I was contacted by a recruiter for a security test engineer after some crazy stuff I did which got out into the international press. I meet up all their requirments besides strong coding in c++, java, python. My main is PHP, JS and python at the level of exploit development. I have a lot and strong experiences described in the CV. No response from the recruiter yet ...
Why Google's hiring process is broken
171–177 of 177 posts
Re: Why Google's hiring process is broken
#172If you google "google job interview", my nightmare story is #2 or #3 - read shmula.
I eventually received a job offer, but by that point, I wasn't interested.
Anyways, the details of my story are in that blog post.
Re: Why Google's hiring process is broken
#173Google is considered (or at least was, by other tech companies) to have a very poor sourcing and general recruiting experience. It was assumed to be because they contract out the work. As a contrast to that, at MSFT, we had full-time recruiting staff generally split into college and experienced recruiting (there are some extra bits not important to this). The experienced recruiting staff was assigned to divisions and…
Your information is incorrect. Google does all its own recruiting. It is not outsourced.
Thank you for this clarification! That was not the case in 2002-2004 (when I was a hiring manager at MSFT).
Re: Why Google's hiring process is broken
#174I had a similar experience. Same letter from the recruiter, back-and-forth with rate-your-skills, but then nothing. It's strange because the position they had in mind seemed directly aligned with my proven interests and abilities. Hell, my cover letter was pretty much describing the job they wanted before they even told me about it. I really see it as strange that I never got a call back. (Maybe it's not over yet, it…
You applied at google? I remember a few months ago you asking why anyone would want a lower paying job at google when they could work in finance. Have the rates changed that much?
I doubt those were my exact words. I said if you can get more in finance, then do it.
Re: Why Google's hiring process is broken
#175Google 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…
It depends on how you define "hire right". They can make two types of errors (as any binary classifier ;) ), false positives - wrong hires - and false negatives - wrong rejections. They tend to err on the false negative side.
Yeah. In my experience they have an exceptionally low false positive rate.
That's what makes it so much easier for me to think that they could apply their (exceptional) brains to lowering the (seemingly) high false negative rate.
Re: Why Google's hiring process is broken
#176Earlier quoted context omitted.
That's done to eliminate bias... But it remains written, so that all your unconscious biases about people stay out of the decision, and at least in theory, it's all based on hard data. Impossible. The interviewers, just like us, are human. They come with a bunch of built-in biases that will show through in any contact they have with the hiring committee, whether it's verbal or written. I just don't see your "theory"…
Did you read my response to gergles? No, you'll never get a perfectly unbiased process. But having to justify your opinions with written data forces you to delve a little deeper than you otherwise would, and expose facts that might qualify or disqualify a candidate, not just impressions. It's still wrong, but it's less wrong. Culture fit is one of the dimensions that candidates are evaluated on. But again, feedback n…
What about the bias that comes from having worked with someone for a few years, and knowing without any doubt that they are awesomely gifted, loyal to a fault, and willing to dive into the breach for the common cause? You cannot figure that out with a sterile interviewing process.
A company does not have to guard against 'bias' other than racial, religious and that sort of thing. 'Bias' towards (or against) people you know is called knowledge.
Re: Why Google's hiring process is broken
#177Earlier quoted context omitted.
There's a consistency in these stories from different people over the years that tells me this is one of the normal processes at Google. It may not be intentional, but it is known and there is no sincere desire to fix the process. That that is so tells me the process is about asserting power and place, and not about looking for talent.
Well, why would they? Even today, they still have a reputation as the dream place to work (even tho' with what, 20,000 engineers now, they are more like HP or IBM than they are a startup). They have zero need to change until their deluge of candidates starts to dry up.
The original article makes a good case about why they need to change. They have had some serious misses lately, and some of that may be attributed to a broken hiring process that emphasizes coding ability above all other considerations.