Why I Don’t Talk to Google Recruiters • Hacker News Board

Re: Why I Don’t Talk to Google Recruiters

#221

Post by smallnamespace » Tue, Feb 21, 2017, 5:53 PM UTC

ryandrake wrote: post #123

taway_1212 wrote: post #97

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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).

You've hit on a truth here. Most of the jobs available through recruiters are what I like to call "dog jobs". The ones that aren't filled internally and don't instantly get a line of top candidates because they are so good or pay so well--the ones that NEED someone to sell them. Those are the jobs that are available on job boards and that recruiters and are trying to fill--not the awesome ones. Think about it like th…

> The rest are the "dog properties" that go on the MLS and need heavy marketing to sell.

That's... a strange way to look at the housing market. The norm is to list your property and then see what bids you get. Putting your house on the market is not some weird trick to pass a crappy house on to a bunch of rubes, or am I misunderstanding you?

Like, how do you reliably find a willing buyer pre-listing, and how do you know that's a good price (other than just blindly trusting your agent), if you don't even bother listing it? Listing is as much about price discovery as it is about finding more buyers.

Re: Why I Don’t Talk to Google Recruiters

#222

Post by nolemurs » Tue, Feb 21, 2017, 5:54 PM UTC

VLM wrote: post #217

nolemurs wrote: post #201

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> However, I'm also pretty sure I'd have more chance on the Google interview right after graduation then now, when all the theoretical stuff was fresh in my brain. So I'd have more chance while being a (in my opinion) less useful engineer. The thing to understand is that Google is more interested in not hiring potential bad hires than in hiring every good hire. Part of the reason the interview process works the way i…

"it's not a big deal to spend 3-5 hours a week for a few months" I think I can get further ahead than a job at Google for that kind of time investment. I don't mind big expenses, I just expect corresponding rewards.

I mean, all the big tech companies use a similar white board/algorithm centric hiring process. If you're interested in working for one of them, 40-60 hours is really not a big investment to be in a good position to apply to all of them.

I totally understand if that sort of job just doesn't interest you, but I'd be really curious as to where you think that 40-60 hours will get you a better ROI.

Re: Why I Don’t Talk to Google Recruiters

#223

Post by JustSomeNobody » Tue, Feb 21, 2017, 5:55 PM UTC

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

Wait! There's actually money!? :)

Re: Why I Don’t Talk to Google Recruiters

#224

Post by maverick_iceman » Tue, Feb 21, 2017, 5:56 PM UTC

pmontra wrote: post #112

codazoda wrote: post #96

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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

Maybe it's not what they are looking for. Maybe it's only the easiest test, like looking for the keys under the lamp post. It could also be that this way of hiring people turned the company into a specific direction, more attention to the sw and less to the customers.

It seems to be working fine for them.

Re: Why I Don’t Talk to Google Recruiters

#225

Post by nolemurs » Tue, Feb 21, 2017, 5:57 PM UTC

hueving wrote: post #214

nolemurs wrote: post #201

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> However, I'm also pretty sure I'd have more chance on the Google interview right after graduation then now, when all the theoretical stuff was fresh in my brain. So I'd have more chance while being a (in my opinion) less useful engineer. The thing to understand is that Google is more interested in not hiring potential bad hires than in hiring every good hire. Part of the reason the interview process works the way i…

>Part of the reason the interview process works the way it does is to filter for people willing to put in some effort That's the sales pitch, but it's actually just because there is no other interview approach that works at scale for the volume of candidates they get. If they didn't have a stack of 100,000 resumes, they would throw this ridiculous process out the window in a heartbeat and actually interview people fo…

> If they didn't have a stack of 100,000 resumes, they would throw this ridiculous process out the window in a heartbeat and actually interview people for the position.

Absolutely.

If they had far fewer resumes then they'd be much less willing to pass on potentially good hires, and more willing to risk bad hires. You make it sound like we're disagreeing, but this is 100% consistent with what I said.

Re: Why I Don’t Talk to Google Recruiters

#226

Post by VLM » Tue, Feb 21, 2017, 5:57 PM UTC

valuearb wrote: post #152

geodel wrote: post #19

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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.

Your best opportunity as a young engineer is always with a startup with smart leadership. You'll get to do far more and learn far more. Google/Amazon/FB/MS etc are full of smart people and offer a more 9-5 type job, but you will find it much harder to do interesting things.

Other than the obvious ageism problem you could just cross out "young".

This is assuming that smart leadership equals no deathmarches. Deathmarches are for the young and gullible.

Re: Why I Don’t Talk to Google Recruiters

#227

Post by Philipp__ » Tue, Feb 21, 2017, 5:57 PM UTC

Am I the only one that kinda forgets these kinds of stuff, like binary-tree-traversing? What I mean by that is that I forget the implementation (let's say in C) very often, and have to go back and look at text book/google/and spend time implementing it. While conceptually I can explain and present everything, at any time, and show you that I understand specific data structure and algorithm, it's use cases, strengths and weaknesses, when I fire up terminal and try to write it straight from the head it takes time. And I always feel like I have to "relearn" the implementation and think about it in specific way.

These questions sound pretty daunting and stressful to do, @Google, on whiteboard, in front of strangers who's temper and mood can vary a lot. I am student still, while working for company like Google sounds awesome, and there is a lot of smart people and cool stuff to do, it's "scary" recruiting techniques and that "cog in the machinery" feel is what turns my excitement down. Especially cause I am not so good in academic sense of learning. I tend to be one of those who work on their own, and hack with things in their free time, where my results in curriculum aren't as great as people expect them to be, but once it comes down to conversation/discussion/implementation people often surprise themselves and are kinda confused.

Re: Why I Don’t Talk to Google Recruiters

#228

Post by praneshp » Tue, Feb 21, 2017, 5:58 PM UTC

valuearb wrote: post #152

geodel wrote: post #19

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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.

Your best opportunity as a young engineer is always with a startup with smart leadership. You'll get to do far more and learn far more. Google/Amazon/FB/MS etc are full of smart people and offer a more 9-5 type job, but you will find it much harder to do interesting things.

When I graduated, Google/Amazon/FB/MS, I knew people were smart and the job would be okay at the very least. How should I have gone about figuring out which ones are "a startup with smart leadership". I remember being overwhelmed by everyone, everyone came across as smart.

So I counter your advice by saying the best opportunity for a young engineer is likely a large company that is well-known for having generally smart people. At least I learned what I wanted and didn't in the rest of my career.

Re: Why I Don’t Talk to Google Recruiters

#229

Post by pinewurst » Tue, Feb 21, 2017, 5:58 PM UTC

sandworm101 wrote: post #95

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. )

As a preface for working at Amazon, that 5 star hotel is like a condemned prisoner's choice of meal.

Re: Why I Don’t Talk to Google Recruiters

#230

Post by roguecoder » Tue, Feb 21, 2017, 5:59 PM UTC

The reason I won't work at Google is because Google is incapable of hiring the engineers I want to work with. It's not a matter of whether I could pass that interview; it is whether I want to work with the code of people who can pass that interview. Whether I want to get code reviews from people who can pass that interview. Whether I want to rely on the code of people who can pass the interview not to break down in interesting and novel ways.

I have seen the worst apps written by "Very Smart People" who obviously had never built an Android application before. It doesn't matter how smart you are, the first time you do something it will suck. I have had catastrophic failures caused by premature optimization, because locking a tool into a fancy algorithm before you know where the actual bottleneck is is a recipe for disaster. I have seen so many problems caused because people couldn't take feedback or didn't ask for help, because they were so wrapped up in being The Kind Of Person Who Knows The Answers.

Frankly, passing algorithm questions is a great way to signal that I probably don't want to have to deal with your code.

Personally, I love working with people coming out of the good agencies because building 15 or 30 applications from scratch in an environment with strong mentorship and rapid feedback is, in my experience, more likely to produce a good programmer than all the smarts in the world.