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Here Are Google, Amazon and Facebook’s Secrets to Hiring the Best People

thecooperreview.com

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Re: Here Are Google, Amazon and Facebook’s Secrets to Hiring the Best People

#81

Post by minwcnt5 »

Rapzid wrote: post #55
badmadrad wrote: post #29

So true. I had an Amazon interview where I wanted to hang up. There were moments where I would get questioned or berated for not using such great AWS tech like Opsworks and Cloudformation. Instead of being impressed with my completely valid approach they fixated on the fact I didn't use their stuff and it became a bit combative/snarky. So Amazon certainly isn't for me. Thanks for EC2 and two day shipping though.

I had a phone screen from Google I wanted to hang up on because I knew where it was going. They reached out to me for an SRE role in Australia. After a few unscheduled calls at poor times (at the DC doing work) we setup an "interview". It was just a screen where they ask you to rate your self on a bunch of random technologies; between never heard of it and wrote the book. Rated myself 4-6 on most haha. The " intervie…

Having a lot of confidence in your abilities is arguably a pretty important quality in an employee. I've encountered a lot of engineers who were way less effective than they could have been, mainly because they were too timid to speak up, to take initiative, to lead.

So maybe they were right to reject someone who answered 4-6 in most categories. Either that person isn't a good fit skill-wise, or they are a good fit skill-wise, but not personality-wise.

Re: Here Are Google, Amazon and Facebook’s Secrets to Hiring the Best People

#83

Post by xvolter »

I've seen dozens of articles about how Google, Amazon and other large tech companies hire the best. It's a terrible assumption that these tech giants hire the best, they simply can't be picky with their hiring, they need to grow teams to keep up with progress, and replace the members who are leaving. They need to hire quickly, so they refine their hiring process to get qualified candidates, but not the best candidates out there. Sure, they might eventually hire some really good people, but the majority can't be held to a hire standard.

Re: Here Are Google, Amazon and Facebook’s Secrets to Hiring the Best People

#84

Post by xvolter »

I've seen dozens of articles about how Google, Amazon and other large tech companies hire the best. It's a terrible assumption that these tech giants hire the best, they simply can't be picky with their hiring, they need to grow teams to keep up with progress, and replace the members who are leaving. They need to hire quickly, so they refine their hiring process to get qualified candidates, but not the best candidates out there. Sure, they might eventually hire some really good people, but the majority can't be held to a hire standard.

Re: Here Are Google, Amazon and Facebook’s Secrets to Hiring the Best People

#85

Post by seattle_spring »

pcurve wrote: post #3

Any basis to this? Every single article on the site has titles that would give Buzzfeed run for its money. http://thecooperreview.com/

Did you honestly read the article, then read the homepage, and then come back here and still not realize this was a satire website?

Re: Here Are Google, Amazon and Facebook’s Secrets to Hiring the Best People

#86

Post by fweespee_ch »

minwcnt5 wrote: post #81
Rapzid wrote: post #55

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I had a phone screen from Google I wanted to hang up on because I knew where it was going. They reached out to me for an SRE role in Australia. After a few unscheduled calls at poor times (at the DC doing work) we setup an "interview". It was just a screen where they ask you to rate your self on a bunch of random technologies; between never heard of it and wrote the book. Rated myself 4-6 on most haha. The " intervie…

Having a lot of confidence in your abilities is arguably a pretty important quality in an employee. I've encountered a lot of engineers who were way less effective than they could have been, mainly because they were too timid to speak up, to take initiative, to lead. So maybe they were right to reject someone who answered 4-6 in most categories. Either that person isn't a good fit skill-wise, or they are a good fit s…

> Having a lot of confidence in your abilities is arguably a pretty important quality in an employee.

Realistic assessment of your abilities matters as an employee.

Humility is far rarer and more valuable.

Re: Here Are Google, Amazon and Facebook’s Secrets to Hiring the Best People

#87

Post by asuffield »

Rapzid wrote: post #55
badmadrad wrote: post #29

So true. I had an Amazon interview where I wanted to hang up. There were moments where I would get questioned or berated for not using such great AWS tech like Opsworks and Cloudformation. Instead of being impressed with my completely valid approach they fixated on the fact I didn't use their stuff and it became a bit combative/snarky. So Amazon certainly isn't for me. Thanks for EC2 and two day shipping though.

I had a phone screen from Google I wanted to hang up on because I knew where it was going. They reached out to me for an SRE role in Australia. After a few unscheduled calls at poor times (at the DC doing work) we setup an "interview". It was just a screen where they ask you to rate your self on a bunch of random technologies; between never heard of it and wrote the book. Rated myself 4-6 on most haha. The " intervie…

(Tedious disclaimer: my opinion only, not speaking for anybody else. I'm an SRE at Google.)

You did not have a phone screen. What you are describing is the initial contact with a recruiter, to establish what roles you're interested in, explain how the process works, and arrange dates. Had you proceeded past this, you would probably have had a phone screen next, which would be with an engineer giving you a technical problem to solve.

I also rated myself 4-6 on most categories, and was hired; that's an entirely reasonable score on the scale they give. I don't know what happened in your conversation with the recruiter, but it sounds like you made it clear you weren't interested and that was the end of it.

Re: Here Are Google, Amazon and Facebook’s Secrets to Hiring the Best People

#88

Post by sush1612 »

paxunix wrote: post #27

I didn't even read the article because I know there is no secret. We don't hire the best people. We hire average people, some good people, some great people, some mediocre people, and some people who aren't very good at their jobs. Some of those mediocre and average people turn out to be great people after all. There's no secret to it. We like telling ourselves there is a secret because everyone likes to feel special…

This is a good summary "Go build some shit with people you like building shit with and stop trying to figure out how to make hiring objective. You can't."

Re: Here Are Google, Amazon and Facebook’s Secrets to Hiring the Best People

#89

Post by underwater »

andrewstuart wrote: post #35
fogleman wrote: post #34

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Incredible to me that someone would write such a lengthy comment based on a headline alone.

It's because so many posts on HN are cookie cutter - usually you don't need to read the post to know what the (same old) message is. You know: "Why my startup failed" (cause I built something no-one wants) "Why we switched from this technology to that technology" (because the old one sucked but the new one will solve all our problems) "How we built a startup that fixed hiring" (they didn't) "How to hire great people"…

If everyone is talking and no one is listening what is the point?

Re: Here Are Google, Amazon and Facebook’s Secrets to Hiring the Best People

#90

Post by asuffield »

rdtsc wrote: post #69
Rapzid wrote: post #55

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I had a phone screen from Google I wanted to hang up on because I knew where it was going. They reached out to me for an SRE role in Australia. After a few unscheduled calls at poor times (at the DC doing work) we setup an "interview". It was just a screen where they ask you to rate your self on a bunch of random technologies; between never heard of it and wrote the book. Rated myself 4-6 on most haha. The " intervie…

I never understood the rate yourself bit. Is it designed to fuck with your head? "So you think you are good? We'll show you. How about this obscure trick question from C++17 spec -- see not as good as you thought"

(Tedious disclaimer: my opinion only, not speaking for anybody else. I'm an SRE at Google.)

I can't tell you about other companies, but ours is pretty straightforward: you tell us what your strongest areas are, we'll give you interviews that line up with those areas. There's no strict guarantees and you should expect a spread of different questions, but whatever it is that you're good at, expect us to offer you a chance to show us that you're good at it.

It's probably only a useful technique at companies which are big enough and flexible enough to find a use for you, whatever your skill set happens to be. For a company that only has one job opening and needs a specific sort of person to fill it, this sort of pick-your-interview-subject approach doesn't help them.

(Trick questions are useless: they primarily serve to make the interviewer feel clever, not to demonstrate the abilities of the candidate)

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