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Heath and Fillekes v. Google Inc. Lawsuit

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Re: Heath and Fillekes v. Google Inc. Lawsuit

#51

Post by howawaygoog »

stuckagain wrote: post #50
howawaygoog wrote: post #45

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I was a bit pissed that the way the recruiter told me initially I thought the hiring committee was just a safety check and pretty much a rubber stamp so I got all excited for abut a day until he told me I didn't pass the committee. He gave me no feedback whatsoever about interviews or anything, just encouraged me to apply in a year, which may be standard talk for all candidates (he did invite me later to an online se…

Sounds like the recruiter made a mistake. The committee rejects the vast majority. The executive review committee that comes after accepts most, though.

yes, that somehow makes me feel better (rather than almost all passed but me), I guess in the media they all focus so much in the legendary Google interview that so few people pass, they forgot to mention the committee. My one bad taste of the experience was that one day (thankfully it could have been worse) I thought I had made it.

Re: Heath and Fillekes v. Google Inc. Lawsuit

#52

Post by cookiecaper »

tr1ck5t3r wrote: post #25
howawaygoog wrote: post #2

just got email for this, I did interview for Google and I'm over 40, (wonder how they got my info). I passed the interview but was shut down at the committee, very much doubt that age was a factor.

Age is a factor. Young people whilst educated highly are still very naive when it comes to thinking through the implications of their actions, so they are easy to manipulate and have them produce some nefarious dual use tech. In fact I would go so far to suggest that someone in their 40's has learnt enough about the ways of the world to know alot better the differences in the rights and wrongs of the world. In other…

I vouched for this because I believe it is a relevant contribution that falls within community guidelines, even if applying such theories in hiring decisions may open one to legal liability.

Many of the posts in your history show up as dead, you may be getting autokilled and only getting replies when someone vouches.

Re: Heath and Fillekes v. Google Inc. Lawsuit

#53

Post by deskamess »

throwawayforme wrote: post #46
DannyBee wrote: post #40

Earlier quoted context omitted.

"In my wife's case, the problem was that the committee deadlocked on how to level her. She had 5+ years of academic experience, and 5+ years of research experience (think national lab type stuff; research w/o teaching). However, she'd only briefly worked in industry many years ago between her MS and PhD. So rather than hire her, they told her to "go work someplace else for a year, then apply again". (direct quote, as…

Speaking of growth -- what is Google's hiring position on growth? Would Google hire a "plateaued" senior SWE for a senior SWE role? Or does a candidate have to demonstrate a capacity for growth at all levels? Internally, I believe we were told that all SWEs were expected to be capable of growing into a level 5 (senior SWE) role, and it was "OK" to not be promoted any higher. So if somebody was hired in their 20s, it…

That is an excellent question and gets to the heart of the matter in my opinion. Would someone already employed in your organization be hirable again if they were not already in there? If they have plateaued internally, should the employee be replaced with someone who has not plateaued yet?

Re: Heath and Fillekes v. Google Inc. Lawsuit

#55

Post by mike_hearn »

eli_gottlieb wrote: post #41
DannyBee wrote: post #40

Earlier quoted context omitted.

"In my wife's case, the problem was that the committee deadlocked on how to level her. She had 5+ years of academic experience, and 5+ years of research experience (think national lab type stuff; research w/o teaching). However, she'd only briefly worked in industry many years ago between her MS and PhD. So rather than hire her, they told her to "go work someplace else for a year, then apply again". (direct quote, as…

>The answer you received is, in my view, usually the answer given when "we don't think they did well enough to hire them, but think that they may get there with practice". If you don't want to hire a tenured stats professor with 10+ years research experience to work in data science, I think that's your problem. Maybe OP's wife had some horrifying deal-breaker personality trait, but really it just sounds like Google's…

Aren't you assuming that the tenuring process is very similar to Google's hiring process? What if people at that institution get tenure even if they aren't very good at the work? After all the whole point of tenure is to protect people from getting fired regardless of how bad their peer-judged performance is.

Re: Heath and Fillekes v. Google Inc. Lawsuit

#56

Post by eli_gottlieb »

mike_hearn wrote: post #55
eli_gottlieb wrote: post #41

Earlier quoted context omitted.

>The answer you received is, in my view, usually the answer given when "we don't think they did well enough to hire them, but think that they may get there with practice". If you don't want to hire a tenured stats professor with 10+ years research experience to work in data science, I think that's your problem. Maybe OP's wife had some horrifying deal-breaker personality trait, but really it just sounds like Google's…

Aren't you assuming that the tenuring process is very similar to Google's hiring process? What if people at that institution get tenure even if they aren't very good at the work? After all the whole point of tenure is to protect people from getting fired regardless of how bad their peer-judged performance is.

>What if people at that institution get tenure even if they aren't very good at the work?

In modern academia, there are hundreds of aspirants for each tenure-track job. To both get a job and then get tenure means you've been peer-reviewed as excellent dozens of times over since finishing school.

>After all the whole point of tenure is to protect people from getting fired regardless of how bad their peer-judged performance is.

No, the point of tenure is to protect people from getting fired when they have controversial political opinions like, "Stop gutting state university funding".

Re: Heath and Fillekes v. Google Inc. Lawsuit

#57

Post by DannyBee »

fjdlwlv wrote: post #47
DannyBee wrote: post #40

Earlier quoted context omitted.

"In my wife's case, the problem was that the committee deadlocked on how to level her. She had 5+ years of academic experience, and 5+ years of research experience (think national lab type stuff; research w/o teaching). However, she'd only briefly worked in industry many years ago between her MS and PhD. So rather than hire her, they told her to "go work someplace else for a year, then apply again". (direct quote, as…

Google will hire loads of young / inexperienced people at non-senior, let them work for 8-10 years (exceeding level expectations but not getting to senior level), and then let them wash out to a competitor or startup. But they won't hire someone with 15-20 years of experience as non-senior, and let them do the same. Because of demonstrated trajectory and the belief that a company only needs leaders and future leaders…

"But they won't hire someone with 15-20 years of experience as non-senior, and let them do the same"

Because they've already washed out in a sense?

I dunno, it seems sensible to me.

Re: Heath and Fillekes v. Google Inc. Lawsuit

#58

Post by DannyBee »

throwawayforme wrote: post #46
DannyBee wrote: post #40

Earlier quoted context omitted.

"In my wife's case, the problem was that the committee deadlocked on how to level her. She had 5+ years of academic experience, and 5+ years of research experience (think national lab type stuff; research w/o teaching). However, she'd only briefly worked in industry many years ago between her MS and PhD. So rather than hire her, they told her to "go work someplace else for a year, then apply again". (direct quote, as…

Speaking of growth -- what is Google's hiring position on growth? Would Google hire a "plateaued" senior SWE for a senior SWE role? Or does a candidate have to demonstrate a capacity for growth at all levels? Internally, I believe we were told that all SWEs were expected to be capable of growing into a level 5 (senior SWE) role, and it was "OK" to not be promoted any higher. So if somebody was hired in their 20s, it…

"Would Google hire a "plateaued" senior SWE for a senior SWE role?"

Sure. I've done it. I have hired senior swes who are happy being senior swe's, for a variety of reasons. As long as they can actually maintain a minimum level of performance at that level, SGTM.

"Would you hire this same person?"

Yes.

The bar is basically set at the point they aren't serious overhead to others, can figure out what needs to get done, and get it done.

Anything over that is just gravy.

Re: Heath and Fillekes v. Google Inc. Lawsuit

#59

Post by DannyBee »

deskamess wrote: post #53
throwawayforme wrote: post #46

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Speaking of growth -- what is Google's hiring position on growth? Would Google hire a "plateaued" senior SWE for a senior SWE role? Or does a candidate have to demonstrate a capacity for growth at all levels? Internally, I believe we were told that all SWEs were expected to be capable of growing into a level 5 (senior SWE) role, and it was "OK" to not be promoted any higher. So if somebody was hired in their 20s, it…

That is an excellent question and gets to the heart of the matter in my opinion. Would someone already employed in your organization be hirable again if they were not already in there? If they have plateaued internally, should the employee be replaced with someone who has not plateaued yet?

"If they have plateaued internally, should the employee be replaced with someone who has not plateaued yet?"

There are a variety of opinions on this matter. My personal one is "set the bar at the point they can do good self-directed and mostly self-managed work". If they can get and stay above the bar, awesome, i would never replace them.

Re: Heath and Fillekes v. Google Inc. Lawsuit

#60

Post by cookiecaper »

fjdlwlv wrote: post #48
DannyBee wrote: post #44

Earlier quoted context omitted.

"If you don't want to hire a tenured stats professor with 10+ years research experience to work in data science, I think that's your problem. Maybe OP's wife had some horrifying deal-breaker personality trait, but really it just sounds like Google's committee was too snobby about Industry Versus Academia to hire an experienced statistics expert to do statistics. " 1. Google, from what i can tell, is okay with it bein…

Is Google meeting its hiring goals? They seems desperate to land everyone they decide they want, so if they can get better at identifying who can help them, they'd benefit a lot. Also, be careful, logic as in item #1 is the same logic that companies use to justify any form of discrimination.

People are very bad at hiring. I'm sure that adding committees and crap into the process doesn't make it any better, just more bureaucratic.

This is unfortunate, because hiring is one of the areas where a responsive, streamlined approach is most critical to acceptable outcomes. Creating a committee of irrelevant appointees to come in at a late stage and give an indirect evaluation based on the notes from two prior interviews only creates an opportunity to block good people w/ bikeshedding.

If someone whose company is getting acquired can't even get fast tracked out of this demeaning and silly process, it's no wonder Google turns off non-luminaries more interested in getting good stuff done than dealing with red tape and bureaucracies.

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