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Google Tops 100 Best Places To Work

Posted by kdawson on from the perks-galore dept.

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."

3 of 317 comments (clear)

  1. Re:What about the 100 worst places? by ozmanjusri · · Score: 5, Interesting
    Because whoever'd publish such a list would get hit with a defamation suit within the hour?

    Sue away...

    http://www.wanderlist.com/worstUScompanies

    --
    "I've got more toys than Teruhisa Kitahara."
  2. Re:Intersting that Apple is missing - by Al+Dimond · · Score: 5, Interesting

    Good location?

    Apple is located in Cupertino, CA, in the middle of Silicon Valley. It is not a "good location". Silicon Valley is endless, boring, ugly suburban sprawl. You'd hope that it would at least be cheap to live in such a crappy place, but it's not, cost of living is very high. I know because that's where I am living right now, and I'm moving as soon as my lease is up. I don't know if you've ever lived here or not, but I think lots of people just think that it must be cool to live in California where you're near the ocean and it never snows...

  3. Re:What about the 100 worst places? by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 5, Interesting
    Personally, I view the entire exercise as a sham. I have personal experience with one of the companies on the list - Principal Financial - which I refer to as my year from hell.

    The company is legendary here in Des Moines ... they can break virtually any law they care to, without consequence. They are the proverbial 900 lb gorilla. With a long history of owning the State senators and Attorney General. As an example, they finally got rid of the 'Hourly exempt' class in 1999, under Federal pressure ... how many years was that illegal under the FLSA?

    Recently, they had to devalue, sorry, restate their mortgage portfolio by half ... just a little stock fluffing there ... before Citi bought that division - and then canned the lot of them. Oh, and the recently departed were not allowed to apply for any other Principal job for a year. Well, actually, once they were pick-slipped, they could *apply*, but Principal wouldn't even look at them. Yep, that's illegal.

    Local headhunters have learned to (mostly) avoid the company ... send in an applicant, and they'll often come back with the line "We already had the applicant on file and were planning on contacting them in the near future." The first part is completely true ... you applied back in High School, they've kept your résumé on file. The second half? Well, the applicant will get a phone call ... now.

    The company does do a lot of things right, and many divisions are good, even great places to work. But it's very much up to chance, unless you have friends on the inside already. Doesn't help that the senior execs are morally and ethically bankrupt.

    And, of course, I seriously question how a company makes it onto the 'Top 100' list when their out-of-court settlements to former employees range into the hundreds-of-thousands. Regularly.

    Hard feelings? ADNR sounds about right.