Can you post a link to one of these? The first Quora answer I find says, "First interview was on the phone with a recruiter. The questions were typical recruiter screening. Nothing hard or detailed. Questions about background and feeling out my interest."
I definitely believe there's a recruiter screening process - I would just be surprised if it's the same screening process they give to new college grads, with the same slate of questions. (Even if you're going to give them technical questions, at least give them harder technical questions!) I obviously have no real information having not interviewed for a director-level position, I'm just stating that these questions seem like the same slate I got as a college grad.
I read a similar screen a few years ago (some guy with a math PhD, also applying for a director position at GOOG). I'll try to find the blog post. Even if the screens are different, I'm not sure they're that different.
Any luck finding this? You claimed there are dozens of director-level interview samples online with questions similar to this story, and all you've posted is that one person on Glassdoor got one technical question that wasn't anything like the ones in this story.
I definitely believe there's a recruiter screening process - I would just be surprised if it's the same screening process they give to new college grads, with the same slate of questions. (Even if you're going to give them technical questions, at least give them harder technical questions!) I obviously have no real information having not interviewed for a director-level position, I'm just stating that these questions seem like the same slate I got as a college grad.