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Why I Don’t Talk to Google Recruiters

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Re: Why I Don’t Talk to Google Recruiters

#251

Post by JustSomeNobody »

krzyk wrote: post #241
stcredzero wrote: post #148

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. Let's presume this is out of preference and not ability. It's a pretty basic concept. If your preference stops you from learning something as basic as this as a programmer, then it doesn't seem likely that you will be motivated to keep up with even more abstruse concepts. Nearly e…

In every single company I've been for the last 15 years, I haven't had any algorithmic problem to solve, most programmer jobs is just making software as quickly as possible and fix performance issues only when they appear. I really don't think that every programmer in Amazon or Google is faced with algorithm problems everyday, that's probably localized to some projects that deal with those, not the majority of progra…

This gourd could solve it: http://veggietales.wikia.com/wiki/Mr._Lunt

Re: Why I Don’t Talk to Google Recruiters

#252

Post by AlexB138 »

davedx wrote: post #119
ryandrake wrote: post #31

Unlike most of HN (it seems), I like hearing from recruiters, because despite the very low signal-to-noise ratio, there's always that remote chance that one of them could be able to set me up with a "dream job". It's zero cost to me to politely reply to a recruiter and ask for more info, and I try to at least respond to everyone. What I've found is that they must have a lot of candidates they're juggling because fall…

My partner works at a recruitment company. Here's the thing: most recruiters are not very good at what they do and are only chasing placements. To get the most out of recruiters you need to be more pro-active, and find a recruiter or two who really understand your skill set and career ambitions. Build a relationship with them, and don't waste time with the other 90% of batch mailed crapshoots.

I don't doubt that this is the way to find a good recruiter. However, if I am going to put in the time to vet multiple recruiters in order to find one worth working with, why would I not just spend that time finding a job?

Re: Why I Don’t Talk to Google Recruiters

#253

Post by Grue3 »

I couldn't even get the part where they fly you to the HQ and pay for the hotel. I'd make sure to ace the whiteboard interview if I got that far! But nope, the farthest I got was talking about irrelevant non-technical stuff over Skype and then nothing.

Re: Why I Don’t Talk to Google Recruiters

#254

Post by dsk139 »

davedx wrote: post #119
ryandrake wrote: post #31

Unlike most of HN (it seems), I like hearing from recruiters, because despite the very low signal-to-noise ratio, there's always that remote chance that one of them could be able to set me up with a "dream job". It's zero cost to me to politely reply to a recruiter and ask for more info, and I try to at least respond to everyone. What I've found is that they must have a lot of candidates they're juggling because fall…

My partner works at a recruitment company. Here's the thing: most recruiters are not very good at what they do and are only chasing placements. To get the most out of recruiters you need to be more pro-active, and find a recruiter or two who really understand your skill set and career ambitions. Build a relationship with them, and don't waste time with the other 90% of batch mailed crapshoots.

This is true. I'm an engineer that started recruiting six months ago part-time and was able to bill six figures pretty quickly. I realized that colleagues in recruiting had a really tough time making efficient matches.

The best recruiters can not only make efficient matches, but they also connect the dots to reach out to matches in the pool of passive candidates they talked to when a new role opens up.

Even better than that is when I'm able to actual push back with companies and make an impact on the hiring process to get someone hired.

Re: Why I Don’t Talk to Google Recruiters

#255

Post by perfmode »

roguecoder wrote: post #230

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 i…

But Google's code quality is quite high...

Re: Why I Don’t Talk to Google Recruiters

#256

Post by dlwdlw »

A thought occurred tine that maybe these types of interviews aim to filter for specific people. An H1B from Asia will have the motivation to memorize "Cracking the Coding Interview" as well as the pressure to stay and say yes to everything. This creates a distortion at the IC level. At the management level, the filters create another distortion for cultures that heavily bias statis and grouo standing (rather than get a paycheck and do the minimum to stay). At the final leadership level there isnt even another filter from the managers. The candidates come through entirely other channels, usually network related.

Re: Why I Don’t Talk to Google Recruiters

#257

Post by nsxwolf »

ng12 wrote: post #6

Yeah it kind of sucks, but from Google's perspective it's absolutely necessary. So many people talk the talk, run a blog, have a neat looking resume/website/GitHub and just cannot perform. Unless you're an undisputed rockstar in a specific area and they're hiring exactly for your expertise you can't expect anything else. It's a huge waste of time to custom tailor to each candidate when 90% won't receive an offer. > T…

"Cracking the Coding Interview" doesn't seem like a book you skim. It seems like a book you buy a gigantic whiteboard for and stay up until 3AM every night for 6 months with it.

But maybe I'm just not very smart?

Re: Why I Don’t Talk to Google Recruiters

#259

Post by krzyk »

rpdillon wrote: post #99
fernandopj wrote: post #23

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> 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". T…

> 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).

You mix two completely irrelevant things: education and experience.

You will be taught binary trees in CS, but not every programmer is studying that.

If you learn binary trees in CS, you will forget it after few years of experience, because skills that are not used are forgotten.

So yeah, Amazon/Googles of the world are looking mostly at recent CS graduates (most of the set of programmers that know many algos) and the very small set of programmers that deal with algos every day.

Re: Why I Don’t Talk to Google Recruiters

#260

Post by dsk139 »

AlexB138 wrote: post #252
davedx wrote: post #119

Earlier quoted context omitted.

My partner works at a recruitment company. Here's the thing: most recruiters are not very good at what they do and are only chasing placements. To get the most out of recruiters you need to be more pro-active, and find a recruiter or two who really understand your skill set and career ambitions. Build a relationship with them, and don't waste time with the other 90% of batch mailed crapshoots.

I don't doubt that this is the way to find a good recruiter. However, if I am going to put in the time to vet multiple recruiters in order to find one worth working with, why would I not just spend that time finding a job?

It's hard to get an accurate pulse of the market if you spend only a month every few years searching through angelist/indeed/etc.

I work with about 70 companies (only in NYC) from pre-launch to almost IPO and a new role opens up to a us every week. It's helpful to find a recruiter who knows you & the market well enough to curate jobs you want and tell you about opportunities that might not even be listed or on your radar.

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