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The Key To Interviewing At Google
Nerval's Lobster writes Wired has an excerpt from a new book of Google-centric workplace advice, written by Laszlo Bock, the search-engine giant's head of "People Operations" (re: Human Resources). In an interesting twist, Bock kicks off the excerpt by describing the brainteaser questions that Google is famous for tossing at job candidates as "useless," before suggesting that some hiring managers at the company might still use them. ("Sorry about that," he offered.) Rather than ask candidates to calculate the number of golf balls that can fit inside a 747 (or why manhole covers are round), Google now runs its candidates through a battery of work-sample tests and structured interviews, which its own research and data-crunching suggest is best at finding the most successful candidates. Google also relies on a tool (known as qDroid), which automates some of the process—the interviewer can simply input which job the candidate is interviewing for, and receive a guide with optimized interview questions. It was only a matter of time before people got sick of questions like, "Why are manhole covers round?"
A number of people from my team had accepted recruitment attempts by Google, with my knowledge and support because I couldn't pay them as much and they'd outgrown our technical challenges, and I have roughly a dozen personal acquaintances working there. All confirm that the interview and application review process is so long that by the time Google even discusses salary details or makes an offer, the candidate has usually taken a job elsewhere. So people looking for work who can't wait 3 months or longer while Google's HR department "negotiates" all the requirements and approvals at all the different bureaucratic levels are lost to Google. This means that new candidates who already have kids, mortgages, medical insurance needs, or even pet food to pay for are unavailable to complete the interview.
I still get called at least once a year by their HR, and I've explained the problem, and they admit it when I name candidates and timelines. It's even funnier when I name their manager's personal hairstyle and taste in clothing: I think they have the noobs call me, just to scare the bejeepers out of them..
That kind of delay makes excellent excuses to hire *yet more* HR staff and expand the bureaucracy, hoping to "optimize" it. But the result is devastating to their ability to hire good people. The only time the rigmarole is avoided is when someone in senior management has a personal favorite candidate, often a relative or close friend from another workplace, whom they sponsor through the process. The result is cronyism and intellectual inbreeding.