Google May Try To Recruit You For a Job Based On Your Search Queries

HughPickens.com writes: If Google sees that you're searching for specific programming terms, they may ask you to apply for a job as Max Rossett writes that three months ago while working on a project, he Googled "python lambda function list comprehension." The familiar blue links appeared on the search page, and he started to look for the most relevant one. But then something unusual happened. The search results split and folded back to reveal a box that said "You're speaking our language. Up for a challenge?" Clicking on the link took Rossett to a page called "foo.bar" that outlined a programming challenge and gave instructions on how to submit his solution. "I had 48 hours to solve it, and the timer was ticking," writes Rossett. "I had the option to code in Python or Java. I set to work and solved the first problem in a couple hours. Each time I submitted a solution, foo.bar tested my code against five hidden test cases."

After solving another five problems the page gave Rossett the option to submit his contact information and much to his surprise, a recruiter emailed him a couple days later asking for a copy of his resume. Three months after the mysterious invitation appeared, Rossett started at Google. Apparently Google has been using this recruiting tactic for some time.

Comments

Re:webp?

[petermgreen]

Yes webp is a google creation. It's basically a single still frame from the vp8 video codec (as used by webm). Being based on modern techniques it gives a better quality for a given size (or smaller size for a given quality) than JPEG and if you have support for webm then implementing webp as well requires very little extra code.

However it has failed to catch on more widely. Afaict chrome is the only major browser that supports it. There is a bug requesting supporting in firefox but it doesn't seem to be going anywhere. IE and safari seem even less likely to adopt it.