Cerf Launches UK Recruiting Tour

An anonymous reader writes "ZDNet is reporting that networking pioneer Vint Cerf is planning to tour the UK in an attempt to recruit coders for Google. From the article: 'Google admitted that it was having difficulties recruiting developers and would be targeting students and engineers.'"

Comments

insights long in coming

[JanneM]

'Google admitted that it was having difficulties recruiting developers and would be targeting students and engineers.'

Yeah, they finally had to acknowledge that the previous recruiting strategy of targeting florists and mime-artists just wasn't panning out, code quality-wise.

The implications are astounding

[Groo Wanderer]

Would this mean that he is trying to get the best and the brightest to work in cerfdom?

          -Charlie

(Apologies, could not resist. Must go make highbrow joke to a random person in the street as pennance.)

They need to speed up their recruitment process

[Anonymous Coward]

Perhaps they should reconsider requiring six or seven interviews involving people from three different countries and an elapsed time of two to three months?

I understand they only want to hire good people but good people will probably get a stack of written job offers before Google gets anywhere near making a decision.

Re:They need to speed up their recruitment process

[valen]

  I'd rather risk losing someone good than be lumped with someone weak who got through a light the recruitment process.

  I don't know what the ratio to hire-nohire is, but some engineers do a hundred 45 min interviews a year, on top of their normal jobs. So it's not just difficult on the applicants; but there is a really good reason for it.

  Some people say "So, just hire bad people and fire them later". Google isn't like a normal company. Stuff is done so differently that you can't afford to spend months bringing them up to speed, then find out that they can't hack it.

John

Re:They need to speed up their recruitment process

[jareth-0205]

Obviously you haven't had to look for a job recently. It's a hell of a lot more annoying to be the "good" person that is lost... and often it is a non-trivial exercise to get to interviews. That "45 minute interview" can typically take a good few hours to travel to, meaning time off work and all the costs associated with that. Whatever company it is, there's a finite number of times most people can afford to travel to interviews, and lets be honest, any interviewer worth his salt will be able to size up an employee fairly quickly, I find it difficult to understand why more than 2 interviews is ever necessary.

Re:light years ahead of the US?

[obarel]

Do I get the job then?

Or am I just an instrument in the hands of smarter and richer people?

I saw them yesterday...

[kneeslasher]

Google visited Oxford yesterday and I went along to the event. It was OK. Instead of asking a question on the theme of "How do I get in?", one silly chap asked about how Google squared their "Do no evil." policy with China. Which led to a wasted ten minute PR exercise of why and how Google was operating in China. Apart from that, it was OK and I have a purple Google pen to show for it. There was a raffle in which I won nothing. The top prize being an iPod.

Re:light years ahead of the US?

[MountainMan101]

Actually, I think distance and time are equally used, perhaps only in English speaking countries (eg UK) and not English-derived languages (like Americanese). I would say that "time" is generally used when describing development, and distance when refering to effort. So "Linux is years ahead of Windows" and "Team X is miles ahead of Team Y at cracking that code".

Basically what I'm trying to say is, you tried to be smart but you failed.

Vint Cert Speaking Monday Evening

[jonv]

Went to see Vint Cert at this event on monday: http://www.feis.herts.ac.uk/cs40/public/index.htm
Interesting event - nothing that I hadn't heard in interview or read on the web but fun to see live.
If a new he was recruiting I would have taken my CV along!

Aggressive recruiting

[jmv]

Google admitted that it was having difficulties recruiting developers and would be targeting students and engineers.

I've just been to both linux.conf.au and FOSDEM and in both cases, Google has been recruiting really aggressively. By that, I mean someone you've never met just popping in with "Hello, have you considered working for Google?".