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Another Google Recruiting Technique
An anonymous reader writes "The new edition of Linux Journal has a special insert: The GLAT (Google Labs Aptitude Test) is a Google recruiting quiz presented as a spoof of standardised aptitude tests. It is filled with math and Google-related trivia."
They've been putting puzzles on the inside front cover of the Mensa Bulletin for at least the past few months (I just joined). This month, the GLAT was stapled to the inside instead of the inside cover puzzles I'd been seeing.
It actually has some neat questions. Lots of fun!
I claim first use of "Error No. 0B" - or "No. 0B error." It'll be the new ID 10T!
For those wishing to find organizations more stringent in their requirements than Mensa (pages all from :
TOPS (99th percentile, which apparently equates to a 1360 on the SAT, which is surprisingly low)
One in a thousand society (99.9th, ~1520 on the SAT), all the way to the Giga society which demands with a straight face an IQ of 196 or higher to join.
Ok, I'm tired of providing links. Look a few pagefuls down on this page http://www.eskimo.com/~miyaguch/hoeflin.html and you'll see that such societies are both in abundance and have widely varying selection criteria. I qualify for most - but certainly not all! - of those societies purely on academic test scores (haven't been IQ tested since I was a youth) but don't see the point of them and don't feel like going through the trouble of specialized "entrance exams". I can stroke my ego myself, thank you very much, and defining any of my life strictly on "how smart I am" vs. "what I have accomplished" or "what am I in the process of accomplishing" would be counterproductive imo.
In a nutshell, he hinted that they use Linux, that they have loads of cheap systems which 1) they expect will break down and 2) are cheap to fix, that a large part of the systems indexes content and that another large part of the systems serves content. And Google is hiring.
He constantly repeated that because they went public he was not allowed to be specific. And he wasn't. There was a watchful Google woman that apparently took note of everything that went on and assisted at the proclamations of secrecy. And Google is hiring.
Then he touched the Google policy and hinted that Google has a sort of principle of "not being evil". In my words, this means Google has considered being evil and decided not to be (maybe for the time being). Did I mention that Google is hiring?
Oh yes and they were hiring. Yes hiring, hiring and hiring. There were even forms (as if the audience didn't know where to look for them on Google). And of course he couldn't say anything about the rates, due to... But Google is hiring.
At the end of the presentation I thought:
- Google kicks ass in low cost high performance computing.
- Gmail will give them experience in how to handle confidentially in low cost high performance computing.
- They (and not RedHat) have everything in order to become the next MS.
(Monopoly on a technology and loads of quickly earned bucks.)
- I guess that their going public results in less fun at the company.
- Why do they need/want more money? They are doing OK as it is!
- I decided to let Google have loads of fun with their money and not to take anything of that away from them by applying.
- Oh yeah, they probably want the best for the lowest price. Both in HW and HR.
And not to forget: Google is hiring.I hadn't the slightest objection to his spending his time planning massacres for the bourgeoisie... (P.G. Wodehouse)