Google Student Blog: April 2017

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My Path to Google: Bjion Henry, Associate Account Strategist

April 13, 2017

Welcome to our blog series “My Path to Google!” We’ll be posting real stories from Googlers highlighting how they got to Google, what their roles are like, and even some tips on how to prepare for interviews.
Today’s post is all about Bjion Henry. Read on!

Can you tell us a bit about yourself? I’m from Luton, just north of London in the UK. I studied Industrial Economics in the University of Nottingham, which was essentially a mixture between business and economics. I was active with Google while in college and also interned at Google.
What’s your role at Google? I’m in a full-time Google Marketing Solutions role (I’m an Associate Account Strategist). Day-to-day, I work with digital marketing agencies advising them on how to grow their clients' businesses through online marketing and how to grow as agencies. It also involves a lot of data crunching and transforming insights into strategies that you then pitch to your clients.
What inspires you to come in every day? In my role the clients have to trust you enough to actually go ahead with your ideas! Sometimes I even travel to London to meet clients face to face.
The best thing about the role is that you’re able to impact a lot of businesses and people, which is quite unusual for an entry-level role at a big company. That impact is special, and motivating. For example, although I probably didn’t acknowledge the gravitas of the situation at the time, as an intern I got to represent Google for a Q&A panel, and also for their AdCamp program. It was a bit intimidating at the start but it went really well (I think!).
Can you tell us about your decision to enter the process? While studying for my undergrad in 2015, I was accepted onto Google’s Top Black Talent program and as part of that, I also took part in the Google Online Marketing Challenge (GOMC).
We were paired with a local business and I volunteered to be the team leader of my group. Over the course of about 2-3 months, we met-up numerous times at the Google London office — I guess that was my first time really experiencing Google.
After that, I applied for an internship with Google.
How did the recruitment process go for you? During my Google internship, I had conversations with my manager and recruiters regarding a full-time role and the recruitment process started then. I returned to university for my final year, and around January I had my first phone interview.
Once I had passed that, I then moved to face-to-face interviews where Google flew me to Dublin. I remember being stressed because it was at the same time as my exams, and it was difficult balancing the preparation for both. I also remember my first interview going pretty well — most of the questions just felt like small talk with the occasional business-related question. However, my second interview felt extremely hard. I left Dublin feeling as if I had lost the opportunity, but two weeks later I got a phone call confirming a full-time role.
What do you wish you’d known when you started the process? That I could work on a lot of projects. I interned with the Global Customer Experience team here at Google, where part of my time was spent working with advertisers to overcome any issues or challenges they were facing whilst advertising with Google. We would troubleshoot, give them advice, and generally be the face of Google to those customers.
I had a great manager and was encouraged to work on other projects within Google that interested me. I decided to work on Google Adopt, a startup program mentoring startups from around Europe, the Middle East and Africa (EMEA) on their digital marketing. First I rebranded the program, and then I redesigned and coded the external website for the upcoming cycle.
I was also interested in working in sales, so when it came time to apply for a full-time role I decided to go for the Google Marketing Solutions job and was successful.
Can you tell us more about the resources you used to prep? I started with learning as much as I could about AdWords and Google through articles and YouTube videos. Next, I picked out keywords and concepts from the job and interview brief and prepared questions for them. For example, if it said ‘In your role you’ll speak to marketing professionals managing relationships,’ I’d prepare an answer to the question ‘tell me a time when you managed relationships with marketing professionals.’ When preparing the answers, I’d write them out in the STAR format, and that helped a lot in the interview.
To finish, do you have any tips you’d like to share with aspiring Googlers? Learn everything you can about Google — the products, the ethos, everything! Unsurprisingly, the best way to do that is to get involved in as many Google-related things as you can find. That could be a Google networking event, university programs, online events, or internships. You can also sign up for programs like GOMC and get Adwords certified. Once you’re through the door, you can network and you start to learn how the Google culture works.
My last take away would be to apply no matter what! Some people think you have to be an academic, or a tech-head, or a successful entrepreneur. I wasn’t really any of these and so when I applied it felt like I was playing the lottery. I honestly never thought I’d make it onto the Top Black Talent program let alone secure a Business Internship and then make it as a full-timer, so anything can happen!
Want to follow in Bjion’s footsteps?
Visit google.com/students to learn more about life at Google and our opportunities for students. Be sure to check out BOLD Immersion, our program for students from Europe, Middle East and Africa. Deadline: April 23rd, 2017 (23:59 GMT)
You can also see Bjion in a YouTube Live broadcast (and while you’re there, check out our other YouTube live events!): https://youtu.be/cy5Tbg3xOlQ

BreakInequality Hackathon: SMS technology and API integration bringing health information to developing nations

April 3, 2017

Today we're catching up with NatalNet — a team of University of Waterloo students who won Google's Grand Prize at the Devs without Borders-led BreakInequality Hackathon, which encouraged women through technology to build scaling solutions for Plan International Canada's maternal health programming in Bangladesh. (Spoiler alert: they built an app that bridges the communication gap between expectant mothers and community healthcare workers in rural areas of Bangladesh). We invited the NatalNet crew to Google Waterloo to share their hackathon story and fill us in on how the future of their app is shaping up in partnership with Plan International Canada.

University of Waterloo students pictured from left to right, Victoria (a third year student in Systems Design Engineering), Namrata (a second year Biomedical Engineering student), Ashley (a third year Financial Analysis and Risk Management student minoring in Computer Science), Isabelle (a second year Software Engineering student), Mack (a second year Biomedical Engineering student).

Why did you apply to the BreakInequality Hackathon?

Our experience with hackathons is incredibly varied; a few members of our team had never been to a hackathon before, while others had competed in several. Despite our range of experience, we were all motivated to attend BreakInequality for the opportunity to make social impact. The chance to create a solution that could impact the lives of women on a global scale was an opportunity that we simply could not pass up.

How did you decide to build the NatalNet app?

We loved the idea of being able to connect women in rural areas of developing countries to health information and care through SMS technology. We narrowed our scope to pregnancy and newborn care information after learning that Bangladesh has a 50% mobile phone proliferation rate and that 98% of these cell phones are 2G devices - meaning that many soon-to-be mothers have access to a SMS-enabled cell phone. We built NatalNet as an SMS and web-based application to provide pregnant women with access to information and trained community health care workers. It’s incredibly important to us to support a solution that empowers expectant and new mothers to take charge of their own personal healthcare.

What challenges did you run into with your build?

We were working with a lot of technologies that many of us didn’t have experience with. Integrating SMS into a solution was something we hadn't tackled before. After digging through documentation on Firebase and different APIs that helped us sort out the syntax that would bring our functions to life, we ended up with a solution that was “fully functional” (meaning it did exactly what we envisioned it to do!). Overcoming the different API integration challenges that arose during the project was a huge source of learning and pride for us.

What's the most important lesson you learned during the experience?

We all gained an immense appreciation for sleep after marathoning through 24+ hours of hacking! We also learned that having a shared passion for a specific goal, and working hard towards that goal as a team, leads to amazing innovations. It’s easy to see how this lesson can be applied to the work world. Most positions, especially in the tech industry, require you to work as a member of a focused team. The teamwork skills we developed during BreakInequality are skills we will take with us into our professional careers.

What's next for NatalNet and your partnership Plan International Canada?

We've been working very closely with both the Plan International Canada and the Devs without Borders teams to research, budget and ensure logistics are in place to allow NatalNet to be realistically implemented in Bangladesh. From there, our database is built to scale. We plan to use Google Analytics and Cloud Natural Language API to send personalized, automated responses written by community health care workers to women in need of information, making access for them more efficient and accurate.

What advice do you have for other women pursuing careers in STEM who are drawn to solving complex real-world problems?

Always make time for things you find important. This experience proved to us how important it is to go out and get as much experience as you can. Don’t know how to code? Get out there and learn! Want to solve a complex problem? Get out there and start solving complex problems! It may seem as if you’re going at it alone, but you’ll find so many other brilliant female minds surrounding you — we did! By making a space for yourself in the industry, you're using your superwoman powers to open the door wider for future generations to enter STEM roles, so don't be afraid to get out there and start learning!

With Google's Grand Prize support behind them, these UWaterloo students are working closely with Plan International Canada and Devs Without Borders to bring tangible social impact to women in Bangladesh through their app. Go team NatalNet!

Student Blog

My Path to Google: Bjion Henry, Associate Account Strategist

BreakInequality Hackathon: SMS technology and API integration bringing health information to developing nations

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