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Google’s recruiting system is famously brutal. Many workers think it’s failing

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Re: Google’s recruiting system is famously brutal. Many workers think it’s failing

#71

Post by Brian_K_White »

pengaru wrote: post #45
dolni wrote: post #5

I interviewed at Google about a decade ago. I made it far enough that they flew me out to interview on-site at their Kirkland office. I remember feeling like I had done fairly well, sans one interview. The interview in question was around development experience in C. The interviewer, very early on, asked how to redirect stdout. I suggested using freopen, and he said that wasn't allowed. Well why the hell not? The ans…

Usually such a question is used not to fail you for not having the specific answer, but to observe your ability to reason about it and collaborate with the interviewer on pursuing the desired answer. What questions you ask, what resources you consult, experiments you perform, creativity you demonstrate, openness to alternatives, etc. If you just fixate on your specific first solution and choose to dig in and argue ov…

"not a good sign you're someone pleasant or frictionless to collaborate with"

That sreet must run both ways or it's an invalid charge. If you're reasoning is valid and the interviewer doesn't provide better arguments, then it's the interviewer who is not pleasant or frictionless to work with.

Re: Google’s recruiting system is famously brutal. Many workers think it’s failing

#72

Post by rchaud »

tablespoon wrote: post #35
johnwheeler wrote: post #8

I don't get it. University tests are brutal too and have the expectation the student will devote large amounts of time and energy. It seems like a job interview is fair game for the same, no? I feel like this is a very bruised ego here. I'm not saying any interview process is perfect, and I think a lot of them are very, very bad at accessing the capabilities and value someone provides, but same for University.

> I don't get it. University tests are brutal too and have the expectation the student will devote large amounts of time and energy. It seems like a job interview is fair game for the same, no? No. That logic is just superficial pattern matching. The point of university is to spend the time and energy to master the subject, test or no , and the knowledge gained is usually valuable in and of itself. The kind of interv…

What is the SAT/ACT if not jumping through hoops? Why do I have to be in the top 10% of my HS class, AND in the 95th percentile of SAT scores?

People are accustomed to jumping through hoops to pay an already rich institution several thousand more dollars.

In contrast, you study for Google's exams, and if you pass, Google ends up paying you.

Re: Google’s recruiting system is famously brutal. Many workers think it’s failing

#73

Post by mempko »

paxys wrote: post #41

Google has hired ~100,000 people in the last decade. They have probably interviewed 30M+. Broad generalizations like "their interview process is failing" are pointless. You don't build a $2T company with a broken hiring process. This keeps coming up but is worth repeating – the goal of any large company's recruiting process isn't necessarily to hire the best possible candidates 100% of the time. There are always trad…

This would be a good argument if google had diversified products. But it relies so heavily on one product it makes you wonder if engineering quality even matters to google's success. Google's Ad business can hide the worst systemic problems because it makes so much money.

In other words, google's success says very little about the quality of it's hiring process.

Re: Google’s recruiting system is famously brutal. Many workers think it’s failing

#74

Post by hogFeast »

Brian_K_White wrote: post #71
pengaru wrote: post #45

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Usually such a question is used not to fail you for not having the specific answer, but to observe your ability to reason about it and collaborate with the interviewer on pursuing the desired answer. What questions you ask, what resources you consult, experiments you perform, creativity you demonstrate, openness to alternatives, etc. If you just fixate on your specific first solution and choose to dig in and argue ov…

"not a good sign you're someone pleasant or frictionless to collaborate with" That sreet must run both ways or it's an invalid charge. If you're reasoning is valid and the interviewer doesn't provide better arguments, then it's the interviewer who is not pleasant or frictionless to work with.

The mantra of every unreasonable person.

Re: Google’s recruiting system is famously brutal. Many workers think it’s failing

#75

Post by tablespoon »

rchaud wrote: post #72
tablespoon wrote: post #35

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> I don't get it. University tests are brutal too and have the expectation the student will devote large amounts of time and energy. It seems like a job interview is fair game for the same, no? No. That logic is just superficial pattern matching. The point of university is to spend the time and energy to master the subject, test or no , and the knowledge gained is usually valuable in and of itself. The kind of interv…

What is the SAT/ACT if not jumping through hoops? Why do I have to be in the top 10% of my HS class, AND in the 95th percentile of SAT scores? People are accustomed to jumping through hoops to pay an already rich institution several thousand more dollars. In contrast, you study for Google's exams, and if you pass, Google ends up paying you.

> What is the SAT/ACT if not jumping through hoops?

I wouldn't call those "university tests." Also, you can do quite well by just mastering your High School subjects without extra test prep, and the stuff tested (e.g. Algebra) is stuff you'll actually build on in university. They're also standardized, so even if you decide to do test prep, it's not like you have to prep for different exams for each school you apply for.

Re: Google’s recruiting system is famously brutal. Many workers think it’s failing

#76

Post by adwn »

kongin wrote: post #67
adwn wrote: post #63

Earlier quoted context omitted.

An optimizing compiler will turn div-by-constant and mod-by-constant into multiplications and bitshifts. For example, the Rust compiler: https://play.rust-lang.org/?version=stable&mode=release&edit... (select "Show assembly" on the top-left button). pub fn divmod10(x: u32) -> (u32, u32) { (x / 10, x % 10) } generates mov ecx, edi mov eax, 3435973837 imul rax, rcx shr rax, 35 lea ecx, [rax + rax] lea ecx, [rcx + 4\*rc…

It's still not as efficient since you're breaking on base 10 digit boundaries, not base 2, the most efficient encoding will be base 3, but alas we don't have ternary computers.

But it's a much more compact than that glibc monstrosity is. Sure, the glibc version will win in a micro-benchmark, but micro-benchmarks don't capture the effect on the instruction cache.

Re: Google’s recruiting system is famously brutal. Many workers think it’s failing

#77

Post by Brian_K_White »

hogFeast wrote: post #74
Brian_K_White wrote: post #71

Earlier quoted context omitted.

"not a good sign you're someone pleasant or frictionless to collaborate with" That sreet must run both ways or it's an invalid charge. If you're reasoning is valid and the interviewer doesn't provide better arguments, then it's the interviewer who is not pleasant or frictionless to work with.

The mantra of every unreasonable person.

I hear a mantra myself.

Shit that was easy. Turns out anyone can say that.

It's almost like "I know you are but what am I?" doesn't mean, prove, or disprove anything, except to identify people who say things like that.

Re: Google’s recruiting system is famously brutal. Many workers think it’s failing

#78

Post by OldHand2018 »

mempko wrote: post #73
paxys wrote: post #41

Google has hired ~100,000 people in the last decade. They have probably interviewed 30M+. Broad generalizations like "their interview process is failing" are pointless. You don't build a $2T company with a broken hiring process. This keeps coming up but is worth repeating – the goal of any large company's recruiting process isn't necessarily to hire the best possible candidates 100% of the time. There are always trad…

This would be a good argument if google had diversified products. But it relies so heavily on one product it makes you wonder if engineering quality even matters to google's success. Google's Ad business can hide the worst systemic problems because it makes so much money. In other words, google's success says very little about the quality of it's hiring process.

Much of Google's success was cemented in place back in the day when they recruited people by putting fun little puzzle inserts into computer magazines.

That's such a huge difference from their hiring practices now.

Re: Google’s recruiting system is famously brutal. Many workers think it’s failing

#79

Post by tmp_anon_22 »

dolni wrote: post #5

I interviewed at Google about a decade ago. I made it far enough that they flew me out to interview on-site at their Kirkland office. I remember feeling like I had done fairly well, sans one interview. The interview in question was around development experience in C. The interviewer, very early on, asked how to redirect stdout. I suggested using freopen, and he said that wasn't allowed. Well why the hell not? The ans…

This sub-thread is missing the forest for the trees.

This interview was not the highlight of the interviewer's day. They most likely didn't overthink every angle and every word. They probably were on autopilot looking for some pre-defined criteria - and could care less if the candidate was qualified, accepted, or rejected.

Re: Google’s recruiting system is famously brutal. Many workers think it’s failing

#80

Post by tharkun__ »

dolni wrote: post #33
AJ007 wrote: post #17

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I wonder how dependent Google’s hiring pipeline has been on just having a huge % of every qualified candidate attempting to get a job at Google? If that is the case, then the interviewing process just needs to be good enough to have a low false positive rate. The false negatives don’t hurt them.

I'd be willing to bet that has a lot to do with it. In my younger years I remember being in awe of the simple fact that a recruiter from Google actually reached out to _me_. A decade changes a lot, though. I don't think I would ever want to work at Google now. I'd be curious to know if my shift in perspective on Google is common, and if they're even aware of it.

While I can't tell you how common it really is, I can tell you that we're at least two here. Same with the Amazon recruiters that reach out from time to time.
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