It’s a question that has kept aspiring techies guessing for years, with plenty of headlines dedicated to demystifying the hiring process at one of the world’s biggest companies.

First it wanted you to solve ridiculous riddles, then it admitted it was a mistake.

Now Google hiring boss Laszlo Bock, who is responsible for employing about 100 new staff each week, has revealed his top tips in the second part of a New York Timesinterview with Thomas Friedman . Here’s what he had to say:

Don’t study just for the sake of it: Having a degree is great, but it’s not about where you went to college and what you studied anymore. The emphasis is on what you do with it.

“The first and most important thing is to be explicit and wilful in making the decisions about what you want to get out of this investment in your education,” Mr Bock said.

Get gritty: Don’t take the easy road. Everyone wants people who are up for a challenge.

“It’s much better to be a B student in computer science than an A+ in English because it signals a rigour in your thinking and a more challenging course load.”

Understand the basics: The first thing Google looks for in applicants is “general cognitive ability” to learn and solve new problems. In tech, this might mean understanding the basics of computer science, but in business it might mean statistics. The point is to understand the fundamentals.

“Analytical training gives you a skill set that differentiates you from most people in the labour market,” Mr Bock said.

Being creative is great, but it’s not enough: Humans are naturally creative, but the ability to do this AND think in a logical structured way is what will set you apart, Mr Bock told The New York Times .

“You have to understand economics and psychology or statistics and physics [and] bring them together. You need some people who are holistic thinkers and have liberal arts backgrounds and some who are deep functional experts. Building that balance is hard, but that’s where you end up building great societies, great organisations.”

The trick to a killer CV: Frame your strengths properly by using the right content. “I accomplished X, relative to Y, by doing Z.”

“Most people would write a resumé like this: ‘Wrote editorials for The New York Times.’ Better would be to say: ‘Had 50 op-eds published compared to average of 6 by most op-ed [writers] as a result of providing deep insight into the following area for three years,’ Mr Bock said.

Spell it out: The final trick for job interviews is to make your thought processes clear by stating the attribute, demonstrating it, and outlining what you’ve just said.

“Most people in an interview don’t make explicit their thought process behind how or why they did something and, even if they are able to come up with a compelling story, they are unable to explain their thought process,” he said.