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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

#91

Post by perl4ever »

armchairhacker wrote: post #23

Google's recruiting system isn't "failing" unless they're hiring unqualified devs. Google gets tons of applicants. The point isn't to prevent qualified applicants from being rejected, it's to prevent unqualified applicants from being hired. They can do whatever arbitrary, unfair filters they want as long as they still have at least some applicants left, and as long as those people are adequate.

I agree in part, but they are failing if their system is imitated by everyone else.

Every time there is a thread on HN where people are debating the right way to filter applicants, the premise that goes unexamined is that there is one optimum, whether it's Google's procedures or something else.

But it's not just Google that can't hire everyone qualified. It's every employer.

Say, for simplicity, that any employer is only able to hire 1% of their applicants.

If they all used some optimal procedure, then they will all be fighting over the same 1% and the other 99% will be unhireable and start a revolution or something.

This is inescapable, I think, no matter what the so-called optimum is. It's like...a Doomsday Schelling Point.

Each company can disregard the fate of those filtered out, but only if their methods are sufficiently diverse.

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

#92

Post by Jensson »

kevingadd wrote: post #29
armchairhacker wrote: post #23

Google's recruiting system isn't "failing" unless they're hiring unqualified devs. Google gets tons of applicants. The point isn't to prevent qualified applicants from being rejected, it's to prevent unqualified applicants from being hired. They can do whatever arbitrary, unfair filters they want as long as they still have at least some applicants left, and as long as those people are adequate.

If your teams desperately need qualified staff to get things across the finish line and you can't hire them, your recruiting system is failing. This is a real problem Google has had in the past (I don't know if they've fixed it since I left.)

That is the main feature of the recruiting system, the whole reason they do it is so that managers can't circumvent the standard process no matter what.

It might lead to some problems you don't have in the old nepotism ridden systems, but it also solves many of the problems the old systems created. So you can't say it is failing just because it doesn't do everything right.

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

#93

Post by cratermoon »

armchairhacker wrote: post #23

Google's recruiting system isn't "failing" unless they're hiring unqualified devs. Google gets tons of applicants. The point isn't to prevent qualified applicants from being rejected, it's to prevent unqualified applicants from being hired. They can do whatever arbitrary, unfair filters they want as long as they still have at least some applicants left, and as long as those people are adequate.

They could be hiring unqualified developers, there's nothing that can determine with certainty that the ones they are hiring are any more qualified than the ones that fail for arbitrary reasons, or are simply unable to hire more qualified people because nobody really good wants to put up with the pointless gantlet.

Or, they could be hiring developers that, although qualified by the standards of the hiring process, are in fact unsuited to implement things Google needs to retain customers and stay profitable, but that's something we'll find out later.

In either case, the assertion that the system is correctly separating the qualified from the unqualified is unproven.

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

#94

Post by obzidi4n »

I recently went through a similar experience interviewing at the Director level with Amazon Advertising, nearly two months of time-consuming and exhausting interviews, just to get shut down on a minor (minor minor) technicality.

Cool, man. Now I work for a major global agency pulling about the same compensation, and we won't recommend Amazon Ads for our clients b/c the product is well-known to be shit.

Works out.

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

#95

Post by Brian_K_White »

pengaru wrote: post #87
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 interviewer already has the job

Uninteresting.

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

#96

Post by B-Con »

Brian_K_White wrote: post #46
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…

So a Google engineer specifically wants code that relies on side effects? This is one of those cases where you can be proud of a criticism rather than embarassed by it.

This is an interviewer fishing for trivia knowledge.

There are better ways to gauge knowledge competence, but this is an easy way, so people do it.

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

#97

Post by kongin »

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.

In universities Google and FB are now seen the same way as law firms and hedge funds were seen 20 years ago. A boring place where you go to have an upper middle class career and be conventional. Which means they are ripe for disruption.

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

#98

Post by [deleted] »

pengaru wrote: post #87
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 interviewer already has the job

[deleted]

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

#99

Post by lordnacho »

praptak wrote: post #69
lordnacho wrote: post #48

I reckon that coding as part of an interview is really just to make sure the person isn't a total fraud. There's that guy who for some reason thinks he can nab a high paid job by blagging it, and then there's the guy who thought he was a coder but it turns out that writing some VBA macros isn't quite the same thing. Those kinds of people will be found out immediately if you ask for a FizzBuzz type question, and that…

Chatting carries the risk of hiring for the "talking about X" skill rather than "X" skill.

Certainly that's a priori a risk. I'm just saying it has never materialised for me and thus maybe it's not as big a risk as it sounds.

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

#100

Post by native_samples »

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.

When I was young, a Google recruiter reached out to me and I joined the firm. It was the good years and I enjoyed it a lot, learned a lot too. When I was older I quit. I wouldn't want to work there now. The company seems to have changed in deep ways for the worse :(
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