Hacker News Board Hacker News, browsed like a classic message board
Live data from Hacker News

Why Google's hiring process is broken

blog.teambox.com

Post reply on HN
Print view View original

121–130 of 177 posts

Re: Why Google's hiring process is broken

#121

Post by bane »

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…

You could always get a "back door" hire -- build a product that Google acquires and simply become part of the staff that way. Oddly, that kind of hiring selects for people who see the entire product and can build something that works and is successful vs. somebody who keeps flash cards with complexity stats for oddball algorithms in their back pocket.

Re: Why Google's hiring process is broken

#123

Post by ChuckMcM »

sahillavingia wrote: post #111
ChuckMcM wrote: post #105

Earlier quoted context omitted.

My contact information is generally available in my profile. I realize that permission to contact is only implicit by that, I'll update my profile.

Your email doesn't show up in your profile.

Learn something new every day, I've added it to my 'about' section.

Re: Why Google's hiring process is broken

#124

Post by bane »

citizenkeys wrote: post #100

Google's process is broken because it generally presumes job candidates know what specific job they want, and they don't. To put it in contrast, I also applied to Microsoft and they immediately assigned me a specific recruiter that I could email directly. Google needs to give job candidates a person to contact rather than expecting talent to go online and do that weird "job shopping cart" thing they have on their web…

Google's counter to that is that since they tend to target only people from top companies and top schools (by their particular perception of what is "top"), so they'll tend to sweep up talented people anyway.

Re: Why Google's hiring process is broken

#125

Post by 16s »

They asked me how to rm a file named -f. Seriously. I thought to myself what a silly question. That's like 20 year old Unix trivia. I was dumb-founded. This was the second phone interview. I knew then I did not want to work for them and I told the recruiter I was not interested. They called me and they initiated the contact.

Re: Why Google's hiring process is broken

#127

Post by abbasmehdi »

javert wrote: post #85
dclowd9901 wrote: post #71

Earlier quoted context omitted.

While your intentions are undoubtedly admirable, and you certainly more than likely have very valid reasons for not "pulling crap like this" (not burning bridges, for one), I hope you're not mistaken by some baseless belief that any company would extend you the same courtesy.

Meh. I think it's pretty rare for a company to tell someone "Yes, you can definitely work for us, here is a contract for you to sign and a start date and how much you're going to make" and then revoke that. Which is the equivalent to me telling a company I'll work for them and then reneging. But of course, yes, they could do it, and you're right that people and companies aren't always courteous.

I've had a company retract an offer after I asked for an extension to accept. I guess they felt like a second choice.

Re: Why Google's hiring process is broken

#128

Post by nl »

briancurtin wrote: post #107
fogus wrote: post #60

Sometimes I feel like the only person who was not hired by Google that didn't become bitter. I was treated with respect, was put up in a nice hotel, met very smart people, answered (and didn't ;) very tough questions. In the end it didn't work out. I had a blast nonetheless.

Same here. I had two solid phone interviews, then they flew me out, put me up in a cool hotel, rented me a car, and put me through a good day on campus. Of the five interviews, I think I nailed four and blew one of them. Oh well, heard back around a week later that I didn't make the cut.

I've done 2 set of interviews, and I'm not bitter.

I wasn't impressed with their process the first time, but the second time (2 years later) was a lot better.

Re: Why Google's hiring process is broken

#129

Post by rfrey »

ballgoogler wrote: post #69
jimbokun wrote: post #66

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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 tha…

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.

Engineers also prefer data to hokey stereotypes and sweeping generalities. Got some?

Re: Why Google's hiring process is broken

#130

Post by tonfa »

noctorne wrote: post #57
joebadmo wrote: post #33

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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.

Well, I know Googlers pretty well. Even internally, they say their hiring process really sucks. Not one person told me this, 80% of the people I talked to told me the same thing. I personally wont blame the interviewers or the recruiters, they are doing their job. I blame their messed up Hiring Committee. I don't understand why the hiring committee can't collaborate with the interviewers and hiring manager to hire a…

Just to counter the negative bias :)

I had an awesome hiring experience. Extremely responsive recruiter (I understand that's not always the case given the number of temps). Took me two weeks from on site to getting an offer. Everyone I referred so far had a similar experience.

Post reply on HN