Why Google's hiring process is broken • Hacker News Board

Re: Why Google's hiring process is broken

#151

Post by danssig » Wed, May 18, 2011, 10:55 AM UTC

jrockway wrote: post #18

I 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?

Re: Why Google's hiring process is broken

#152

Post by rakkhi » Wed, May 18, 2011, 11:04 AM UTC

bluelu wrote: post #145

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 someo…

Had a similar experience. Google recruiter contacted me about security role on Android team, NFC and mobile payments stuff, sounded good up my alley. Sent programming skills email, I honestly said I suck at coding I work on security design and architecture. I do some coding on my own time but not upto enterprise grade. Quick chat with the next level recruiter, we don't really hire for a specific role but we will put you forward for an interview, iterate I don't code. Interview, guy is quite nice, what do you enjoy, I say what I enjoy, you didn't mention coding in that. That's right. You were put forward for a software engineering role. #facepalm. I'll see if I can get you interviewed by a security guy. Cool. About a month later email, no role for you. Lol.

Re: Why Google's hiring process is broken

#153

Post by suprgeek » Wed, May 18, 2011, 11:10 AM UTC

This reminds me of the saying: To a man with a Hammer, everything looks like a nail.

Google's Hammer is its (admittedly great) expertise at Algorithmically solving Hard Webscale Data Problems. Unfortunately some problems cannot be solved by the Hammer of Algorithms - Social Products is one of them and Great UI is another. Think about any Google Product (Search, Maps, Youtube, Groups,..) that is the very best in either of these two areas.

Re: Why Google's hiring process is broken

#154

Post by kelnos » Wed, May 18, 2011, 11:14 AM UTC

nostrademons wrote: post #94

noctorne wrote: post #57

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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…

That's done to eliminate bias. Remember how a couple days ago, there was a story on HN about how interviewing really sucks, because ultimately, what determines whether you get the job or not whether you happen to have a personal rapport with your interviewer? People end up caring more about how you present yourself socially than what you know. The hiring committee is Google's answer to that. The idea is to completely…

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" holding up in reality.

And I don't see this as a bad thing. As someone making a hiring decision, I want the emotion. I want to personally talk to the interviewer and get full impression of what they thought of the candidate. You're not going to get that through an email. Technical competence is only one part of the equation. If one of this person's potential teammates doesn't feel good about the prospect of working with the candidate, I want to know that.

Of course, Google has this ridiculous idea that they can hire people and only later decide what they'll be working on and which team they'll be working in. So you end up hiring people who don't even meet their team until after they start. I just can't imagine working for a company like that -- from the perspective of the existing employee, even.

Re: Why Google's hiring process is broken

#155

Post by kelnos » Wed, May 18, 2011, 11:19 AM UTC

nigelk wrote: post #113

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 hiring process at Google was reasonably long and rigorous, but it certainly wasn't a horror story. I left about six months ago, and while there were things I didn't like about the hiring and interview process, it was still significantly better than any other place I've worked.

Really? I went through the Google interview process back in 2006, and I had a fantastic time. The level of transparency was a little frustrating, but everyone I was in contact with was polite and responsive, and I never found myself waiting for replies. The on-site interviewers were really fun to talk to, and I left with a great impression.

But I wouldn't call the process significantly better than anywhere else. I've had plenty of other interviews on par with that, some better, some worse.

Re: Why Google's hiring process is broken

#156

Post by lupino3 » Wed, May 18, 2011, 12:35 PM UTC

munificent wrote: post #99

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.

I'm a Googler. I found the hiring process exhausting, but I felt it was thorough and fair. My recruiter did a fantastic job of walking me through the process and letting me know what was going on. I'm sure Google has made lots of mistakes hiring people, but there's always a bias towards complaint. Most people don't have the energy to type up a "everything went fine" reply.

I second that. I'm a future Google SwEng intern, my recruiter was always kind and helpful, even in tasks that wouldn't strictly be her duty, and the whole process (4 phone interviews x 45 min. each) was a bit lenghty (2-3 months) but fair, challenging and enjoyable. Interviewers have also always been kind and helpful.

Re: Why Google's hiring process is broken

#157

Post by lupino3 » Wed, May 18, 2011, 12:50 PM UTC

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…

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.

Re: Why Google's hiring process is broken

#158

Post by jinushaun » Wed, May 18, 2011, 12:59 PM UTC

"User are not As and Bs."

Reminds me of working at MS as a designer. It's challenging for an engineering-focused company to suddenly try to integrate design into their products--especially one so focused on metrics. This often leads to "duct-tape design" instead of a clear unified design. User testing no longer validates design, but completely drives it. E.g., because our study found that users clicked more buttons when they are bright red and blinking in their faces, let's make all buttons blink red! Brilliant? No.

Re: Why Google's hiring process is broken

#159

Post by Noink » Wed, May 18, 2011, 1:17 PM UTC

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…

> The simplest solution if either has an equal probability of being the 'correct' assesment is that you pass on them because you can't know if you have bad data. And that was a part of the process that was fundamentally broken.

This is the same way some have argued elections are broken: you don't end up with the best people, you end up with the least-bad people. Since people aren't one-dimensional, those are very different concepts. Least-bad involves very little risk; you eliminate everyone who displays any risk factors at all. You also necessarily eliminate creative geniuses with a spotty record.

Re: Why Google's hiring process is broken

#160

Post by gaius » Wed, May 18, 2011, 1:47 PM UTC

bugsy wrote: post #90

noctorne wrote: post #53

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Same thing happened to me. I contribute to many projects, I even spent my time for some Google projects. A lot of time actually. I had an offer with another great company, and they told me to let them extend it for another week. I did the interview process at Google, and did two phone interviews and one onsite. I thought I did pretty well, but I was waiting for their reply back for a week, and no reply. Then I pinged…

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.