Why I Don’t Talk to Google Recruiters • Hacker News Board

Re: Why I Don’t Talk to Google Recruiters

#591

Post by LyalinDotCom » Wed, Feb 22, 2017, 2:17 AM UTC

Reminds me of my own story on a much smaller scale and at a much smaller company, but very similar experience so let me share it.

I recall my interview many years ago (10+ yrs) at a small Microsoft partner, this was when I was still working in banking but wanted to do more interesting work and grow my career. I was younger, ambitious and also as this post talked about, fairly new to the interview process.

I found them through a recruiter, they setup an interview and I was very anxious but excited, showed up ready to show them why I thought I could do the job they needed, why I could be a great senior .NET developer.

I met that day with one person, who asked me a bunch of very very narrow questions around some ASP.NET thing I never needed to do but could have Googled and figured out. But on the spot, if that was the scope of the interview, well then I was certainly not "qualified".

I then left, very confused and very demoralized. Is this what it meant to have interviews at jobs more interesting then some random NYC bank?

A short time later Microsoft recruiters called me back in regards to a resume I submitted 6+ months before all this started and totally thought that Microsoft didn't want me, I mean look at the crazy experience with the partner. But my buddy, a more senior developer told me "dude trust me, that was a BS interview, you HAVE to go to this interview and you'll see, you have a good chance".

The Microsoft interview was the standard Microsoft Consulting one, multiple people plus the hiring manager. I felt welcomed, they all focused on different technology and at a high level which made a lot of sense. I met my future manager, she seemed to like me. I got the job and I have not looked back, working now at Microsoft for 9 years. I was honestly very impressed with the Microsoft interview process and have helped hire others to the team over the years. It really works if you do it this way and the manager is included, but yeah many companies and even many teams within Microsoft don't do it that way and I don't get why.

Re: Why I Don’t Talk to Google Recruiters

#592

Post by jdlshore » Wed, Feb 22, 2017, 2:22 AM UTC

stcredzero wrote: post #361

roguecoder wrote: post #215

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It is a basic question about one very narrow skill set that is relevant for some, but not all, programming jobs. It is trivial only for people who had to slog through only-sort-of-relevant CS degrees, who may or may not be the most productive programmers. I could just as easily say "we should be asking every programmer to handle a six-box grid layout" on a white board. It is just as trivial, it is relevant to the sam…

It is a basic question about one very narrow skill set that is relevant for some, but not all, programming jobs. I could just as easily say "we should be asking every programmer to handle a six-box grid layout" on a white board. It's a skill set that's relevant to almost all of programming jobs. Quick: give me an example of how time/space complexity can be relevant to layout manager code. (Can't do it? Dunning-Kruger…

> Can't do it? Dunning-Kruger just reared its ugly head again.

@stcredzero, I've seen your name pop up time and again on this thread. I don't think you realize how rude you're being.

You clearly think that Data Structures 101 is important knowledge, to the point of saying that most software project failures are caused by lack of that knowledge. Others in this thread take a more moderate position.

Can you accept that this is a difference of opinion, not a sign of incompetence, and stop being so rude about it?

Re: Why I Don’t Talk to Google Recruiters

#593

Post by pitaj » Wed, Feb 22, 2017, 2:32 AM UTC

stcredzero wrote: post #578

iamleppert wrote: post #328

I'd also like to add my own experience dealing with recruiters from Amazon, Facebook, Google, Netflix. They are liars. They most definitely will e-mail you whatever it takes to get you into the first part of the funnel. They'll tell you its a "special project" or try and make it seem like somehow you're exactly what they are looking for. It's not true; I've been down the route a few times and have easily been able to…

No, you don't need this knowledge (unless specifically required) to be effective at your job despite what others here are posting on about. Pretty much like how the Asiana Airlines pilots didn't really need to know how to manually land a plane. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Asiana_Airlines_Flight_214

That's a ridiculous analogy.

Re: Why I Don’t Talk to Google Recruiters

#594

Post by skywhopper » Wed, Feb 22, 2017, 2:38 AM UTC

stcredzero wrote: post #148

There is no point in giving me binary-tree-traversing questions; I don't know those answers and will never be interested in learning them. Let's presume this is out of preference and not ability. It's a pretty basic concept. If your preference stops you from learning something as basic as this as a programmer, then it doesn't seem likely that you will be motivated to keep up with even more abstruse concepts. Nearly e…

Actually, there are lots of skills and competencies that are valuable on engineering teams other than the ability to have all basic algorithms on call in your head at all times. If you filter the engineers you are willing to hire based on any one factor (unless you are looking for that specific specialty), then you are missing out on a variety of perspectives and experience that could make a better team. You don't need everyone on your team to be an algorithm expert. If you don't recognize that there are a huge variety of other skills necessary to successful software projects, then you are the one experiencing the Dunning-Kruger effect, not the op.

Re: Why I Don’t Talk to Google Recruiters

#595

Post by obstacle1 » Wed, Feb 22, 2017, 2:38 AM UTC

uiri wrote: post #559

sgustard wrote: post #369

Earlier quoted context omitted.

>If you get a recruiter email for a company that is not that company, it's _always_ junk Not true. Companies hire recruiters to find employees. Not all companies (especially startups) have their own internal recruiting department. The flip side is true, though: as a company trying to hire people, every recruiter email that says "I have a perfect candidate for you" is junk. They just invent those people or send resume…

Recruiting (and hiring) is a core competency for every company. Especially for startups. A founder should personally be handling recruiting until the company is big enough to have their own internal recruiting department.

Massive difference between sourcing candidates and interviewing/making hiring decisions. If a founder is doing the former it's probably that she's wasting a massive amount of time and there is a huge opportunity cost there. Recruiters have their place.

Re: Why I Don’t Talk to Google Recruiters

#596

Post by stcredzero » Wed, Feb 22, 2017, 2:45 AM UTC

skywhopper wrote: post #594

stcredzero wrote: post #148

There is no point in giving me binary-tree-traversing questions; I don't know those answers and will never be interested in learning them. Let's presume this is out of preference and not ability. It's a pretty basic concept. If your preference stops you from learning something as basic as this as a programmer, then it doesn't seem likely that you will be motivated to keep up with even more abstruse concepts. Nearly e…

Actually, there are lots of skills and competencies that are valuable on engineering teams other than the ability to have all basic algorithms on call in your head at all times. If you filter the engineers you are willing to hire based on any one factor (unless you are looking for that specific specialty), then you are missing out on a variety of perspectives and experience that could make a better team. You don't ne…

Point of clarification: I don't want everyone to be an algorithm expert. I do want every programmer to have the basic background knowledge. If you are passingly familiar with binary trees and recursion, then you can figure out the answer from First Principles. If you are not familiar with the skills at that level, and don't have the basic skills you're supposed to get by studying such things, then perhaps one would characterize that as merely memorizing.

Actually, there are lots of skills and competencies that are valuable on engineering teams other than the ability to have all basic algorithms on call in your head at all times.

Where did I ever say such a preposterous thing? Please provide a quote.

And again, if you understand algorithms at a basic level from First Principles, then you don't have to memorize every algorithm like baseball card trivia. The important thing is having the background knowledge. If you don't think such knowledge is foundational background, then you probably don't know enough to know that. Hence: Dunning-Kruger.

Re: Why I Don’t Talk to Google Recruiters

#597

Post by linkregister » Wed, Feb 22, 2017, 2:49 AM UTC

nvarsj wrote: post #454

btilly wrote: post #434

Earlier quoted context omitted.

SRE is a difficult role because you need someone with the mindset of a sysadmin and the skills of a programmer. So Google (at least used to) will hire one and hope to find the other half. As a result a large fraction of people hired into the position are not a fit. And Google had no mechanism to identify and rectify this common problem. I am a programmer. I tend to dive into things in depth and context switching is u…

I think it's tough hiring for an SRE role. Much tougher than a programming role. Although in Google's SRE book, they say the interview bar is lower than for their software engineers. Odd! You're looking for the sort of person that could setup a startup from the data center up. On top of that, they need to be good coders so they can automate everything, and also understand the applications running on the things they b…

The coding standard for SRE hiring at Google is lower, but the other requirements are much higher or aren't considered for a generalist SWE role.

Re: Why I Don’t Talk to Google Recruiters

#598

Post by dleslie » Wed, Feb 22, 2017, 3:04 AM UTC

lettersdigits wrote: post #451

literallycancer wrote: post #436

Earlier quoted context omitted.

>So 57,000 are worse devs then you ? This is what i hear from your statement, correct me if I am wrong .. He never said they are worse. >Many extremely talented people want to work for Google. "Most people do/think XYZ." Do I have to explain why that's not a good argument? >They will take the tests, even if they don't agree with the hiring system at all. Other people don't mind shitty treatment, so what?

> He never said they are worse This is why i asked for clarifications. the OP said 'Google is incapable of hiring the engineers I want to work with', which implies that the engineers he is looking to work with are NOT there. Google is incapable of hiring them, and since they are top quality devs, someone else (more capable) did. > Do I have to explain why that's not a good argument? Yes, please explain. Because you o…

> and since they are top quality devs, someone else (more capable) did.

That's an interesting assumption to make. I know many programmers who are excellent at what they do and have also outright refused offers from Google, Amazon and Facebook; it's usually on the principle that such large, bureaucratic organizations are quite defective insofar that they are adept at suffocating those who are happiest with maximal flexibility and responsibility.

There's a group who jump from contract to contact, startup to startup, because the thrill of new challenges and little to no barriers from organizational structure is worth the uncertainty in compensation.

It also helps that a few aren't willing to relocate to the USA.

Re: Why I Don’t Talk to Google Recruiters

#599

Post by linkregister » Wed, Feb 22, 2017, 3:08 AM UTC

jfasi wrote: post #211

Regarding his canned response: > Thanks for your email. I'm very interested indeed. I have nothing against an interview. However, there is one condition: I have to be interviewed by the person I will be working for. By my future direct manager. This kinda misses the point. I can't speak for any companies besides Google, and this is all my personal sense and not the company line, but anyway: speaking with a hiring man…

You miss the point of the article. Yegor doesn't want to be put on a team using technology completely orthogonal to his expertise. He isn't interested in spending 3-5 hours per week for a few months to cram on algorithms study so he can use it once on his interview day.

Many other companies hire by role. There is no ambiguity in where a software developer will end up working on. Facebook and Google use centralized hiring. Yegor's point is that this uncertainty regarding team placement is a strategic disadvantage.

Despite what you might think, Object Oriented Design isn't going away anytime soon. There is no need for Facebook or Google to prematurely optimize away the risk of an obsolete engineer at the expense of rejecting domain experts for an important project.

Re: Why I Don’t Talk to Google Recruiters

#600

Post by joshuamorton » Wed, Feb 22, 2017, 3:22 AM UTC

ivraatiems wrote: post #580

munificent wrote: post #539

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> The idea that a good developer is somebody who can regurgitate knowledge they learned on Wikipedia I don't think Google's hiring people thing that that's what a good developer is , as much as they think it positively correlates to good developers . (I don't know to what degree that's true, but it's how I assume they arrived at the current interview process.) > More importantly, a developer who cannot regurgitate th…

> I don't think Google's hiring people thing that that's what a good developer is, as much as they think it positively correlates to good developers. I agree. However, I think they are wrong... I'll expand below. > This is also a valid concern, but Google is much more concerned about false positives than false negatives. Missing out on a good candidate is a bummer. Hiring a bad one can be a nightmare. So the process…

> That is, I'd conjecture that the good developers who can (or want to) memorize algorithms and regurgitate basic CS knowledge are one kind of capable dev, and the good developers who rely on tools to a greater degree are another kind of dev. Call them types A and B.

I really dislike this characterization. I'm a googler. I've never tried to, or needed to, memorize algorithms. I don't know if this characterization comes from misunderstanding, rationalization, or what, but in my experience at least, neither do most of my coworkers.

That is, I at least don't recall a rote algorithm when interviewing In fact in one of my interviews (not at google, but I could see a similar question happening there) I had to derive a solution to a problem in a space I was totally unfamiliar with (locking and multithreading).

It seems like, if you assume (incorrectly) that somehow you can't cheat the system, Google is selecting for people who can solve unfamiliar, complex, problems by applying first principles. That is, I think, orthogonal to the idea of 'theoretical or practical' computer scientist.