I applied online. The process took 1 week. I interviewed at Google (Mountain View, CA) in Feb 2010
Interview
Received an Email from one of the recruiters requesting for a time slot to set-up a phone interview. I was asked to learn about the Google products, research their competitors and be prepared for design related questions for the interview.
In the phone interview I was asked mostly design-related questions, like , how can to optimize the search process, how can you design a voice inout search engine etc.
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.