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Google Adjusts Hiring Processes
Carl Bialik from WSJ writes "Google is attempting to fine tune its hiring process as it ramps up recruiting to keep pace with its success, the Wall Street Journal reports. From the article: 'In Google's early years, [Sergey] Brin or co-founder Larry Page interviewed nearly all job candidates before they were officially hired. A former Google executive recounts how, on occasion, Mr. Brin would show up for candidates' job interviews in unconventional dress, from roller blades to a cow costume complete with rubber udders around Halloween. Even today, at least one of the co-founders reviews every job offer recommended by an internal hiring committee on a weekly basis, sometimes pushing back with questions about an individual's qualifications.' While the interview process can remain 'glacial,' Google's new head of human resources notes that the average number of in-person interviews for each candidate offered a job has declined to 5.1 from 6.2. The company continues to seek overqualified employees who can be promoted quickly."
From TFA: "[Google] has traditionally focused a lot on candidates' academic performance and favored those who went to elite schools"
Nice to know that the new hotness is still the same old and busted.
There's a simple reason why people don't hire ambitious people: Ambitious people want to rise in the ranks and that would force YOU to work harder, or that new guy will saw off your chair's legs while you're not watching.
That sedate vegetable who's too lazy to tie his own shoelace if you don't make him, on the other hand,...
We used to have a Bill of Rights. Now, with the rights gone, all we have left is the bill.
Rickover sounds like a complete asshole. I seriously doubt if any of the bullshit he pulled during recruitment interviews ever enabled him to recruit smarter or better personnel. There's no indication that any of his strategies were crucial to winning any war the Americans were in. He sounds like a fratboy who never grew up...
I may be wrong but in all my readings about great commanders, none of the articles featured front chair legs being sawn off.
What a dick.
How is that a troll? If we have learned anything from the dot.com bubble it is that growing too quickly correlates strongly with the demise of the company (or a shitload of money from a buyout and a subsequent crash of the buying company). If you hire 1000 people a year, you have to give 3 people a day something to do. In a tech company, especially in one that favors algorithmic changes over manual intervention, that is a tough thing to do. Quick growth also dillutes the company culture because the new employees need time to internalize the ways of the company before they can pass them on to other new employees.
I had a similar experience. I received this email from a hr person speaking on behalf of Google telling me she was interested in discussing job opportunities with me. I have my CV on a website (with a note that I'm quite happy in my current job) so that's how she found me. Normally I politely decline such offers. Anyway this was Google so I decided to hear her out. It turned out she didn't actually read my CV and also did not have anything concrete to offer (i.e. something matching my CV). What she offered was this very long, open ended process of phone interviews and maybe, just maybe, I'd get hired.
Eh, no thanks I'm not that desperate, thank you very much. Hint: if you want to recruit me consider that A) I have a nice job B) You practically need to beg me to work for you rather than the other way around.
If Google wants to get the best they need to treat people a little differently. Coming in with this arrogant attitude practically guarantees that they offend people like me long before a concrete job offer is on the table. Putting dump HR processes in front of me is pretty much guaranteed to piss me off in minutes. Don't waste my time with that!
"The company continues to seek overqualified employees who can be promoted quickly"
Remember, boys and girls: "overqualified" is simply HR's way of saying "can be underpaid."
How interesting. Much of the experience other /. posters have had with Google's HR are very similar to what I was put through when I interviewed with IBM in the mid '80s. And the opening (I hesitate to use the term "opportunity") at IBM wasn't even permanent: it was a 6 month contract.
First, it took 3 attempts to connect for a phone interview, and there was a significant degree of consternation at IBM that I would not permit such a call during the day (while I was working at a client's office). Then followed in person interviews at their Canadian head office, during which it became obvious in a hurry that they had not read my resume or confused it with another (my degree is NOT in Engineering from U of T, and I have NEVER worked as a mainframe systems programmer). Five different people, 4 hours. The only part that was really interesting was the lunch in the IBM cafeteria, where I quickly grew to understand where the "Big" in "Big Blue" came from.
Another phone interview followed, and then, despite two follow up letters from me, I heard nothing, so I just assumed that they were not interested and did not have the courtesy to contact me to tell me so. Fine. I took another contract I was interviewing for, and forgot about them.
Four months later, I got a phone call from IBM asking me when I can start. Huh? You think I'm going to wait around for 4 months while you decide? What planet did you say you were from?
What I took away from that experience was this: when HR and the company hiring process gets seriously confused and out of control, the company suffers big time. IBM had to take a major kick in the pants before they smartened up. Until they did, they were heading for irrelevance very quickly. I'm guessing that Google might have to go through the same thing. Not for a while, because they have a strong core and strong growth. But sooner or later it will happen. Every week that passes by, they take one more step away from upstart towards mature. And in IT, mature = complacent = stagnant = doomed.
My old company, a DoD contractor, regularly hires kids straight out of school using the carrot-and-stick payscale: they give you a job and lots of promotions, so you always feel like you are moving forward even though you are consistently 10K underpaid. After about 5 years they taper off your yearly pay increase and you plateau, again, 10K under the competition. So you either move on or accept the fact that you make pretty good money (compared to your bartending friends) at a fairly cushy job in a really good environment.
So how does this relate to you? I think you are over qualified and expensive and Google is looking for young engineers who aren't old dogs with their own bag of tricks. While that might not be smart from your point of view, it seems to be their hiring model, as it is with many companies. You're best off forging your own path, creating your own companies, and recruiting those Google guys when they become old and tired themselves.
Now I am a contractor making 6 figures and will quickly recoup that $60K I lost working at an underpaying company, which, by the way, greatly built my resume.
Sierra Tango Foxtrot Uniform
The real question is, if I went to Wharton, Kellog, HU, SU, Yale, etc....why would I want to work at Google? If I went to MIT I would want to compete against Google. They should focus on getting the best employee they can, while they can, regardless of education. Google is at it's peak right now. The employees should enjoy it. Eventually, they are going to enter the Consumer Support game and they will also have to start selling into Corporations and then Small/medium sized businesses. When that happens they are going to be hiring from ITT and every other vocational school there is. Companies like MSFT, IBM, ACN, HP et al are getting the large numbers of "above the mean" kids. They might not be getting the top 1% but they don't need to. History repeats itself and Google will make the same mistake of arrogance these other companies have made.