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Ask HN: Why does Google get away with such bad recruiting practices?

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Re: Ask HN: Why does Google get away with such bad recruiting practices?

#23
Like with any BigCo, there are always bad apples (recruiters) and things slip through cracks. But compared to other similar sized companies, Google is quite focused on improving their interview processes. You can find lots of resources online from Google employees explaining it. The one I found very enlightening is from Moishe Lettvin given at Etsy: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=r8RxkpUvxK0

My own personal experience couple of years ago was good. I failed the interview though.

Re: Ask HN: Why does Google get away with such bad recruiting practices?

#25

They can get away with it because they have an endless supply of intelligent engineers that want to work there. It's the same effect we see when there is a monopoly over the marketplace.

Look at which of my friends work for Google.... it wasn't the intelligent ones. What they are choosing for is sort of obvious.

What are they choosing for?

Re: Ask HN: Why does Google get away with such bad recruiting practices?

#26

Most big companies are terrible at recruiting. Google requires massive numbers of people so they can't spend much time or concern on any one position or one recruitee. Even my employer (non SV) can't even post positions for engineers that make any sense (which is why we get so few candidates).

There's no reason why they can auto-generate a "We have decided not to proceed with your application" email when they move your status to rejected at the very least. It costs marginally nothing.

Re: Ask HN: Why does Google get away with such bad recruiting practices?

#27
I am not defending Google here but plenty of reasons I would guess:

- Lot of people want to work for Google. Plenty of supply

- Cost/Benefit. The cost of contacting everyone is not worth the benefit. Probably too many applicants to respond to

- Because they can. They are Google.

- They are big. Perhaps a certain division/HR team is worse than others. So it could come down to specific HR team who is the culprit.

I bet if the supply of candidates go down and they need to find people, they will respond a lot more.

Re: Ask HN: Why does Google get away with such bad recruiting practices?

#29
post #23

Like with any BigCo, there are always bad apples (recruiters) and things slip through cracks. But compared to other similar sized companies, Google is quite focused on improving their interview processes. You can find lots of resources online from Google employees explaining it. The one I found very enlightening is from Moishe Lettvin given at Etsy: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=r8RxkpUvxK0 My own personal experien…

Laszlo Bock's Work Rules! highlights many things that have been tried and implemented at Google to improve recruiting and retention. It might be a bit effusive, but I think the insights generally do apply to many workplaces.

https://www.amazon.com/Work-Rules-Insights-Inside-Transform/...

Re: Ask HN: Why does Google get away with such bad recruiting practices?

#30
3rd party recruiting agencies get a bad wrap for many justifiable reasons, but this is one area where they provide value. Even though a company may be using dozens of agencies each agency will still have an stream of communication to get real updates no matter how "busy" the hiring HR department is.

Edit: this is assuming the recruiter doesn't go ghost on you themselves that is....

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