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Why I Don’t Talk to Google Recruiters

yegor256.com

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Re: Why I Don’t Talk to Google Recruiters

#91

Post by pyb »

xt00 wrote: post #10

Places like google give you a guide on how to prepare. So it consists of stuff like algorithms and data structures. I do wonder sometimes how much it is tailored to getting people who are fresh out of college rather than more experienced. My take is that you basically have to spend time preparing and studying so as to get past those types of questions then finally you talk one on one with the people you likely would…

From what I see around me, there are only 2 ways to get hired by Google. Either you are a fresh CS graduate, or you need to take 2-3 months off for fulltime study.

Re: Why I Don’t Talk to Google Recruiters

#92

Post by hehheh »

cortesoft wrote: post #36

You aren't going to interview with your future manager because they don't know who your future manager is. They need to hire hundreds of people, they aren't going to try to get separate candidates for each role, and they aren't going to have you interview with a hundred different managers. My company is experiencing this as we grow; we have too many openings to have each team try to recruit for their open spots. We n…

> You aren't going to interview with your future manager because they don't know who your future manager is.

I generally agree when it comes to cold resumes. However, in this case, OP is talking about being actively recruited. In that case there ought to be a specific manager that was looking for a specific type of person. Otherwise the recruiter is just wasting everyone's time.

Re: Why I Don’t Talk to Google Recruiters

#93

Post by [deleted] »

xt00 wrote: post #10

Places like google give you a guide on how to prepare. So it consists of stuff like algorithms and data structures. I do wonder sometimes how much it is tailored to getting people who are fresh out of college rather than more experienced. My take is that you basically have to spend time preparing and studying so as to get past those types of questions then finally you talk one on one with the people you likely would…

[deleted]

Re: Why I Don’t Talk to Google Recruiters

#94

Post by [deleted] »

beachstartup wrote: post #66
arielweisberg wrote: post #44

Earlier quoted context omitted.

And in theory it should totally be worth it as a candidate unless they are coasting on reputation. Otherwise the supply of candidates would dry up. In practice it wasn't for me, but I refused to tell them how much I made just to see what would happen. If you interview at Google and they ask how much you make you should probably tell them or you might get a weak non-negotiable offer. Unless what you make is already fa…

refusing to tell your prospective employer how much you want to get paid is a 'negotiation tactic'?

[deleted]

Re: Why I Don’t Talk to Google Recruiters

#95

Post by sandworm101 »

Better than my emails from new clients:

"Head office called last week. We need X but have no idea what X means. We asked Bill to look into it but after a day his eyes started bleeding. Help!"

( Im an attorney doing privacy and compliance work. I've never been given a night in a 5-star by any current or potential client. )

Re: Why I Don’t Talk to Google Recruiters

#96

Post by codazoda »

metaphorm wrote: post #68
40acres wrote: post #26

There is no standard way to interview a software engineer. Whenever one of these threads come up we see multiple posters explaining their process, and while each process has it's upsides and downsides, no two are exactly the same. For a company the size of Google, with the amount of applicants they receive, I would assume that an interview standard is absolutely necessary. It's not perfect, but for 95% of developers…

the problem with the way Google interviews is that, despite it being heavily standardized, it is not sensitive to non-algorithmic skills and talents that interviewees have. It will _only_ pass candidates who are unusually good at algorithm puzzles, on whiteboards, under time pressure.

This seems to be the type of employee Google is looking for, in which case, it works great.

Re: Why I Don’t Talk to Google Recruiters

#97

Post by taway_1212 »

sumeno wrote: post #50
rb1 wrote: post #45

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Now consider this approach with spam. To paraphrase you, there's always that remote chance that one of the Nigerian Princes could actually need your help. I used to do a similar thing to you, but it's too much work now and the levels of job spam ("Oil pipeline engineer" roles, simply because my CV has the word engineer in it (prefixed with Software)... lazy recruiter, that's bad!). Basically, if they can't make the e…

Recruiters and Nigerian scams aren't comparable. People legitimately get jobs through recruiters. I got my dream job through a recruiter who found me. Nobody gets the Nigerian Prince's money

My logic is that if something needs to be actively sold (pushed via recruiters), it's most likely average at best. I'm betting that the best jobs don't go through recruiters (or maybe they do if that's the company-wide policy, but the hiring manager already has a candidate in mind when they posts the ad).

Re: Why I Don’t Talk to Google Recruiters

#98

Post by mindcrime »

geodel wrote: post #19
utnick wrote: post #7

The worst part for me is how long the process takes, and how much time is invested for an interview process where the success rate is so low. My recent experience with AMZN was: - get contacted by recruiter, schedule a call with recruiter a few days later - take a take-home coding test a few days later - talk to the recruiter again a few days later to tell me I did well on the coding test - talk to another recruiter…

May be not for many people here on HN but for very large number of engineers job opportunity Google/Amzn/MS/FB etc are once in a lifetime type. I have not met people in my circles who would balk at interview process there.

for very large number of engineers job opportunity Google/Amzn/MS/FB etc are once in a lifetime type

Meh. Being a developer is being a developer. Not to say that certain specific companies don't sometimes have specific challenges or perks that would be of unique interest to somebody, but by and large, there's no real reason to think if Google/Facebook/Amazon/$anybody_else as a "dream job."

I used to think that way, and after working at two of my "dream job" companies, I've realized that it's pretty never what it's cracked up to be.

Really, the world is SO much bigger than just GoogBookHooSoftCart... I'd encourage people to NOT put those companies on any kind of pedestal.

Re: Why I Don’t Talk to Google Recruiters

#99

Post by rpdillon »

fernandopj wrote: post #23
stuckagain wrote: post #8

> There is no point in giving me binary-tree-traversing questions; I don't know those answers and will never be interested in learning them. Interview process: complete success.

> If she would have started her email with "We're looking for an algorithm expert," we would never have gotten any further and would not have wasted our time. Clearly, I'm not an expert in algorithms. This phrase precedes the one you mentioned. He's saying the process he has been through completely ignored his background and field.

The notion that traversing a binary tree requires expertise in algorithms seems questionable to me. I view basic tree traversal as table stakes for a developer with more than a year or two of experience (IIRC, it's discussed in Intro to Algorithms in most CS curricula).

OP says that his field is object-oriented design, which links to a page where he announces that "We've started work on a new programming language". The idea that a computer scientist/software engineer would embark on building a new programming language but also state that they don't know how to solve tree traversal problems and "will never be interested in learning them" seems strangely incongruous, given that building a language almost certainly involves working with ASTs.

Specifically, OP pushed a commit in late 2016 that contains code working with stacks, linked lists, and an AST class for the EO language.

https://github.com/yegor256/eo/commit/6df2281d8b0163b9f9e1b8...

I guess I just don't believe that interview questions about trees are ignoring the author's background and field.

Re: Why I Don’t Talk to Google Recruiters

#100

Post by [deleted] »

stuckagain wrote: post #37
iainmerrick wrote: post #30

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I'd be interested in hearing from people who work at Google, and get to figure out a cool algorithm for solving an interesting puzzle-problem more an about once a year. I bet there aren't very many. In my experience, the stuff you do in this kind of interview has very little relation with the stuff you do in the actual job. (I wish it did! I love those algorithmic puzzles.)

I don't know about the average but at Google I probably write a new call to std::set::find twice an hour, and it's important to know that std::set is a red-black tree, and how std::set::find is implemented and how much that costs and so forth. Fluency with data structures and algorithms is not some kind of brain candy. It's absolutely necessary to get the job done.

[deleted]
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