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."

Comments

I want to work at Goolge

[ghaltmann]

I want to work for Goolge too. As long as it doesn't get caught in my eye.

OK I know that was bad.

Very small often == very good.

[b0s0z0ku]

Find a good small company (~20 people) where you fit in well. You'll have much more flexibility since the Top isn't all that high in a small company. Or even start your own. Many of the companies worth considering aren't even on the radar yet.

-b.

Re:Very small often == very good.

[metlin]

Or find a small group within a company where you fit well, and you will feel much the same.

Companies are not all the same on the inside, and some groups are better than the others within a company.

I work in the R&D division of a telecom services company - and our group is very small but is great to work with. For the most part, we are encouraged to think up cool things with technology that we think are worth exploring and are given the opportunity to work with them.

Alternatively, you could start your own company and work with a company that you already know (i.e. consultant and consultancy services etc).

Not every group in a big "good" company is necessarily good, and not all departments in a "not-so-good" are necessarily not-so-good.

You need to feel comfortable with the group and the people you work for, else there is no point, no matter how amazing a company maybe rated.

How can I find out more about this "Google"?

[Eternal Vigilance]

Sounds like a trip to the library is in order before I submit my resume!

Thanks for the info!

Google...

[b0s0z0ku]

20% of time working on personal projects

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.

Re:Google...

[lowrydr310]

$20 says the Google massage doesn't include a 'happy ending'...

Re:Google...

[nwbvt]

"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."

Check the terms of your employment again. Most likely your employer owns rights to anything you produce while they are paying your salary, unless it absolutely has nothing to do with their line of work (and even then, you are going to want to get a lawyer to make sure everything is by the book). Generally speaking hiding another job on the side from your employer is a good way to get your ass sued.

Re:Google...

[bcrowell]

In addition to the parent post's points, I'd add four more reasons why I wouldn't want to work there:

1. It's a huge organization, where you're a cog in the wheel.
2. 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. If the interview process involves lots of monkey business with no objectively proven reliability, then that's a big minus for me. For me, the monkey business category includes handwriting tests, polygraph tests, contrived interview situations ("there's a snake in the trash can! just kidding!"), as well as Google's puzzles and goofy computer personality tests. (A homebrewed test is not a valid way to identify smart people. My mother works in the testing industry doing statistical modeling, and she considers even the professionally constructed IQ tests to be pretty poor.)
3. Heinous traffic in Silicon Valley.
4. Insane housing prices in Silicon Valley.

Large companies.

[GigsVT]

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.

yehp

[User 956]

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.

Compuglobalhypermeganet

[Freaky Spook]

I tried starting my own company, but some geek guy in glasses bought me out.

Now my pencils are all broken.

This will probably not last

[Anonymous Coward]

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!

Re:Best place, despite worst pay

[Kalriath]

If you actually looked at Google's entry in the main index, you'd see that the reason they aren't on the pay table is because they refused to disclose that info. Don't believe me? Look here

Re:What about the 100 worst places?

[ozmanjusri]

Because whoever'd publish such a list would get hit with a defamation suit within the hour?

Sue away...

http://www.wanderlist.com/worstUScompanies

Small companies is where its at

[jorghis]

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.

20% of how many hours per week?

[Anonymous Coward]

> 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.

Good ol' supply and demand

[Opportunist]

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.

Google is productive because they're automated

[Animats]

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.

Re:What about the 100 worst places?

[Kalriath]

Hmm. Paypal isn't in that list. They've broken my account such that I can't use my existing account, can't sign up for a new one, can't get responses out of their technical support. They're the worst I've ever dealt with - Sony Online comes in second for me. They complete lost an order of mine and disappeared the payment. Right. And this matters how exactly to how good of an employer they are?

Re:Intersting that Apple is missing -

[Al Dimond]

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...

Re:What about the 100 worst places?

[Anonymous Coward]

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.

Re:What about the 100 worst places?

[rossz]

That's not a proper list of bad employers. It's a random list of every company someone has a grievance with. From what I can tell, few of the posts were by current or former employers of the named company. Examples, Walmart, most people who work for them like their job. Their posting was just a typical example of "hate the big guy". Another example, Harley-Davidson, not liking their product has nothing to do with whether they are a good employer or not. In fact, HD is employee owned and, unlike in the 70's, make awesome motorcycles. However, just because I ride a Harely does not mean I am qualified to rate them as an employer.

Best is Best

[PopeRatzo]

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.

Re:Check out Google's wrongdoing!

[orasio]

"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.