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Google to Slow Hiring for Rest of 2020

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Re: Google to Slow Hiring for Rest of 2020

#191

Post by s1t5 »

sytelus wrote: post #98
dodobirdlord wrote: post #94

Earlier quoted context omitted.

At a large technology company with its own software stack it takes several months before a new hire isn’t a net-negative to the team they join. And it will be months after that before they reach full productivity. A bad hire is an extremely expensive mistake.

A bad hires are expensive mistake if you can't get rid of them until some artificial annual event. While I understand onboarding complexities, my experience is that the teams/companies which hasn't create good automated process so new hire can commit their first change within 2-days are big red flag (this was insisted upon by Zuck extensively at Facebook scale). I would also argue that culture of hire/replace team me…

> I would also argue that culture of hire/replace team members in agile manner would help enforce this process more naturally and vice versa.

You're arguing in favour of high turnover - that can't be good neither for the company nor for the employees.

Re: Google to Slow Hiring for Rest of 2020

#192

Post by pieterk »

ardit33 wrote: post #178
godzillabrennus wrote: post #147

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I don’t understand it either. Facebook may well be the worlds most powerful sentiment capture and analysis engine ever built but Google tracks conversions and has pretty stellar sentiment capture/analysis capabilities. Google appears to also have twice as much cash on hand as Facebook. Wonder what they’ll use it for if not to hire competent people to prevent them from starting the next big thing...

tik tok.... they have a real competitive threat, and probably want to make sure when the recession is over, they are still the #1 in social space Also, back in 2008, Google didn't hire/freezed its hiring, but Facebook and Amazon were still hiring like mad, and it worked well for them. They are used to ride out recessions.

bingo. facebook needs to build the next Tik Tok or they’ll lose

Re: Google to Slow Hiring for Rest of 2020

#193

Post by themdonuts »

mav3rick wrote: post #182
cletus wrote: post #176

So years ago this came up with Eric Schmidt, who was CEO of Google through the GFC. After 2007, Google had selective layoffs (probably not in engineering) and slowed hiring. They also paused construction projects in Mountain View and probably elsewhere. Eric said when asked about it that it was a mistake. He said that if Google was healthy there was no need to have a kneejerk reaction to the slowdown. And this caused…

Your sole view is not the final authority on what's right for a company. Google has done many things right while growing to this size. It still retains top talent something that other big companies struggle with. And yes I'll just wait for HNers who are disgruntled about being rejected downvote me. But the truth is 99% of the people will take a job at Google in a jiffy. I'm also proud of the response and employee sup…

I'm not so sure if Google did that much to help with the Covid situation. Yes, they checked the box of throwing a bunch of chromebooks at the problem and money and are also extending the tracking of people to "help identify potential new cases". But did they actually do anything out of the box that doesn't directly help them? As an example, my company allows us expensing up to 2 family meals per week from local businesses to help these. They are also extending the deadline with holidays not spent from last year so employees don't lose them. These are little things that actually make a difference. I know Google didn't come up with any of these things for their employees, but I'm sure Larry and Sergei's Google from back then would have done this and much more.

Re: Google to Slow Hiring for Rest of 2020

#194

Post by fnayr »

fergie wrote: post #159
mkoryak wrote: post #86

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Counter point: The time between my on site interview and hire date was 1 month and 1 day. I skipped the phone interview so the time from initial referral to offer was under a month. Having an internal reference may have helped, as did the fact that I told them I was actively interviewing and had offers.

Does anybody get hired for SWE positions at Google _without_ an internal referral? When I was interviewing there 6 or so years ago I was under the impression that you, in practice, had to have an insider vouch for you.

I was hired last year without a reference. I just submitted a resume to the careers page.

Re: Google to Slow Hiring for Rest of 2020

#196

Post by sa46 »

cletus wrote: post #176

So years ago this came up with Eric Schmidt, who was CEO of Google through the GFC. After 2007, Google had selective layoffs (probably not in engineering) and slowed hiring. They also paused construction projects in Mountain View and probably elsewhere. Eric said when asked about it that it was a mistake. He said that if Google was healthy there was no need to have a kneejerk reaction to the slowdown. And this caused…

I'd like to see an org-chart depth analysis for different organizations. It'd be interesting to map bureaucratic processes to the structure of an org chart and verify Conway's law.

The U.S. Army uses the concept of a span of control that dictates each level of hierarchy should have between 2 and 5 reports. There's about 10 levels between a private and the secretary of the army. The Active Duty Army is about 470k which works out to 3.7 reports per level from 470000^(1/10). There's about 1M total personnel which works out to 3.9 reports per level.

Google has 114k employees. With your ideal of 7, that works out to 5.3 reports per level given by 114000^(1/7). I'd be pretty surprised if there's a depth of 12 at Google. That's 2.6 reports per level.

Re: Google to Slow Hiring for Rest of 2020

#197

Post by nieksand »

sytelus wrote: post #87
o10449366 wrote: post #27

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Google has a notoriously slow hiring process. For new grads and internships, the time between initial coding assessment to final hiring confirmation is often several months.

One has to think why the concept of employment is still considered like marriage that require such an extensive ultra-deep multi-level deliberations. Let's say you were local, why it shouldn't be possible to give someone on-the spot offer after half-day of interviews as well as let them go with, say 2 weeks of standard severance if things don't work out?

As much as our industry sucks at interviewing, it sucks at performance management even more.

A congenial but mediocre developer can stick around forever in most places once they're in.

This performance management weakness also makes me suspicious of various companies claiming to have nailed the interview process.

Re: Google to Slow Hiring for Rest of 2020

#198

Post by RivieraKid »

mike_d wrote: post #149
sytelus wrote: post #108

Before everyone starts painting bleak picture, reminder: Facebook's Sandberg announced last week or so that they are going to do accelerated hiring spree this year, opening massive 10,000 more positions! Google as well as Facebook both depend on ads so I'm wondering why one is tightening the belt and other is moving full speed on expansion.

> Sandberg announced last week or so that they are going to do accelerated hiring spree That was a message to the stock market. In reality I haven't heard from a Facebook recruiter in a month now.

Lying would be illegal...

Re: Google to Slow Hiring for Rest of 2020

#199

Post by tpxl »

Robelius wrote: post #189
csallen wrote: post #145

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Exactly right. For example, many media organizations right now are reporting record traffic numbers, but are struggling to make ends meet as advertisers pull out.

Is there actually any numbers people can point towards? I’ve read similar comments over different forum postings about advertisers tending to cut advertising during times like these to help their financials. And it makes sense to me. But now I’m sitting here, just wondering if anyone has actually looked at numbers during other financial downturns. Or is it just some catching conversation that’s been kicking off....ma…

There have been a couple of articles recently about this:

"L.A. Times to Furlough Workers as Ad Revenue ‘Nearly Eliminated’" https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=22872711

"As YouTube traffic soars, YouTubers say pay is plummeting" https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=22856324

Re: Google to Slow Hiring for Rest of 2020

#200

Post by [deleted] »

Robelius wrote: post #189
csallen wrote: post #145

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Exactly right. For example, many media organizations right now are reporting record traffic numbers, but are struggling to make ends meet as advertisers pull out.

Is there actually any numbers people can point towards? I’ve read similar comments over different forum postings about advertisers tending to cut advertising during times like these to help their financials. And it makes sense to me. But now I’m sitting here, just wondering if anyone has actually looked at numbers during other financial downturns. Or is it just some catching conversation that’s been kicking off....ma…

[deleted]
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