Google’s Hypothetical Interview Questions (examples, tips, prep)

If you’re interviewing for a role at Google, you can expect to encounter hypothetical questions in some of your interviews. These open-ended questions are important for interviewers to find out if you’re a good fit for Google. So you’ll want to prepare for them and use them to distinguish yourself from other candidates.

To help you, we’ve created this interview prep guide with everything you need to know to prepare for Google’s hypothetical questions, including example interview questions, tips on how to answer them, and a prep plan to help you land your dream job at Google.

Here’s an overview of what we’ll cover:

• What are Google’s hypothetical questions?
• Google’s hypothetical question examples
  • General cognitive ability/GCA
  • Leadership 
  • Collaboration
  • People management and project management
• Google hypothetical interview tips 
• Example: Google hypothetical question and answer
• How to prepare

Let’s get started!

1. What are Google’s hypothetical questions?↑

Google asks hypothetical questions during interviews to assess your approach to problem-solving. They want to see how well you improvise under pressure, how you break an unfamiliar problem into actionable steps, and how well you can communicate.

These questions are open-ended and may be related to situations you’ll likely encounter in the role you’re applying for. But they can also sometimes be completely random and may appear to have nothing to do with your prospective role.

When can you expect to encounter hypothetical questions during your Google interview process? To be clear, many different types of questions could be phrased hypothetically, including ones that test your role-related knowledge. 

But for the purpose of this article, we’ll be focusing on hypothetical questions that test your problem-solving skills, which fall under general cognitive ability or GCA.

General cognitive ability or GCA is one of the four attributes Google looks for in a candidate, together with Role-Related Knowledge (RRK), Leadership, and Googleyness. Here’s an overview of each of these attributes:

• General cognitive ability (GCA). The company wants to hire smart employees who can learn and adapt to new situations. Here your interviewer will try to understand how you solve hard problems and how you learn. 
• Role-related knowledge and experience (RRK). The company wants to make sure that you have the right experience, domain expertise, and competencies for the position you're applying for. More information in this guide.
• Leadership. Google looks for a particular type of leadership called “emergent leadership.” You'll typically be working in cross-functional teams at Google, and different team members are expected to step up and lead at different times in the lifecycle of a project when their skills are needed. 
• Googleyness (i.e. culture fit). The company wants to make sure Google is the right environment for you. Your interviewer will check whether you naturally exhibit the company's values, including: being comfortable with ambiguity, having a bias to action and a collaborative nature.

Google may or may not dedicate an entire interview session to GCA interview questions, but know that interviewers will also be assessing your GCA and all the other attributes throughout the entire process. 

When assessing your GCA, your interviewers may phrase their question as a hypothetical question or as a behavioral one. 

1.1 Difference between Google’s behavioral and hypothetical questions

Behavioral and hypothetical questions can both be used to assess problem-solving skills and your overall general cognitive ability. The difference in the goal of each phrasing is very subtle.

Interviewers ask behavioral questions not only to verify your past experiences but also to better understand your motivations and how you’ve acted to solve ambiguous problems in the past. In theory, how you’ve acted in the past is a strong indicator of how you’ll behave in the future as an employee. 

On the other hand, interviewers ask hypothetical questions to see how you respond to the unexpected. What they want to see is whether you have the ability to adapt to the evolving challenges and unfamiliar problems that may arise in the role you’re applying for, and in future positions you might find yourself in.

2. Google’s hypothetical interview question examples↑

Now that you have an idea why Google asks hypothetical questions, let’s take a look at some example questions.

To help you prepare strategically for your job interview, we have used Glassdoor data to identify the real questions asked in different Google interviews. The questions we’ve chosen come from our research on the following Google tech roles:

• Google software engineer
• Google product manager
• Google engineering manager
• Google machine learning engineer
• Google data scientist
• Google account manager

We recommend reading the comprehensive interview guide for the role you’re applying for, for a more in-depth interview preparation.

Back to Google’s hypothetical interview questions. You’ll see that we’ve divided them into four categories:

• General cognitive ability
• Leadership 
• Collaboration
• People management and project management

We've added these categories to make the lists of questions easier to understand. We start with the general cognitive ability questions which consist of random non-role related scenarios. The rest of the categories test different qualities or skills that Google is looking for in its candidates. 

The frequency of each question type will vary depending on the role. For instance, interviews for managerial roles will include a higher number of leadership/people management questions.

Note that we've edited the language in some of the questions for clarity or grammar. Now let’s get into it.

2.1 General cognitive ability↑

As we mentioned above, these questions consist of random scenarios and are largely non-role-related. Aside from testing your problem-solving skills, interviewers ask such unexpected questions to assess how you deal with unfamiliar and often ambiguous situations. 

Let’s look at some examples:

Here’s a framework for answering hypothetical GCA questions. It’s based on this official video prep guide from Google. Here’s the framework for your reference:

Check out our guide to Google GCA interview questions to learn more.

2.2 Leadership↑

Google is looking for employees who demonstrate emergent leadership. Even if you’re not applying for a leadership role, Google wants to see if you have the capability to lead when needed.

As a result, you should expect questions about how you would deal with issues regarding vision, certain team challenges, and how you would take on certain leadership tasks, like influencing others, even without being in a senior position.

Here are some examples:

You’ll likely encounter more hypothetical leadership questions if you’re applying for a managerial position so it’s best to practice with as many different questions as possible. For more example questions to practice with, check out our primer on leadership and Googleyness questions.

2.3 Collaboration↑

Many employees at Google have to work in cross-functional teams with other engineers, product managers, PMMs, data analysts, etc. So Google wants to know if you can thrive in such an environment. To assess this, interviewers ask questions to see if you’re able to communicate clearly, work with others efficiently, and build trust and relationships. 

Let’s look at some hypothetical collaboration questions you can expect at Google.

Watch our Google mock interview video to see how Ex-Google Senior PM Mark answers some tricky cross-collaboration questions. 

2.4 People management and project management↑

Finally, you may be asked people and project management questions, which dive into productivity and your ability/potential to lead projects and manage teams end-to-end effectively. 

If you’re interviewing for a position that entails managing and leading project teams, then expect questions about your overall people and project management philosophy and how you would go about delivering results in an ambiguous environment.

Right, now let’s get into some questions.

Find more related questions you can practice answering in our primers on people management and program management interview questions.

3. Tips on how to answer Google’s hypothetical questions↑

Right, now that you’ve seen examples of Google’s hypothetical questions, here are some tips and best practices you can apply when answering them.

3.1 Take a moment before responding

It’s easy to give in to panic when you’re anticipating a hypothetical question during your interview. And when you’re in panic mode, your response will likely be scattered.

To avoid such a response, take a moment to calm yourself down. Listen carefully to the question. Pause and tell your interviewer, “That’s a great question. Give me just a minute to collect my thoughts.” Then you can jot down your notes and prepare to respond. If needed, you can repeat the question in your own words to make sure you understand what is being asked.

Ex-Google EM Mark recommends doing this as it helps you in two ways:

• gives you time to consider and structure your response 
• signals that you are thoughtful in your communications, even in an interview setting 

3.2 Refine the scope of the question 

Hypothetical questions are intentionally vague and open-ended. It’s up to you to identify which aspects you want to focus on. You can arrive at this by either asking a clarifying question or stating your assumptions about the context of the question.

For example:

Question: “Leadership has decided to go a certain direction that you disagree with but need to implement. How would you get yourself and your team on board?”

Clarifying question: “Is this new top-down direction not negotiable?”

Or,

Stating assumption: “Let me assume that this new top-down direction is not negotiable, i.e. we’ve got to move on it. I’ll also approach this assuming no one is losing their job - product / technology change, but no layoffs. That would be more complicated.”

3.3 Be concise 

Your interviewer will have heard tons of answers to hypothetical questions in a day, so you don’t want to bore them with too much detail. 

A good way to keep your answers concise is to have a framework for your answer. A simple one is to lay out a sequence of steps that you’ll follow to solve a particular problem. This makes your answer easy to follow for your interviewer. It also helps you avoid straying too far from the essence of the problem you want to solve.

3.4 Focus on communicating your thought process

As you build your solution, don’t worry about whether you’re getting it wrong or right. What Google is evaluating when asking hypothetical questions is your approach to problem-solving and how you communicate it. 

So every step of the way, be sure to justify or explain your choices and state your assumptions when you feel they’re necessary. Again, focus on brevity and don’t over-explain.

3.5 Resist the urge to tell a story

It is highly likely that you’ve experienced something similar to the scenario in a given hypothetical question. Assuming you are human and not an AI, your brain will automatically connect the hypothetical scenario to your own experiences.

Your automatic response to this would be to tell your story. But resist the urge. If you feel strongly that your story is important to share at this point, offer it to the interviewer, but don’t just switch into storytelling mode without checking with them. 

If they want you to stay hypothetical, do it. Your interviewers must have a particular reason why they’re phrasing the question hypothetically, so you will want to respect that choice.

3.6  Reference lessons you’ve learned from other people

Google wants candidates with a strong self-improvement mindset, and you can demonstrate that when answering hypothetical questions. Refer to tools and practices that you’ve witnessed other people practicing, and how you would adopt them based on the given scenario. 

Ex-Google EM Mark says this shows that you can incorporate all of your experiences, not just your immediate leadership tools, into your problem-solving approach. 

He adds, “It’s important that your principled approaches come across as real, not just textbook quotes of best practices.” That’s why it helps to reference the people you’ve learned from. It shows that you take every opportunity to learn from the people around you. 

3.7 Adapt to follow-up questions

Don’t be alarmed if your interviewer asks follow-up questions; this is perfectly normal. Listen carefully to the way your interviewer is asking these questions, as there will often be a subtle clue about the specific skills or attributes they’re looking to assess from the next part of your answer.

3.8 Connect your answer back to your role

If the question is about a scenario related to the role you’re applying for, finish up your answer by making the connection as a way to wrap up. This will show your interviewer that you have a clear understanding of the role you’re applying for.

Some of these tips have been adapted from ex-Google EM Mark’s article, 3 Steps to Grok Engineering Management Leadership Interviews. Even if you’re not applying for an engineering position, it’s worth a read as it has insights to prepare you for different types of leadership-related questions.

4. Example: Google hypothetical question and answer↑

Here’s an example of a hypothetical question a Google interviewer might ask, and an answer sample you can follow, adapted from Mark’s 3 Steps to Grok Engineering Management Leadership Interviews.

5. How to prepare↑

Now that we’ve gone through the possible hypothetical questions you might get asked at Google and some interviewing best practices, let’s get into your prep plan. Below are three steps you can follow to prepare for answering hypothetical questions at Google.

5.1 Learn about Google’s culture

Most candidates fail to do this. But before investing tens of hours preparing for an interview at Google, you should take some time to make sure it's actually the right company for you.

Google is prestigious, and it's therefore tempting to assume that you should apply, without considering things more carefully. However, it's important to remember that prestige alone won't make you happy in your day-to-day work. What will make you happy is what you’ll actually be doing as well as the people you'll be working with.

If you know people who work at Google or used to work there, talk to them to understand what the culture is like. In addition, we would recommend checking out the following resources:

• Google's mission statement (by Google)
• Google's values (by Google)
• Google strategy teardown (by CBS Insights)
• Google's company blog (by Google)
• GCA interview workshop (by Google)

5.2 Practice by yourself or with peers

Answer as many hypothetical questions as you can. There’s no guarantee that you’ll get a similar question to the ones we’ve provided here, but getting used to answering in a concise and structured way will go a long way.

You can first practice by writing down your answers, and then you can gradually move on to saying your answers out loud. 

However, practicing on your own can only take you so far. By yourself, you can’t simulate thinking on your feet or the pressure of performing in front of a stranger. Plus, there are no unexpected follow-up questions and no feedback.

That’s why many candidates try to practice with friends or peers. If you have friends or peers who can do mock interviews with you, it’s worth trying. It’s free, but be warned, you may come up against the following problems:

• It’s hard to know if the feedback you get is accurate
• They’re unlikely to have insider knowledge of interviews at your target company
• On peer platforms, people often waste your time by not showing up

For those reasons, many candidates skip peer mock interviews and go straight to mock interviews with an expert. 

5.3 Practice with experienced Google interviewers

In our experience, practicing real interviews with experts who can give you company-specific feedback makes a huge difference.

Find a Google interview coach so you can:

• Test yourself under real interview conditions
• Get accurate feedback from a real expert
• Build your confidence
• Get company-specific insights
• Learn how to tell the right stories, better.
• Save time by focusing your preparation

Landing a job at a big tech company often results in a $50,000 per year or more increase in total compensation. In our experience, three or four coaching sessions worth ~$500 significantly impact your ability to land the job. That’s an ROI of 100x!