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Why Google's hiring process is broken

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Re: Why Google's hiring process is broken

#61

Post by alienfluid »

yid wrote: post #51
alienfluid wrote: post #34

I haven't had an interview in over 6 years, but I have been approached by multiple recruiters in the same time span. I actually dread the day I choose to switch jobs and have to face another technical interview - considering that my knowledge of college-level CS has declined over time. It's not because I am less skilled now than I was before, it's because you don't have to constantly create fantastically fast algorit…

I'm sure you would do fine based on your experience and boyishly good looks.

Um ... thanks!?

Re: Why Google's hiring process is broken

#62

Post by mrgordon »

enriclluelles wrote: post #12
yesimahuman wrote: post #5

It doesn't take a designer or user experience expert to note that google products lack consistency and don't interopt with each other very well. I think this stems from larger issues that are much harder to fix, or through 20% projects and acquisitions that were developed independently of a common set of standards. I doubt they are ignoring it. Perhaps the lack of a "Google standard" enables eager developers to creat…

I don't think that having a hiring system that's not fucked up and actually researches the guy would set a "Google standard". You can also keep launching amazing products with a recruiting process that makes sense, and doesn't analyze the guy with semi-random stupid questions.

To be fair, Google doesn't just interview guys..

People constantly using "guy" and "programmer"/"computer scientist" interchangeably might be part of the reason why so many women avoid computer science.

Re: Why Google's hiring process is broken

#63

Post by mrgordon »

ballgoogler wrote: post #59
yid wrote: post #16

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…

You know who complains about Google's hiring process... people that don't get hired by Google. I've never heard anybody who WAS hired by Google complain about anything. Maybe you all just weren't good enough. That's OK, not everybody is the creme-a-la-creme. Look at Google's market cap and Android and Chrome's growth (not to mention their dominance in search and advertising)... Google doesn't need you, and that's why…

Google cannot find people to hire fast enough even by its own admission. I have personally never applied to work at Google but I can understand why someone who never anything heard back from a company with over 20,000 people would be a little pissed.

Re: Why Google's hiring process is broken

#64

Post by prospero »

joebadmo wrote: post #33
yid wrote: post #16

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.

I was hired by Google, but shortly after getting my offer my recruiter, who was in charge of getting me placed with a team, disappeared. Presumably he was fired or quit, but no one ever gave me a reason; he simply stopped responding to my emails, and then a week later his voicemail wouldn't let me leave a message.

At that point, I contacted his boss, who thanked me for "letting her know". A few days later I got a call from my new recruiter, who was going on vacation the following day for two weeks. I didn't end up getting placed with a team until about three weeks later.

It's not exactly a horror story, but it wasn't a great first impression either. Other engineers I talked to had similar stories.

Re: Why Google's hiring process is broken

#65

Post by pgroves »

I disagree with article's conclusion that they are selecting for "backend" engineers. They are selecting for people that think over-engineering every little data structure is the way to build good programs. The skill software companies need is the ability to get a hundred subsystems tested and working together, which is totally different.

I know someone who recently interviewed with Google and he told me about the algorithms question he "got wrong." After he came up with a simple solution to a simple problem, the interviewer told him the better, googley-er algorithm, which was: a) far more complex and difficult to implement, b) had far more corner cases that would need unit tests, c) had more overhead in the expected case, but d) technically had a better big-O in the (extreme) worst case.

In other words, the interview was screening for people who have been to school but haven't ever built anything.

Re: Why Google's hiring process is broken

#66

Post by jimbokun »

ballgoogler wrote: post #59
yid wrote: post #16

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…

You know who complains about Google's hiring process... people that don't get hired by Google. I've never heard anybody who WAS hired by Google complain about anything. Maybe you all just weren't good enough. That's OK, not everybody is the creme-a-la-creme. Look at Google's market cap and Android and Chrome's growth (not to mention their dominance in search and advertising)... Google doesn't need you, and that's why…

So market cap size legitimizes poor etiquette and borderline anti-social behavior?

Re: Why Google's hiring process is broken

#67

Post by akanet »

joebadmo wrote: post #33
yid wrote: post #16

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.

My first day at Google was yesterday. The interview process was a typical full day affair with questions ranging from algorithms to large scale systems design. I had a blast, and definitely stumbled on some questions, but I found it infinitely enjoyable. HR was responsive and helped me find an Android plushie for my girlfriend.

To be fair, I definitely believe all of these horror stories are true and deserved. I think that Google just operates at such a ridiculous scale that it's hard to get everything working together just right. I believe "the system works" in the majority case, but that outliers are particularly bad.

Re: Why Google's hiring process is broken

#68

Post by ballgoogler »

mrgordon wrote: post #63
ballgoogler wrote: post #59

Earlier quoted context omitted.

You know who complains about Google's hiring process... people that don't get hired by Google. I've never heard anybody who WAS hired by Google complain about anything. Maybe you all just weren't good enough. That's OK, not everybody is the creme-a-la-creme. Look at Google's market cap and Android and Chrome's growth (not to mention their dominance in search and advertising)... Google doesn't need you, and that's why…

Google cannot find people to hire fast enough even by its own admission. I have personally never applied to work at Google but I can understand why someone who never anything heard back from a company with over 20,000 people would be a little pissed.

If they have over 20,000 employees and "they cannot find people to hire fast enough"... then perhaps they should impose even stricter hiring standards so they they don't end up with 10's of thousands of employees who are of such low value that they need to keep hiring more.

Google's main problems are not in hiring more people... it is in putting the (extremely high calibre) employees that they already have to work on concise and appropriate projects that will advance the future of the company in the right direction. Google needs to focus on its management decisions and project creation / execution strategy much more heavily that it needs to focus on the hurt feelings of coders who didn't have what it takes to get in the door.

Re: Why Google's hiring process is broken

#69

Post by ballgoogler »

jimbokun wrote: post #66
ballgoogler wrote: post #59

Earlier quoted context omitted.

You know who complains about Google's hiring process... people that don't get hired by Google. I've never heard anybody who WAS hired by Google complain about anything. Maybe you all just weren't good enough. That's OK, not everybody is the creme-a-la-creme. Look at Google's market cap and Android and Chrome's growth (not to mention their dominance in search and advertising)... Google doesn't need you, and that's why…

So market cap size legitimizes poor etiquette and borderline anti-social behavior?

No, being a company that is built upon and successful due to its engineering culture does. Engineers are notoriously the most anti-social and lacking in etiquette of almost all professionals. Anti-social behavior is what drives most of us into engineering in the first place.

Google's hiring practices are simply a reflection of the type of people that they have to hire in order to be successful as the organization that they are: By engineers, for engineers, of engineers.

There are plenty of other (GREAT) companies out there to work for if you don't like the way Google does business or hires for that matter. The only reason people are whining is that they know exactly how AMAZING it is if you are lucky enough to work at Google (great pay, benefits, food, massages, etc, etc, etc)... and they are embittered by the fact that Google said they weren't good enough.

Rejection is always painful... but its best to take your dignity with you and move on when it doesn't go your way.

Re: Why Google's hiring process is broken

#70

Post by jimbokun »

kenjackson wrote: post #10

Asked me to rate my skills in a list of 14 programming languages. Really? I'd love to know what they did with that data. It seems almost completely useless except to say "Tim does not know any Javascript, indicated by his zero score on that."

Also, doesn't this fly in the face of Google's heavy reliance on internally developed tools?

In my Google interviews, they made it clear I should just name a language I know to solve the problems on the white board, not because they particularly cared about the language, but because they wanted to see my thought process solving a problem in a real programming language. Of course, it had to be one of Google's "approved" languages, but I just thought that was so they could assign an interviewer who could assess the quality of the solution.

When did they start caring about "X years experience in language Y" just like all the ignorant technology recruiters out there?

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