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?"

Comments

Re:First, manhole covers are not always round

[gweihir]

In that case, the answer is also pretty simple: There are two most obvious shapes to manhole covers, tables, cutlery, buttons, etc.: Square and round.

My point is not that I am being pedantic, my point is that the answer "because a round cover cannot fall into the hole" is an answer somebody with a lot of intelligence, but little insight into reality would give. Maybe I am paranoid here, but I have as strong suspicion that Google did/does want people with high intelligence and said lack if insight. These would be highly productive and easy to manipulate and when the company decides that "don't be evil" is out of fashion, many of those would just go along with it.

Re:First, manhole covers are not always round

[gweihir]

Right on the surface, in actual reality a complete fail. The danger of falling tools is far more real than the one of falling covers.

Re:First, manhole covers are not always round

[gweihir]

And you continue fail at the real world: The cover is very heavy and hard to move, tools are far easier to move. Being a smar-ass, as you are trying to be, completely fails when you do not understand the facts of the situation.

Re:First, manhole covers are not always round

[gweihir]

It is incredible how people can fail to see reality, even when they themselves are stating the most important facts. Fascinating. Ever have though of how hard it is to move that "110 pound" cover (and your weight estimate is far off, they are a lot heavier)? For that wrench, a clumsy move is enough.