The first time I applied, I did a rather unusually high number of interviews. Having done all of them, including a bunch involving international travel, there was radio silence for a while, and after I finally prompted the recruiter, I finally got the rejection. It was not at all pleasant, especially given the prolonged process, and the hurt to the ego was substantial. Soon afterwards I switched jobs, and had a fruitful and stimulating stint at the new company, lasting 2.5 years. As things went suddenly and quickly south in that company, I reapplied to Google, had a short round of just 3 interviews, to which I prepared with all due diligence, and this time I made it through. As far as I’m concerned, I spent a bit more time doing algo and coding questions, but I don’t think my performance was that much better on my second attempt.