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Why Google's hiring process is broken

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Re: Why Google's hiring process is broken

#31

Post by drtse4 »

kenjackson wrote: post #10

Asked me to rate my skills in a list of 14 programming languages. Really? I'd love to know what they did with that data. It seems almost completely useless except to say "Tim does not know any Javascript, indicated by his zero score on that."

From what i remember you could rate from 0 to 5(or 4) but each level represented something, e.g. 0=no experience, 1=limited exp on personal projects, 2=good knowledge and used for "production" projects, etc... It was (few years ago) not just a simple (useless and subjective) rating about your knowledge of the subject.

Re: Why Google's hiring process is broken

#32

Post by esrauch »

kenjackson wrote: post #10

Asked me to rate my skills in a list of 14 programming languages. Really? I'd love to know what they did with that data. It seems almost completely useless except to say "Tim does not know any Javascript, indicated by his zero score on that."

I think the point is to get an idea for what your skills are to determine if any open positions would be a reasonable fit for you.

Theres also the whole theory about what languages you know indicates what kind of person you are. Even if you are looking for a Java programmer, the guy who took the time to learn languages that weren't required in their class indicates they have drive to learn on their own. Obviously it's not a perfect metric, but it's not unreasonable to use it as an indicator. I'm sure they didn't come up with that question just for him, and I don't think its too unreasonable of a question as long as they don't weigh it too heavily.

Re: Why Google's hiring process is broken

#33

Post by joebadmo »

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…

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.

Re: Why Google's hiring process is broken

#34

Post by alienfluid »

I haven't had an interview in over 6 years, but I have been approached by multiple recruiters in the same time span.

I actually dread the day I choose to switch jobs and have to face another technical interview - considering that my knowledge of college-level CS has declined over time. It's not because I am less skilled now than I was before, it's because you don't have to constantly create fantastically fast algorithms on a daily basis (at least in my job!).

The skills that I have developed over the past 6 years - designing complex components that interact with other complex components in a hugely complex product, making improvements in the design of a 20 year old codebase, deciding between fixing a bug and compatibility etc., intuition about design choices and how they fit in the product, and yes, debugging (!) - none of these are covered in technical interviews these days.

Sure, I could explain how a b-tree works - but that's not going to help me resolve my next bug.

Re: Why Google's hiring process is broken

#35

Post by bugmenot »

I deal frequently with a good number of Googlers (many pretty high up in the company), and it's a common complaint from the inside that their hiring process is deeply flawed. Managers can't hire someone they already know to be a perfect fit for a particular job -- if HR decides (after a lengthy interview process) that the candidate didn't attend the right school, that's it. A lot of emotional and social capital gets spent as they approach people to ostensibly hire them, and along the way someone (who'll never actually work with the person post-hire) pulls the plug. A good number of manager-level people are pretty frustrated by it.

And they appear to have taken a chapter from Disney-CBS's book: if you ever turn down a job offer from them, your chances of getting another one--even if it's years down the road, and for a different job--are practically nonexistent. To some degree, I get that, but institutionally, they certainly seem to believe their own hype a bit too much.

Google's still reaping the rewards of having a ridiculously high-profit product (AdWords). Despite being publicly traded, nobody's ever expected them to behave like a 'regular company', and as long as Yahoo and Microsoft continue to play the Copy Google game, it'll stay that way. They're the corporate equivalent of the trust fund baby who's definitely smart, definitely accomplished some things on merit, but still has their world view rooted in unsustainable assumptions.

Re: Why Google's hiring process is broken

#36

Post by adnam »

javert wrote: post #24
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…

I had a deadline to give a yes/no to another company, and my recruiter at Google asked me to get my deadline extended so that Google would have time to interview me. I asked the other company for an extension, which I got, and told my Google recruiter the new deadline. Then Google never responded and I never did an interview with them. I felt really put-off by that.

Why didn't you just say "yes". You can always change your mind.

Re: Why Google's hiring process is broken

#37

Post by veyron »

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 intelligently.

Re: Why Google's hiring process is broken

#38

Post by weixiyen »

currywurst wrote: post #4

This "Google can't do design" meme is really getting old, imho. At best, this is a story about one recruiter in a giant company not doing his job well in matching the requirements with the skill set of the candidate. It is easy to conclude preconceived notions.

FWIW I've had the exact same experience as the author for (I kid you not) a Visual Design opening. Now unless we somehow had the same recruiter, I doubt this is a "one-time" incident.

Re: Why Google's hiring process is broken

#39

Post by suking »

VBprogrammer wrote: post #28

Call me old fashioned but I think Google keeps having slightly embarrassing failures because it tries to copy ideas, without significantly improving on them, where the dominant player has already gained a critical mass of users.

Problem is they can't even copy well. Wave, Buzz - they were terrible.

Re: Why Google's hiring process is broken

#40

Post by kenjackson »

esrauch wrote: post #32
kenjackson wrote: post #10

Asked me to rate my skills in a list of 14 programming languages. Really? I'd love to know what they did with that data. It seems almost completely useless except to say "Tim does not know any Javascript, indicated by his zero score on that."

I think the point is to get an idea for what your skills are to determine if any open positions would be a reasonable fit for you. Theres also the whole theory about what languages you know indicates what kind of person you are. Even if you are looking for a Java programmer, the guy who took the time to learn languages that weren't required in their class indicates they have drive to learn on their own. Obviously it'…

Theres also the whole theory about what languages you know indicates what kind of person you are. Even if you are looking for a Java programmer, the guy who took the time to learn languages that weren't required in their class indicates they have drive to learn on their own.

Not a fan of that indicator. I actually know quite a few mega-polyglots. They learn every langugage they can find. But I also know people who know a couple of languages pretty well, but spend their time learning other things. In my spare I rarely want to learn a new language. I'm much more interested in, how did this app solve problem XYZ. I spend a lot of time digging through code that solves problems. In some cases I have to learn a language to learn a solution, but I rarely just grab a book on esoteric language Z, but I know people who do.

If you ran the NY Times would you hire people based on how many languages they spoke? It might be interesting, if that's their thing, but in general its no more useful than asking someone to rate themselves on how many operating systems they know well, how many different kinds of mice they've used, or how many text editors they're familiar with.

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