41–50 of 177 posts
Life for their recruitment folks is probably fairly interesting these days.
Earlier quoted context omitted.
I had a deadline to give a yes/no to another company, and my recruiter at Google asked me to get my deadline extended so that Google would have time to interview me. I asked the other company for an extension, which I got, and told my Google recruiter the new deadline. Then Google never responded and I never did an interview with them. I felt really put-off by that.
Why didn't you just say "yes". You can always change your mind.
My 2 cents: I was contacted by a recruiter, unsolicited through a referral, and asked if I was interested in interviewing. At the time, I already had an offer from one of the other big companies, which I was upfront about. The recruiter said it was ok, and would set me up for the first round of interviews. After about a week of emails, I just simply stopped hearing from the recruiter. Not a single interview, no reaso…
I had the same experience. It's unlikely I'll take one of their HR people seriously ever again. A Google engineer or PM would have to speak with me directly for me to bother.
My 2 cents: I was contacted by a recruiter, unsolicited through a referral, and asked if I was interested in interviewing. At the time, I already had an offer from one of the other big companies, which I was upfront about. The recruiter said it was ok, and would set me up for the first round of interviews. After about a week of emails, I just simply stopped hearing from the recruiter. Not a single interview, no reaso…
I was on a project that was in crunch mode, so I asked if I could start in three or four months (instead of three or four weeks, like they wanted). Apparently, that was such an egregious breach of etiquette on my part that the hiring manager (an engineer) stopped responding to phone calls or email. And it wasn't as if my start date came out of nowhere -- I mentioned the issue during my phone interview, during my onsite interview, and on the form they sent me where they wanted me to list my availability.
My 2 cents: I was contacted by a recruiter, unsolicited through a referral, and asked if I was interested in interviewing. At the time, I already had an offer from one of the other big companies, which I was upfront about. The recruiter said it was ok, and would set me up for the first round of interviews. After about a week of emails, I just simply stopped hearing from the recruiter. Not a single interview, no reaso…
All of these recruitment horror stories are starting to scare me about Google, but I wonder how much of it is selection bias. Anyone who has a good experience almost definitionally gets sucked into the G-Vortex and basically never gets heard from again, right? I have a friend who just accepted a position at Google, and she said the process was long and arduous, but it wasn't a horror story.
A better approach would be to vet me thoroughly before contacting me. In other words, only contact me if you're sure that you can at least put me through a single interview.
My 2 cents: I was contacted by a recruiter, unsolicited through a referral, and asked if I was interested in interviewing. At the time, I already had an offer from one of the other big companies, which I was upfront about. The recruiter said it was ok, and would set me up for the first round of interviews. After about a week of emails, I just simply stopped hearing from the recruiter. Not a single interview, no reaso…
All of these recruitment horror stories are starting to scare me about Google, but I wonder how much of it is selection bias. Anyone who has a good experience almost definitionally gets sucked into the G-Vortex and basically never gets heard from again, right? I have a friend who just accepted a position at Google, and she said the process was long and arduous, but it wasn't a horror story.
Getting a rejection after that (and all the psychological baggage that comes with a company "rejecting you") makes it a bitter loss.
Same process (just as broken), but the outcome is hugely influential.
I think you're spot on, tho -- the squeaky wheel is the one that complains to internet forums.
The real way in which their process seems broken is the wildly different experiences people have seemingly at random, depending on who their arbitrarily assigned recruiter is. When I interviewed I had none of this weird "rate yourself" questions, and a mostly positive experience. But it seems like if I had randomly been assigned a different recruiter, or someone tried to fit me into a different bucket, I would have had a wildly different experience. How can you compare candidates evenly when their experiences seem so randomly different?
I recently talked to a colleague who was hired as a developer by Google. He went through 3 rounds of "hiring committees". 3 different committees to make a developer hire is obviously broken. The ability to evaluate culture and skill fit should be possible with a hiring manager and a few prospective peers.
After your phone interview with an engineer, you go in for your on site interview and talk to at least 4 people, both managers and engineers. They each write up their impressions of you without discussion between them. They pass their impressions on to a hiring board that reviews those, your resume, and what positions are open.
That board passes the recommendation onto a final board who I suspect is largely a financial gatekeeper, just to approve stock grants and controls company-wide hiring rates and company wide strategy.
I recently talked to a colleague who was hired as a developer by Google. He went through 3 rounds of "hiring committees". 3 different committees to make a developer hire is obviously broken. The ability to evaluate culture and skill fit should be possible with a hiring manager and a few prospective peers.
Local hiring committee, regional hiring committee, HQ hiring committee then final sign-off by Larry himself.