Google's Answer to Filling Jobs Is an Algorithm

An anonymous reader tipped us to a New York Times article about Google's newest HR tool: an algorithm. Starting soon, the company (which gets roughly 100,000 applications a month) will require all interested applicants to fill out an in-depth survey. They'll be using a sophisticated algorithm to work through the submitted surveys, matching applicants with positions. The company has apparently doubled in size in each of the last three years. Even though it's already 10,000 employees strong Laszlo Bock, Google's vice president for people operations, sees no reason the company won't reach 20,000 by the end of the year. This will mean hiring something like 200 people a week, every week, all year. From the article: "Even as Google tries to hire more people faster, it wants to make sure that its employees will fit into its freewheeling culture. The company boasts that only 4 percent of its work force leaves each year, less than other Silicon Valley companies. And it works hard to retain people, with copious free food, time to work on personal projects and other goodies. Stock options and grants certainly encourage employees to stay long enough to take advantage of the company's surging share price. Google's hiring approach is backed by academic research showing that quantitative information on a person's background -- called 'biodata' among testing experts -- is indeed a valid way to look for good workers."

Comments

Nitpick

[mandelbr0t]

I get it, but your style leaves something to be desired. I'd write it as:

if (person.getRace() == Race.BLACK || person.getGender() == Gender.FEMALE) { return 0; }

"Black" and "Female" are values for the Race and Gender properties respectively. They don't work well as method names.

mandelbr0t

Re:Nitpick

[abigor]

Google uses Java extensively, so your suggestion is dumb (assuming "gtfo" means "get the fuck out").

ATS

[Cytlid]

Many IT recruiters already use something like this called "ATS". I revamped my resume, highlighting all my skills. One of the tricks is to squeeze as many tech buzzwords (that you know about) on there. I got a ton of hits, I had to take my resume off all the job sites when I landed a job. (The trick is you have to be clever ... I had both CCNP & CCIE on my resume ... literally stating, I have a CCNP certification, partial way to CCIE. This is perfectly honest and correct.) It works well for system admin who can have plenty of words on there, if you're generally a jack-of-all trades. I didn't put say, Java on there because honestly I know practically zero about java.

I'd be willing to bet if I filled out their survey, they'd um, "find" me. For me, it wouldn't be a programming position though, it would have to be networking or general system administration.

I'd love to work for Google, but I don't believe they have an office anywhere around where I've recently moved and settled to (and bought a house).