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Why Google's hiring process is broken

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Re: Why Google's hiring process is broken

#141

Post by shin_lao »

javert wrote: post #22
ziadbc wrote: post #14

Google manages not to hire someone who didn't want to work there in the first place. Sounds like the process is working just fine to me. In all seriousness, there may be some issues with their hiring process, but I think the Google hiring practices would best be analyzed by using the aggregated data, rather than the trickle of anecdotes we tend to hear about in public. Even if Google got their hiring right 99.9 perce…

Except that the anecdotes that are being heard suggest that their HR practices are broken, through and through, rather than fitting the pattern you described. For example, people just being dropped from contact with Google for no given reason (not as in, "We don't want you," but as in... they just never heard from them again).

If she doesn't call back, it means she's not interested...

Re: Why Google's hiring process is broken

#142

Post by citizenkeys »

bane wrote: post #124
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.

I re-read my comment. The flaw in my reasoning seems to be that Google still needs a way to know the talent exists. So you still gotta get Google's attention somehow before they can recruit you.

Still, though, that "job shopping cart" thing is lame. As somebody that's actually tried it, having to look all around the site and find a specific job just doesn't work. In simple terms, it would be better for Google to have a form that says "Tell us everything you know", let people just write everything they know and submit it, and then let Google match the skills up with a set of jobs that might be a good fit for the candidate.

Re: Why Google's hiring process is broken

#143

Post by namank »

Hahaha, today morning I was thinking about why startups manage to leech millions of $$s selling services that Google actually offers for free.

And I reached the same conclusion - Google doesn't focus on users and thus completely misses the mark. They focus on engineers but not designers or market researchers.

This is why, I think, App Engine will be a huge success and why Wave failed. It was an excellent product, IMO, but it wasn't built with a particular user in mind.

Re: Why Google's hiring process is broken

#144

Post by nostrademons »

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…

FWIW, when I applied to Google, a recruiter gave me a personal phone call within about 2 hours after my resume was submitted, and then guided me through the whole process. I suspect that "talent" gets similar treatment.

Re: Why Google's hiring process is broken

#145

Post by bluelu »

ChuckMcM wrote: post #88

Lots of interesting stories. Disclaimer, I worked at Google for 4 years ('06 - '10) and interviewed a lot of folks (it was always a part of the job) and did a number of phone interviews too. The process then (as perhaps now) was broken and some folks within Google understood that. The process and goals were pretty simple, hire smart people that get things done. The process was aimed at finding smart people who get th…

I applied once in 2008. My recruiter was very friendly and did a great job. (I met him and another one at a presentation, and only 3 days later I had 2 onsite interviews). However, one interviewer didn't like me. When we had the open questions, he directly asked me, if the only reason I would like to work at google was because of the money. He clearly had already judged me. Then after 12 days, I got a call from someone from google from Ireland, which I didn't know, telling me that it was a very difficult decision but they wouldn't offer me a job, but I could reapply in 2 months! Naturally, I didn't do that. I still occasionaly get emails from google recruiters, but I decline.

I joined another compnay after that and did quit the job 3 months later to start my own company. If I would have joined google, I might have never done this if I would be for google. Who knows. I couldn't be happier today. And I'm probably as biased in the interviews today ("get things done"), as google was when they were interviewing me.

Re: Why Google's hiring process is broken

#146

Post by paganel »

veyron wrote: post #37

I actually ended up turning down a google offer for this precise reason -- the questions are biased in favor of a `theory` person over a `practice` person. Having been through a real interview (where the interviewer went through my resume before the interview and prepared real thoughtful questions that would only be known if you actually worked on the language), I took that offer and now interview others more intelli…

> the questions are biased in favor of a `theory` person over a `practice` person.

Reminds me of a phone-interview I had with Adobe for a Python job. The guy at the other end of the line asks me to sort of implement an algorithm, on the phone, I ended up solving his problem using a dictionary, getting its keys and then sorting it. That of course wasn't what the guy wanted, but it solved the problem.

Re: Why Google's hiring process is broken

#147

Post by erikb85 »

akanet wrote: post #67
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.

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 thin…

Shows that you really got Statistics. With so many people who go through the hiring process of Google every day, there just must be a good number of very bad and strange experiences, resulting from even a small and very unlikely set of coincidences. We for sure don't know enough about the data to confidently say Googles hiring process is good or bad.

Re: Why Google's hiring process is broken

#148

Post by othermaciej »

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…

Counter-example: I got an offer from Google 10 years ago and I turned it down in part because the hiring process was awful.

Re: Why Google's hiring process is broken

#149

Post by relaia »

citizenkeys wrote: post #142
bane wrote: post #124

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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.

I re-read my comment. The flaw in my reasoning seems to be that Google still needs a way to know the talent exists. So you still gotta get Google's attention somehow before they can recruit you. Still, though, that "job shopping cart" thing is lame. As somebody that's actually tried it, having to look all around the site and find a specific job just doesn't work. In simple terms, it would be better for Google to have…

This 'job shopping cart' thing is interesting to me, as is your desire to 'let Google match the skills up with a set of jobs', because basically I had the complete opposite experience when (successfully) applying for an internship with Google (Europe Middle East Asia (EMEA), btw, not American).

I was essentially unable to reply for anything other than "Software Engineer Intern". They took my resume, and a cover letter (which I am fairly sure was never read.) I then had two telephone interviews, after which I received an email asking me to choose two interests from a list of about two dozen (which was not an easy task!). From there, I was placed in a "pool" of possible candidates, and I believe that teams from within Google would browse through the pool and find a candidate they liked. Myself, I was in the pool for two and a half months, and had pretty much given up on getting anything when I suddenly heard back that I had a place.

So, it might be different for "real" jobs with them, but in the case of my internship they did exactly a skill-set matching (in a way), and there was no "job cart".

Re: Why Google's hiring process is broken

#150

Post by white_devil »

Matt_Cutts wrote: post #138
javert wrote: post #55

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Yep. Re: Google's word-of mouth reputation: On the one hand, I feel kind of stupid bitching about my experience with Google, even though it really did happen. I don't like bitching. On the other hand, as we hackers talk about this kind of issue at Google, maybe they'll eventually listen and shape up a bit if there really are systemic problems, and that's a win for everyone. I actually tried giving Google "suggestions…

I think Google does listen and try to improve in response to feedback. Interviews and hiring can be especially hard, because of the number of resumes, phone screens, and interviews involved. For what it's worth, I think the interview and screening process has gotten better over the years, even if we have a ways to go. Sorry to hear about your experience though.

Once again, Google's Hacker-PR-Department springs into action to mitigate potential damage and to placate Hackers!
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