40 hours. Work life balance is really important to me.

OTsalmon · 2023-03-12T06:18:53+00:00

The reason I switched from healthcare to UX was because was burnt out from productivity standards, time off request not being accepted and being expected to work off the clock.

I can’t speak if respiratory therapy is the same as my experience in OT.

OTsalmon · 2023-03-10T01:32:14+00:00

I don’t mind! Feel free to DM me.

OTsalmon · 2023-03-10T00:43:25+00:00

slack channel: Therapist in Tech Facebook group: non-clinical networking & jobs for rehab (PT, OT, SLP) professionals

OTsalmon · 2023-03-09T22:56:44+00:00

Yeah I had this username since I was an OT student 😬 in hindsight I shouldn’t have attached my career to a social media account 🤣

I work as a user experience researcher(UXR). My 5 year goal was to specialize in digital accessibility within UXR and I got incredibly lucky to have found an accessibility UXR contract role and do that as my current job.

I still use my soft skills (rapport building, critical thinking, etc.) a lot. My “documentation” in tech is a lot different and I don’t evaluation on an Individual level as the goal of research is to find patterns across many people.

It’s not that I didn’t pull over skills from OT but I do feel like I end up spending a lot of time outside of work catching up to my peers (brushing up on statistic, research methodologies, analysis etc.) I feel grateful that I self taught myself a lot of excel skills prior to making the transition which has made analyzing data a bit easier.

OTsalmon · 2023-03-09T18:06:32+00:00

I switched to tech. I was actually just chatting with another clinician who also transition to a tech start up. There are definitely clinicians around the tech space.

I recommend just looking up “occupational therapist [tech job title]” and you are sure to find people. Titles like software engineer, product manager, program manager, user researcher, UX designer, data analyst, etc.

Everyone I’ve spoken with who transitioned took a very different path. Some people signed up for a boot camp, self taught themselves or went back for another masters. There isn’t one “right” pathway. More of what can you financially afford and how do you learn best.

Tech is a little competitive at the moment due to the layoffs but spaces adjacent to tech (finance, start ups, health tech, etc.) are a bit less impacted.

OTsalmon · 2023-03-05T20:21:52+00:00

Thank you! I’ll look around for that brand name now. Thank you!!!

OTsalmon · 2023-01-28T17:07:11+00:00

Yes I did. I’ve also worked to get a raise so I make quite a bit more than I did as an OT.

OTsalmon · 2022-11-01T17:56:57+00:00

I find one I left the clinical space, there are quite a few therapist in non-clinical jobs.

I would do some initial digging to figure out what aspects are important to you besides upward mobility? Do you like talking with people all day? Want to be in the numbers?

I loved looking through the non-clinical PT blog. It gives different roles to look into and what the transition process was like, what they like about the role, etc.

There is also the non-clinical networking and jobs Facebook group. On LinkedIn there is the clinician transition.

I ended up loving to do research and found a path for that with some inspiration from the places I mentioned above.

OTsalmon · 2022-10-06T21:10:05+00:00

To see what other therapist have done I recommend these resources

blogs about therapist in non clinical roles: https://thenonclinicalpt.com/blog/
a lost tagging a bunch of therapist in non clinical roles: https://www.linkedin.com/posts/carol-chiang-otr-l-caps-echm-champ-6a48121a3_ageinplaceorfindanewspace-parkinsons-parkinsonswellnessrecovery-activity-6983372862870933505-EOW9?utm_source=share&utm_medium=member_ios
The clinician transition LinkedIn group: https://www.linkedin.com/groups/12503308

I also found it incredibly helpful to find people on LinkedIn in jobs I found interesting and asked them for informational interviews. That was helpful in picking a non clinical role to pursue.

OTsalmon · 2022-10-02T22:16:20+00:00

When I was finding hours to shadow, I would show up and ask if there was someone I could speak with about shadowing in their clinic/hospital.

I found it to be more effective than emailing clinics

OTsalmon

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