Google’s recruiting system is famously brutal. Many workers think it’s failing
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Re: Google’s recruiting system is famously brutal. Many workers think it’s failing
#2This website is unusable on my iPhone 13 pro with increased font size.
Light grey text on white background with the menu constantly open and half transparent.
Re: Google’s recruiting system is famously brutal. Many workers think it’s failing
#3Article aside, can anyone tell me what's going on here at the bottom of the article? Screenshot: https://i.imgur.com/D0F4Ib9.png
Re: Google’s recruiting system is famously brutal. Many workers think it’s failing
#4Article aside, can anyone tell me what's going on here at the bottom of the article? Screenshot: https://i.imgur.com/D0F4Ib9.png
I think the website is just broken. For me theres a menu overlapping like 80% of the screen vertically, and the light gray text is illegible on a white background (edit- screenshot here https://i.ibb.co/6YsVmQ4/Screenshot-20211008-113929.png). I know HN discourages complaints about an article's web design, but yeesh
Re: Google’s recruiting system is famously brutal. Many workers think it’s failing
#5I interviewed at Google about a decade ago. I made it far enough that they flew me out to interview on-site at their Kirkland office.
I remember feeling like I had done fairly well, sans one interview. The interview in question was around development experience in C. The interviewer, very early on, asked how to redirect stdout. I suggested using freopen, and he said that wasn't allowed.
Well why the hell not?
The answer he was actually looking for depended on the knowledge that open() returns the smallest possible file descriptor number -- so close stdout, and simply call open() again.
I didn't happen to know that particular detail at the time. It derailed the entire interview. He was fixated on this one very specific piece of knowledge. And the worst part is not only does his approach make your code less clear, there are also contexts under which it wouldn't work.
I don't know if that particular interview was the reason for my not being offered a job.
I did end up hearing later on about hiring from a couple of Google engineers at a tech conference. They said that it is quite common that Google makes you interview two or three times.
I suspect the reason is to make you feel a sense of gratitude for being hired. And so you don't quit.
Re: Google’s recruiting system is famously brutal. Many workers think it’s failing
#6This website is unusable on my iPhone 13 pro with increased font size. Light grey text on white background with the menu constantly open and half transparent.
Try https://outline.com/CcLGrw as alternative
Re: Google’s recruiting system is famously brutal. Many workers think it’s failing
#7> It was the design of the recruiting system itself that became his problem: At some point, Google decided Watt (who was working as an associate professor at the time) was interviewing to be a site reliability engineer, despite never indicating an interest in that role himself (he was interested in a more management-focused position).
> "It just never seemed to get through. They were so focused on whatever categorization they had chosen and it was fixed," he said. "I think something in their processes meant they weren't really looking for a fit between a person and a job. It felt to me that they probably had a recruiter who was looking for a certain role. Once they put you in the pipeline, that's the role you're in."
Didn't Google at some point decide a guy who developed a VM or interpreter or something that they were using in-house was only good enough to be a sysadmin for them?
Re: Google’s recruiting system is famously brutal. Many workers think it’s failing
#8I don't get it. University tests are brutal too and have the expectation the student will devote large amounts of time and energy. It seems like a job interview is fair game for the same, no?
I feel like this is a very bruised ego here. I'm not saying any interview process is perfect, and I think a lot of them are very, very bad at accessing the capabilities and value someone provides, but same for University.
Re: Google’s recruiting system is famously brutal. Many workers think it’s failing
#9I interviewed at Google about a decade ago. I made it far enough that they flew me out to interview on-site at their Kirkland office. I remember feeling like I had done fairly well, sans one interview. The interview in question was around development experience in C. The interviewer, very early on, asked how to redirect stdout. I suggested using freopen, and he said that wasn't allowed. Well why the hell not? The ans…
> He was fixated on this one very specific piece of knowledge.
IMHO, that's what makes writing interview questions so hard: you really have to know the topic inside and out to know (or at least recognize) all the answers. If you only know one, your question is shit and you might as well have the applicant play guess the number.
Re: Google’s recruiting system is famously brutal. Many workers think it’s failing
#10> It was the design of the recruiting system itself that became his problem: At some point, Google decided Watt (who was working as an associate professor at the time) was interviewing to be a site reliability engineer, despite never indicating an interest in that role himself (he was interested in a more management-focused position). > "It just never seemed to get through. They were so focused on whatever categoriza…
Yeah, at least in the past it was pretty standard for them to assign you a seemingly random interview gauntlet focused on a role that wasn't a fit for you and wasn't even the one you were applying for.
I interviewed for javascript vm/browser runtime stuff multiple times and until the last interview cycle I kept getting assigned to interview with people who worked on android apps or cloud storage infrastructure. Complete mismatch. I don't write Java, dude.