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Google Tops 100 Best Places To Work
inetsee writes "Fortune Magazine's annual '100 Best Companies to Work For' list is out, and Google topped the list in their debut appearance. Some highlights of the benefits of working for Google that caught my eye were the free gourmet meals and the massages. The chance to spend 20% of your time working on your own personal projects also sounds very appealing. Of course, with resumes rolling in at the rate of thousands a day, the competition is fierce."
How come we never hear about that?
Competitive pay, gourmet food, good location, great benefits. Where's the fruit company?
Well, since the recruitment process is a machine, just write your resume like a robot. GoogleBot's sure to pick you then!
For a site about things like basic rights, Slashdot users sure do like to censor "dissent".
I want to work for Goolge too. As long as it doesn't get caught in my eye.
OK I know that was bad.
-b.
I just felt a shudder at the thought of an SEO "optimising" my cv.
liqbase
Sounds like a trip to the library is in order before I submit my resume!
Thanks for the info!
The "duh" tag could prove useful.
Theory is often inaccurate(TM)
Fine, but if you're working in a smaller, less demanding company, you might have that time free, so you can work on the projects without the company knowing about it. Far better to market an idea independently than under the auspices of a large employer. At least you have the opportunity for profits far beyond a salary that way.
gourmet meals, massages
Just give me a decent salary, TYVM. If I want a massage, I can go to a masseur after hours. If I'm working in a city, I can pretty much order whatever I want to (and can afford) for lunch.
-b.
Fortune has a tendancy to concentrate on public companies, since that's their industry, pimping public companies. The vast majority of companies in the US are privately held, and under 1000 employees. I notice that none on this list are less than 1000 employees. They even have the gall to call those "small" companies.
I've had enough abrasive sigs. Kittens are cute and fuzzy.
Some highlights of the benefits of working for Goolge that caught my eye were the free gourmet meals and the massages.
Sounds like you got a happy ending with that gourmet meal and massage.
The theory of relativity doesn't work right in Arkansas.
I tried starting my own company, but some geek guy in glasses bought me out.
Now my pencils are all broken.
One of the biggest advantages of working for Slashdot is you don't have to know how to spell Google.
(I hate spelling nazis, but crap, we are talking about EDITORS here...)
Tequila: It's not just for breakfast anymore!
I've worked at a technology company that had an on-demand gourmet chef, free massages, a concierge, free snacks and pop and very similar perks. Once somebody realized this was wasting a bunch of money and that people would work there even if there wasn't a gourmet chef, they dropped the perks all together. Alot of people then got angry about this and left and then things returned to normal. It is still one of the best places to work. Google has alot of money and they haven't had a chance to be taught a lesson in frugality. Once shareholders start demanding the impossible and they can not meet these demands with their profits from advertising only, you better believe that gourmet chef's job will be the first to go!
While I don't mean to be harsh on Google such practices were common during the dot com heyday. My company even had a beer cart on fridays. That's all gone now that the company has to meet earnings. While Google is doing fine now I'm not sure they can sustain their ideal ways indefinitely. Enjoy it while it lasts.
If you are looking for benefits specifically, most starups and small companies can not afford top-tier health insurance and dental insurance, and usually you have to kick in a whole lot for your percentage.
2006 may not be a year of Intel
Not a misspelling. It's Google's word for the Google gulag ;-)
There are shills on slashdot. Apparently, I'm one of them.
Dang. I was just thinking of going to work there before this...
What? Just put all sorts of porn META tags in, and you're set!
Fascism starts when the efficiency of the government becomes more important than the rights of the people.
37signals seems to be just such a company.
Indeed!
Google appears to be somewhere in the 91st to last range in terms of pay.
Those free lunches must really keep their employees happy..
I was interviewed by google three times, then told told me to #$%^ off (well,
ok, just that they would never again contact me)...
I think their job hunting ideals are odd at best. For instance, I have a
BS in EE an MS in Physics and I took all of the courses to get a Doctorate
in computer engineering. I think I know a little, but ok, I have been beat down
and humbled by my profs before, so I know on the scope of things I do not really
know jack, but still, suffice it to say, I know a few things about HW and SW.
What was odd is the following, I was interviewing for sysadmin, I know: with my
background?, but I worked my way through college and for an international company
as a sysadmin. The interview kept getting deeper and deeper on odd levels. We
started to chat about algorithms and soon it was "please derive this recursion
algorithm from first principles" ok, I did it (I took a few algorithm classes)
but I kept thinking why would a unix sysadmin need this? It was kind of strange...
I think with the three interviews I derived 6 sorting algorithms for them. Uh,
right, cuz I lost a file on the main server and I need to find it quickly? None
of the guys asked anything about processes, memory management, OS speeds, pipes,
networking, etc. It was all searching and basic math/algorithms.
I know it has been covered here before, but I think if you apply for Google you should
apply for something you _don't_ want to do, perhaps it will turn out ok...
my home, inside my cozy home.
My employer pays me to download porn and read Slashdot, whilst looking like I'm working. It doesn't get any better than that, people.
(Disclaimer: IANAL) Unless you've signed some sort of non-compete agreement, I believe there's a general rule you can follow:
If you do it on company property and/or using company resources, it's theirs. If you do it outside of the workplace and without using company resources, it's yours.
As an aside, I would SO not hire the grandparent poster.
"Want to take a tour?"
Do you think Taco would allow it?
Don't care what anyone else thinks. The best place to work is as a faculty at a university.
And if you complain about it not being a company, then you're just plain picky.
Beetle B.
Yahoo's on the list? Well, I guess it's a trade off - good working conditions and benefits along with an even money chance of being fired in the Yahoo shake-up in 2007.
Not my first choice of employer...
Bear in mind that EA was also rated highly on this list for a while. This list is more about who can impress the editors with the best story about why their place is awesome to work at. What it really means is that Googles HR people are doing a great job of selling the company. Dont get me wrong, Google is a great place for a software engineer to work at, but this list doesnt mean diddly.
This list leaves most of the smaller companies off of it too. Maybe they should consider the title "100 best places to work if you want to work for a huge multinational." I am not knocking them for doing that, after all, how could they consider every small business in America? Just observing that there are some really great small companies out there. Also worth considering is that smaller companies will usually compensate you a lot better because they have fewer qualified applicants than the Googles and Microsofts of the world.
Using goolge as a tag? I lol @ you
or business opportunities. They foster personal development and exploration. If you only ever learn or do the stuff you need to do the job, then you're far from likely to bring new ideas & thinking to the table. I spend a lot of time doing personal projects (on my own time) and they often have some spin-off benefit at work. For instance, I recently wrote some software that was cranking approx 50k interrupts per second. At work there was some concern as to whether a similar processor could crank 10k interrupts per second and I could immediately provide some input. In another project, someone was looking for a way to do some test configuration. Someone else had been playing with Python and suggested that some cool python features would be useful.
Engineering is the art of compromise.
> The chance to spend 20% of your time working on your own personal projects also sounds very appealing.
I've known a few people that have worked there and some that do now. From what I understand, at least most of the time, you get to spend 20% of the 50-70 hours of your work week there on your side project. Yeah, the official work week is only 40 hours, and you're technically supposed to be able to spend 8 hours of that on your own thing... but managers being managers (even at Google), they still schedule the work like you're spending all 40 hours a week (and maybe a little more) on your real project and are displeased if you don't deliver.
This morning I received email from Google saying my resume wasn't an ideal match. I guess that means I stay at street level. Perhaps some scraps will fall from the gourmet table of the internet elite.
http://xkcd.com/c192.html :-)
"Words of wisdom: drop that zero and get with the hero" -- Vanilla Ice
Do you notice something? Google is amongst the top places when it comes to benefits, and they're also one of the top players when it comes to productivity. Could it be that satisfied workers are productive workers? Even if they put 20% of their time into private projects?
Simply because a dissatisfied worker will put 20% of his time into the company and slack off the rest. Why bother working harder than necessary for the slave wage you get? Why bother spending half a thought on what you're doing? Do you get more money if you do something beneficial for your corp? Or will it be swallowed away by one of the managers as "their bright idea" anyway?
So Google is in the fortunate situation to hand pick their employees. The kind that is more productive in 20% of their time than a good deal of people in 150% (i.e. with 50 percent overtime). The kind of people that don't NEED a job, but the kind that can choose wherever they want to work.
So what's left for the rest? Exactly. The sludge. The kind of worker that tries to spend the hours between 9-5 with as little effort as possible and drops his keyboard the moment the clock strikes 5. Or, more likely, he'll drop his coffee mug.
That's what you get for minimum wage and zero benefits. Supply and demand, price and quality.
We used to have a Bill of Rights. Now, with the rights gone, all we have left is the bill.
Do you notice something? Google is amongst the top places when it comes to benefits, and they're also one of the top players when it comes to productivity. Could it be that satisfied workers are productive workers? Even if they put 20% of their time into private projects?
That's more the nature of the business. They don't make anything physical, and they provide very little customer service.
All of Google's businesses other than search generate little if any revenue. Really, stuff like Google's office systems exist to push back against Microsoft, not because running a word processor in the browser is a good idea.
I applied to the Google for a marketing position. I was rejected in less than 24 hours. I should have given them my blog site to read (they might have learned I was the perfect geek to help them toward solar system domination). Too bad, I guess I'll start a company and bury them. Remember the acronym for IBM, I'll Bury Microsoft! haha we'll all be using the google for many years to come.
I am the PWA of the 31337!
I've had folks balk at the type of questions they've been asked, even to the point of arguing, "Do I REALLY need to know this stuff for this job?". My answer is, "Well, yes. Otherwise, I wouldn't have asked it.".
Unfortunately, the breakdown is often due to HR and the way jobs are labelled. If I had to guess, a sysadmin at Google is far closer to a typical Software Dev Engineer than usual (for whatever reason). Now, I don't know why the damn jobs just aren't labelled properly in the first place. It sucks for both the interviewer and the candidate when it's obvious that the person is interviewing for the wrong type of position.
-- jchenx
If anything, MORE perks have been added, such as upgraded coffee (Starbucks, instead of Farmer's Brothers).
No, nothing like Google and smaller tech companies. It's much more expensive to add perks, obviously, when you're dealing with 40k+ or so employees.
-- jchenx
"Do you notice something? Google is amongst the top places when it comes to benefits, and they're also one of the top players when it comes to productivity. Could it be that satisfied workers are productive workers?"
Get some prostitutes (male and female) in there and productivity should go through the roof.
I'm going to have to run with a lot of what the Slashdotters are saying about this article and say that small companies are really nice to work for. I work for a small manufacturer about 10 minutes away from where I live. The pay is good and we get bennies. The flexibility I have is second to none. I can clock out, walk downstairs and tell the girls up front that "I'm leaving and I don't know when I'll be back, but you can get me by phone if you need me." Plus it's probably the only place I can wear a T-shirt depicting a newly married couple with the huge letters "BIG MISTAKE" below it three days after my boss' wedding. Additionally, I take off a day a week for my "own projects". So there's my 20%. True, I don't get paid for it, but since my project is a consulting company I make up for it.
It sounds like the late 90's are coming back at Google. It's nice to have little perks like what they offer I guess, but it isn't for me. I like to know everything that's going on and hate the idea of being just another cog in the machine. Gourmet meals and massages wouldn't make up for the diminutive part I would play in a large corp, even if it is Google.
At this company I'm at, the buck stops with me regarding the administration of this network. The pay is 25K less than what I was offered at a large corporation, but when you factor in power of decision-making, flexibility, the commute, and the overall freedom in a small company like this one I would have to say it's worth the pay cut.
IMHO, Google isn't any different from any other large corp except that they can burn more cash and seem to try to treat their employees well. But keep in mind that even if they offered a large starting salary it would be sucked up matching the insane cost of living in the area they're in, with a terrible commute as an added bonus. Maybe those applying in droves want to be a part of history and say "I worked for Google", but not me. I'm perfectly happy right where I am, and am not buying into the hype.
-R
Don't forget that all of these benefits that are often touted as a result of working for Google are only (generally) available to the upper brass and engineers. Google has plenty of lower-level employees doing the tech equivalent of grunt work and they're treated about the same as in any other company.
Or even somewhat worse...
I interviewed with them for such a job and was startled to learn that although Google does all the interviewing and hiring, they always hire their entry-level employees through a temp agency for the first year. So while many companies have a one- to three-month probation period, Google has a full year before they trust you enough to bring you on as a real employee.
I worked at Google and no one around me was doing the 20% thing. People was busy and stressed enough working long hours as to add another project on top. The 20% open source project is just a myth.
1) Industry leader
It's nice working for companies that are arguably industry leaders. That's why you'll always have a ton of people interviewing for Microsoft, Apple, Dell, Intel, Amazon, etc. Those big names, regardless of how you perceive the companies themselves, still look awfully good on resumes. And chances are, they have pretty darn good pay as well. There's also a good chance that the projects you will work on, have a pretty large scope. For many, it's great to say you worked on "Product X", even though your actual contribution may be rather small. It's still better than saying you worked on "Product Y" that no one has even heard of, or ever will.
2) Interesting projects
Before Google was at the top, and before it could offer all those really great benefits, you still had a bunch of upstart software engineers wanting to work there, because the projects were really interesting. Even if the benefits weren't there, and Google wasn't quite at the top yet, you'd still have engineers very interested in that space. Sure, not as many, but the people you would get could arguably be the best, since they're actually excited about the work.
In contrast, you've got a ton of smaller companies that could offer fantastic benefits, but if you're missing out on the above two things
-- jchenx
That hasn't been my experience here in Pittsburgh. Yeah, I know. Not exactly what you think of as a high-tech Mecca, do you? Yet we've got a really strong expert base around robotics, networking, file systems and search; and the resources of several major universities and corporations to draw on. On top of all that - and more to the point - there's an organization here called the Pittsburgh Technology Council. Aside from other things, the PTC offers member companies some really good deals on medical and dental benefits. I've worked for four startups here over the past 10 years, and quite frankly, the benefits they've been able to snag through the PTC have been equal to or better than those available from larger corporations.
I'd be really surprised if similar organizations don't exist in other cities. Don't write off working for a smaller company before you check them out and see what they have to offer. You might be pleasantly surprised.
"Great men are not always wise: neither do the aged understand judgement." Job 32:9
Some places might be great if you're higher up in payscale, but could definitely suck if you're lower down. Other places might have some cool perks or easy jobs for those at the entry level. I don't think there's a list that really shows that just yet. Then you could weigh pay vs. lifestyle in looking at a potential employer. You could see what companies offer soft jobs that don't pay much, or dirty/hard/risky work that has a more than decent return for time put in.
So for a given region (such as continental U.S.), you could have a list of the ten best and worst for each yearly wage. Ranges would be something such as $0-$20,000, $21,000 - $35,000, $36,000 - $50,000, $51,000 - $100,000, and $101,000+
Nike is on the list. No explanation necessary. Really. There's nothing else in this post.
Here is a link to the WWW site of the book
The Company mode seems to have changed somewhat since the early pre-IPO days, but if I was able to replay my life I'd certainly try very hard to get on the Google payroll. "The Google Way" seems to have replaced the old "HP Way".
Govt jobs can be both the best and the worst. On the upside expectations are nil and no one cares. You can be lazy and evil and treat people like shit - as long as you're not sexist, racist or insulting to the handicapped or muslims you can have another job at your job. And if god is really smiling on your you can be a small city cop. On the downside you can work in hell in shitty surroundings and there's no way out. On the really bad side you can be working for a dept that is indicted and people go to jail.
Sorry to threadjack, but how many people had to mispell google to creat that tag?
Linux, you magnificent bastard, I read the fucking manual!
my basement
If you don't like the Valley, then you should consider Zurich, Seattle, Boston, Pittsburgh, .... Google is Global.
Fuck Google. Wizards of the Coast is the coolest place to work at for a nerd. - Nihil
Not to mention high pay great benefits and job security.
Fed jobs pay nearly twice what private sector jobs do on average.
Avg full time private job 55k in pay and bennies Avg Fed job 110k
I am honored to pay their salary.
Its sad but doesn't really have much to do with how good your resume is. Its all about just getting your resume clicked on in someone's email. The best times to send a resume are:
Sunday 12:01am
Mon-Thurs 12:01am
Friday 3:30pm
I used to average 2-3 months for a job but lately its been a week between jobs! You would think there is another bubble out there or something
Just as interesting as who's ON the list is who's OFF the list.
Has anyone checked this year's chart vs. last year's?
For example, I thought Apple, Intel and AMD would try to attract employees a bit harder, but apparently none of them are on the list.
All this shows is that, right now, Google is rolling. They have the money to allow workers to work on their own projects, get massages and eat gourmet meals. As soon as the margins start slimming down (and they always do), guess what the first things to go will be? Everything that makes them the greatest place to work...
For example, I thought Apple, Intel and AMD would try to attract employees a bit harder, but apparently none of them are on the list.
Intel did very poorly in 2006, and has decided that it has way too many employees. So they're busy firing lots of them. Intel isn't really a great place to work right now.
Often times when I present a cashier with a cheque from Google (I use their AdSense, the amount is never all that impressive) they ask, "do you work for Google?". In a way, I guess I do, but not because I am so smrt.
Google has to be in the top five best-known brands on the planet.
The list is pretty biased towards US-based companies. In most other Western countries you have five weeks of vacation and maximum of eight hours of labour each day. Plus good job security so that you can not be fired just because the boss dislikes you. And if you do get fired or quit, there is unemployment insurance money you can take out so that you do not have to starve while you look for a new job. With that in mind, I doubt that any US company could be "best," because when it comes to benefits, the US is centuries behind the rest of the Western world.
Football Odds
The interview process is not very fun at all. After being selected for a phone interview they make you fill out a self evaluation form. You better not fill out a 10 in any area unless you wrote the book (because they have the guys that wrote the book - and they will call you). I ended up doing 3 phone interviews before I was sent an email saying that the position I was applying for had already been filled (I got in the process a little late). Depending on the position you are going for there may be quite a few more phone interviews followed by a very tough in-house interview (over 10 interviews in 2 days).
If you are in a field where you can work for google, I would try to get an interview with them. If you get it, great! If not, it will make most any other interview you have feel easy.
/* Insert some overused slashdot quote here */
> The interview process is not very fun at all.
Oh No! You actually get asked interesting questions by people who you might end up working alongside! How terrible that must be for you. Far better to waste a day being interviewed by a panel of five or six clueless managers who haven't the faintest idea what your job would actually entail if you can lie most convincingly.
I can see just how dreadful that must be, to have a rigorous test of your competence.
BTW, we tend not to have more than five in-person interviews these days.
I worked at Google and just like the freshman 15 in college, there's a Google 15 when you get to the Googleplex. Where do you think all the free gourmet food is going to go???
I paid for college by working on fishing boats that worked the Bering Sea. Now THAT was dirty work- during cod season, my job was to bleed them out before they died of asphyxiation- this prevents blood from pooling in the meat, makes fillets pretty and white. If you've ever slaughtered anything for a living, you know what it is to be covered in blood spray. Mercifully, fish don't scream.
When we were in the fish, we'd work insane hours- 20 on, 4 off, repeat. After a while, people would lose their will to live, and injury rates would go up. Commercial fishing ranked just behind crabbing and high-rise firefighting for dangerous jobs. I have, it would appear, an exceptionally strong will to live, but a weak stomach- for 12 hours at the beginning of every storm we hit (some of which were plain incredible) I would throw up every 20 minutes. I promise, I didn't do it in your fishsticks.
No bad smell I've ever encountered compares to the smell of those boats on the way back to port- by the end of the trip, the fish that fell to the deck and didn't wash overboard had been covered by the fish that fell after, and the bottom fish were liquefied goo. Fire hoses would start the job, followed by scrub pads, brushes, and chlorine-based sanitizers. There was no way to not smell like rotten fish- and after a while, you couldn't bring yourself to care. I burned my boat clothes after my last contract, which finished paying off my undergrad loans, bought me a car, and took a small chunk out of my grad school loans.
I'm glad to have the experience I have; being at sea all that time was, in hindsight, strangely wonderful- I've always loved the sea. The downsides were that most of your peers were either burn-outs from the service sector, took a contract because they blew their last pile of money up their nose, or were one step ahead of their parole officers- and management treated us all accordingly- like malfunctioning teenagers.
I now work for one of the companies on the top 100 list, don't have to kill anything but runaway processes, don't have to risk life and limb, get to use my brain for a living, but still spend a lot of time looking at the ocean.
If there's one thing I won't stand for, it's intolerance.
BUPA is not remotely comparable to US health insurance. The cover is very cheap, and most working people can easily afford it. The reason, of course, is that BUPA doesn't cover the expensive stuff - if you need long-term care or complex surgery they will simply refer you back to the NHS.
In the top100 I spotted quite at the top 2 companies I know of. I know somebody who works for one of them and tried to get into the second one as well. Those 2 companies pay very well, but you have to leave behind you your social life and your morality. It's all about profit and being happy when a graph goes up. So seeing Google next to those companies is not very reassuring...
OK, I'll go over this once more:
The easiest way to find the best places to work is to look for the ones whose names end in "..University".
The money is surprisingly competitive, there are tons of holidays and always hot young chicks around. Try to live walking distance and you'll be able to sleep in on days you don't have "meetings".
Plus, if you are a moderately capable worker, you will immediately be made a Director, and the Administration will be amazed that you are so much more productive than anyone else in the place. Just do your job at about half-speed and you'll raise the average.
They'll even pay for you to engage in the greatest scam of all: Getting your PhD. Once you do that, you are forever enshrined in the Brotherhood of People Who Take it Easy and you can spend your days playing Eve and "walking down the street for an espresso".
Many the day I pinch myself for the great luck of having left all the corporate bullshit behind a few decades ago. Oh, there's one more important step: Marry a brilliant, beautiful Math Grad Student (preferably from Eastern Europe - the Asian ones will expect you to work hard), then when she gets a job in the Financial World, even Lotto winners will envy you.
You are welcome on my lawn.
Hmmm... I see Timberland... If you are on top of the chain it may be fantastic to work there. What about the Far Eastern employers doing all the hard job?
:-)
Also Adobe... Of course, that explains all. They don't care if Reader, Audition or Photoshop take ages to load. They are drinking coffee or being in the company's gym while waiting
But, if i select "High" on amount on women in the workplace, Google ain't even listed at Top 10! Shame on you google!
"Google is an outsourcer of US jobs to other countries, at a time when many US tech workers are unemployed. "
That is great, "US jobs".
Google takes money from all over the world, but somehow, the jobs are sacred and belong to the US.
Please stop staring at your bellybutton, and look around.
The second one is a dupe.
I've met/know a few people who *worked* for Google but quit because they weren't happy. Yes, they enjoyed the food and other perks, but that didn't make the actual work (when ever they did it) any better for them. My current counterpart at Adobe is one of them and he is enjoying himself quite a bit more now than he was when working for Google.
I for one think this is a bad thing. In general, I believe software developers are VERY overpaid, especially when you consider the _millions_ of hackers coming out of India, Russia, and the far east. Expecting western-world wages for software engineering to stay as lucrative as they have remained means building higher walls and thicker borders to keep the "poor, unwashed masses" out of our world. That too, am I against.
Great, Google's snapping up talent. How are they going to compete with a company powered by english-speaking, PhD wielding Indians who will work for 1/4 the money, produce better software, and still live like kings in low-cost-of-living parts of the world? I just can't see it being sustained for very long.
Face it: there's usually only one orange hat on the construction site. The rest of us gotta do the grunt work and be somewhat content with a good living wage.
-dave
6th Street Radio @ddombrowsky
There are lots of huge organizations.. and sometimes, when you get screwed (and you inevitably will working somewhere) it can sometimes be a tiny bit more acceptable knowing that you work for a large company and that is just how things happen at big companies. However, if you work for a small company, and they tell you that you 'are family' and THEN they end up screwing it, it can really make you bitter.
Part of the point of the interview process is for the interviewee to judge whether the potential employers seem nice, and know what they're doing.
During my career, I've interviewed at least 50 people. It always seems to come down to the opinion of the interviewers. I've seen people rejected because of bad gut feels.
Heinous traffic in Silicon Valley.
Hey, Google is also in other places... like Phoenix, where we
Insane housing prices in Silicon Valley.
Here in the Phoenix valley, house prices skyrocketed over the past 2 years.. but now at least there are many many houses on the market, and you don't have to make a full-price offer within 24 hours of it being on the market to buy it.
I was interested in Google last year, I was out of a job, and they were hiring. I got through the first part of the interview process, but didn't want to wait around for the next 6 weeks going through several more interviews before I found out if they wanted me. The Google recruiter sounded overworked, and was honest with me that if I didn't hear from them in a couple of weeks, to get back in contact with them because they are so swamped that people slip through the cracks. I didn't hear from them, and didn't bother. I ended up getting a contract with a very large banking organization. I've been at big companies, but it was nice to see the way this one operates. Certainly not the small company environment, but they have a nice 'work-from-home' policy that is a HUGE benefit to me.
When you interview, some people like to ask what your 'perfect' job would be. I honestly don't think it exists. (wait, does winning the lottery count as a job?)
My beliefs do not require that you agree with them.
There are tens of thousands of people working in this area and none of the usual amenities you would find in an area with tens of thousands of people.
That's what happens with skyrocketing real estate prices and high-paying jobs. People convince themselves that it all evens out... "Oh sure, the rents are higher, but the pay is higher, too!" Fine and dandy, except Joe the Science Teacher can't afford to live in the city any more. And Bob the Convenience Store Clerk doesn't feel like commuting three hours in each direction just to give you cigarettes and lotto tickets.
When you price out the people who run the guts of a city—the teachers, the firemen, the street sweepers and convenience store clerks—the city turns into the Office Park Wasteland you so aptly describe.
You needed a more cutting-edge name.
Build a man a fire, he's warm for one night. Set him on fire, and he's warm for the rest of his life.
CONTRACTING for Google. /Shudder
Dillards is at the top of their list...this hits home for me. My wife just quit her job there. I have to say, that in the month she worked there I know enough to say that Dillards is the worst place to work for. Hear this:
1) if you don't meet sales targets, at your semi-annual review you get a pay cut. No, you don't get commission. You don't get a huge raise if you exceed your sales targets. You just get a pay cut if you miss.
2) Servant mentality. Employees are forbidden from using the store's elevators, escalators, etc. They must exit in the back of the mall, and even when it's dark out there is no security to ensure than employees get to their cars, and they must park in Antartica.
3) Judging from the previous item, you'd think there is no security. No, there is security -- to watch the employees. My wife had to ge a clear purse (really a bag) because she cannot carry in opaque bags. There is security watching them at their counters. They are watched in the stores. They are watched as they exit and enter. And the mall that she works in is in a good part of town.
4) Poor morale. In addition to mistreating employees, Dillards fosters a very competitive spirit among employees. So nobody likes one another.
5) Bad scheduling. My wife took this job because she has limited availability, since I work and we have two children. This leaves just a few evenings that she can work, and as such she was unable to get a job more like she is accustomed to. Well, of course, they scheduled her overnight to do inventory, which was flat out unnacceptable.
6) After about a month, my wife (being the honest, professional person she is) wrote a resignation letter. When she tried to hand it to the manager, he told her he could not accept it and instead she needed to fill out a form. Management proceeded to avoid her for the rest of the day. Needless to say, she never got a form. She made them take her letter. This is how they treat people who try to do the right thing and give notice. She should have just did a no show on a Saturday or something. That would have served them right.
So, while this site is obviously a not-so-reputable one, they are dead right. Dillards is a horrid place to work, and they deserve to go out of business. Hope you enjoyed reading this. It should make you feel *really* good about your job as you sit at your desk sipping a coffee. I know I do.
blah blah blah
Obviously these folks either have a sense of humor or they don't count most of the staff at Nike. Nike Sweatshop Air: Just do it, now b*tch!
-Those who would give up essential liberty to purchase temporary safety deserve neither. -Ben Franklin
Besides their sleazy reputation, an employee I know says they've cut health care, holidays, raises, parties, etc.despite having record profits the past three years.
Fortune doesn't exactly go to great lengths to avoid getting biased data from the companies. Our company shows up on the list every year. Every year our Human Resources department solicits comments from the employees, cherry picks the ones they like, and forwards them to Fortune.
I know this is a bit off topic but it is better out of my chest, so here I go: I applied for a job at Google Zürich. English is a foreign language for me, but I have been working in English for a few years now. I don't speak it perfectly but for sure I can manage myself in an English environment.
:-(
I have been interviewed over the phone by several European and American googlers and everything was running smoothly until I was interviewed by someone from California with an utterly remarkable accent. I'm more used to British English and it was very difficult for me to understand her. I was dumped right after that interview. I am extremely disappointed; I really hoped I was going to be hired.
I understand why she dumped me; she probably thinks that I can barely speak English and that I am 30 points dumber than I really am. What annoys me the most is that the questions she was asking were very easy. She was asking me about the inner workings of smart pointers in C++, an area that I know fairly well.
I am disappointed
The ONLY best company to work for is THE COMPANY you will create!
I had just committed to buying/building a 7000 sq ft. house in the midwest - finally moving to my dream house, which is somewhat of a feat in these parts, on midwest salaries. But I have been blessed in my career, surrounding myself with really talented people. My resume was posted on the web, and they came to me. Google called me! Well, needless to say, I was not inclined to move to California, with this new home purchase. But being open to new opportunities, I'd gladly take a free trip to Silicon Valley. I spent many days out there in my former job with a computer company, and so I was excited to talk to them. And even more so, since it was Google, of all companies.
Well, they interrupted my Stained Glass window selection process (part of the house-building process), which my wife was not too thrilled about. But I took the call, and listened to their recruiter / HR person, who didn't have too much of a technical background, quiz me on three questions. This was their phone interview. Pretty comical. Three math / computer science questions, that the HR person couldn't answer, but had some script to grade me with.
I answered those correctly. She was almost in shock. "No one gets those." In fact, had I been at a PC, and not standing at an interior design studio at the time, I probably could have Googled the answers. Or even more fun - I could have used Yahoo to find the answers! But I knew these answers. So it's off to the face-to-face interviews, which was the next step in the process. I was invited to line up a trip.
I never did do the trip out west. There wasn't much time left before our move date to make a trip. And I felt a little weird about it - going out there without much intention to take a job, and wasting time (mine and theirs) in the process. Could you imagine taking a bath on a million and a half dollar investment, so that I could move into a 2000 sq ft home out there? Not to mention that they really didn't impress me with their little quiz interview. It was silly. Surely you can find a better way to screen candidates! But I do have to say, they were more than gracious, and I can't say anything bad about the company!
So now my goal is to start a company and be bought out by Google.
They see us rolling
On our segways...
Not really. Given the time span of this list and the number of PhD-carrying Google employees this is actually not that big a record. Note that many of these papers were also produced by people that joined Google _after_ producing those papers.
Of course I respect your preference of products over academic papers. However, since my comment was on the freedom to publish academically, that's off-topic. And that freedom can only demonstrated by publications produced inside the publication.
Don't misinterpret this as Google-bashing. I, too, like Google's products. I have just noticed that
Microsoft, Yahoo and IBM, for example, publish a *lot* more academic papers than Google, and people
working for Google have confirmed to me that this is indeed the case. It's a fair enough decision, but just not everybody's taste, your ad hominem argument about academic work notwithstanding.