I applied through an employee referral. The process took 1 day. I interviewed at Google (Mountain View, CA) in Mar 2012
Interview
Recruiter contacted me after a referral from a Googler, former classmate.
After first assessment, I was set for another interview with a current PM. The interviewer explained the overall setup and then asked questions about Google's major challenges going forward and what I would do to overcome them.
He also through some quizzes at me, such as "You have 25 horses and a 5-horse race track. What is the minimum number of races you have to run to find the 3 fastest horses ?". He wanted the number AND the rationale behind the process.
Interview questions [1]
Question 1
What are Google's major challenges going forward ? (Not competitors, but overall challenges).
Very self-driven, first of multiple rounds, where I had to take the initiative to arrive at the problem, constraints, approach, solutions, tradeoffs and reasoning behind it in a matter of 30 minutes.
You would have to do a hiring assessment first, then a recruiter screening follows. First round interview with the hiring manager. Majorly product sense and product improvement. The questions were not direct though.
Overall a lot of steps to the interview process. Talked to different people and had opportunities to ask questions. Many different stages which made it a lengthy process overall. Wasn't too bad.