Does Google's Hiring Process Put Off Talented Applicants?

https://shkspr.mobi/blog/2016/11/does-googles-hiring-process-put-off-talented-applicants/

by edent • 10 years ago

88 124 10 years ago

jayflux• 10 years ago

If Google (or any other company) don't know whether they should hire you after 6 interviews, I think that says more about them and their process than you.

edent5• 10 years ago

I quite agree - that doesn't stop it from being an emotionally exhausting experience.

riskneural3• 10 years ago

Try the insurance industry in Germany. I did nine interviews for a gig, got it, and then the budget for the position was cancelled. :)

notacoward3• 10 years ago

In another refutation of Betteridge's Law, the answer is yes. Google has been relentlessly trying to recruit people in my peer group for a long time. I guess it's a specialty that's in high demand somewhere within the 'plex. A lot of these people are very talented indeed, and about half of them just won't even consider Google. Of those, it's another even split between those who are uninterested in Google generally (privacy issues or ad-based business model) vs. those who are specifically put off by the interview process. So that's maybe a quarter of that sample. It's something I'd be deeply concerned about if I were at Google myself, but I guess they feel that if they just fling enough money around they'll find enough people willing to put up with that crap, and since they literally have more money than they know what to do with it's not a problem.

quickben• 10 years ago

Just out of curiosity, what area are most of you in?

notacoward3• 10 years ago

I work on distributed filesystems. Most of the people I'm talking about work on various forms of data storage, though I could also think of a couple in virtualization, containers, config management, etc. One of the perks of being at Red Hat is that I get to rub shoulders (and sometimes bump elbows) with people across a pretty broad range of specialties.

lostcolony• 10 years ago

I always wonder how Google manages to hire. I have a good friend there, but it was only because another role fell through that she ended up at Google; had the other company's HR department decided it was okay for a husband and wife to be working in the same department (different teams), she'd have gone there first.

For myself, Google's recruitment process was pretty laughable. I applied once in college for an internship, which was never responded to (fair enough), then had a recruiter reference it three years later when I was actually looking for another job, which I followed up on, but then had them drop off the radar (as seems pretty common) for a month, as I took a job elsewhere, and then later recruiters doing the same thing, referencing the time I applied 5-7 years earlier as 'expressing interest'. No, not interested.

It's just as well their interviews are geared for college students, because that seems to be the only type who would actually tolerate their hiring process (well, that and the type who doesn't actually need an interview, the famous 'oh, you have literally written the book on X, come work on X here' sort)

throw_away_777• 10 years ago

When you have a reputation for great culture and good pay, and are one of the best known tech companies, you get enough applicants that you can use pretty much whatever hiring process you want.

Doctor_Fegg• 10 years ago

Perhaps, but this thread (and a thousand like it) don't exactly back up the "great culture" argument.

rockdoe2• 10 years ago

Google is willing to headhunt key employees and put enough dough on the table to overcome the downsides.

raverbashing2• 10 years ago

Yes, there exists a backdoor for VIP hiring

gambiting• 10 years ago

" (well, that and the type who doesn't actually need an interview, the famous 'oh, you have literally written the book on X, come work on X here' sort)"

Well, they have a reputation for absolutely disregarding whether you are famous or not:

https://twitter.com/mxcl/status/608682016205344768

hga2• 10 years ago

Oh, it was a bit more than that per his claim, "90% of our engineers use the software you wrote (Homebrew)"....

vanni• 10 years ago

Even if you are in:

"Ken Thompson must take the mandatory C language test to check-in code." [2010]

http://www.theregister.co.uk/2010/04/21/ken_thompson_take_ou...

wyclif• 10 years ago

That is the classic recent example of the phenomenon, right there. Seriously, if you don't usually read Twitter threads and you're interested at all in this HN story, you owe it to yourself to read that one.

julius12343• 10 years ago

I did the Google interview process and it lasted around four months. Finally, their decision was to say 'no' to me. They reached out for me twice after that, asking if I was interested in doing the entire process again. I turned them down both times and tried to politely explain that I didn't have any more time for them, that I already invested all the time that I was willing to invest in any company and more... Hell! I even used a week from my vacations to travel to their offices! What I don't understand is, do they expect us to dissappear from our jobs for a week, to travel to their offices, and not loose our current jobs in the process?

edent5• 10 years ago

Weirdly, it seems very oriented for a European set of employees. A friend of mine who joined earlier this year was quite happy to burn through several days of holiday in order to take the interviews. But, as we get ~28 days a year, it isn't such a big deal.

julius12343• 10 years ago

Could be. I live in Argentina and we only get 14 days/year. Overall, I was lucky that I could match the travel date that they set with my vacations so I didn't need to do any explaining at my job at that time.

dustinmoris• 10 years ago

I am European. In Europe people have a strong work-life balance culture with the main focus on life :). I cannot imagine that any European would want to sacrifice holidays for a job interview. Normally people call in sick if they need to go to for an interview. And yes, Europeans have 25+ days annual leave, but the general feeling is that this is not enough. I think the priorities for the average European are as follows: Family > Friends > Hobbies > Holidays > Beer > Food > Cat > Dog > Neighbor's Cat > Something very unsignificant > Work

biofox• 10 years ago

I suspect it selects for a very particular type of person -- someone who values the opportunity to work for google more than their own time; and consequently results in employees who are eager and willing to put the company before themselves, work long hours, and not challenge the company's management or policies.

It's like a gang initiation: put them through an ordeal to test and cement their loyalty.

cmrdporcupine• 10 years ago

Googler here, I don't find that long grueling hours is something they select for or that Google is particularily known for.

But IMHO the interview process (which I dislike) definitely selects for new-grad types. From my perspective it's very heavily biased against industry-experience types and in favour of people who are comfortable in the "look I can excellently apply what I learned in my Algorithms/Data structure course on a whiteboard without sweating and getting nervous".

I should also note that the interview process also puts a lot of burden on Googlers. People, especially senior people, spend a _lot_ of time interviewing.

maaaats• 10 years ago

Yeah, I had an interview where it was blatantly obvious the person doing it didn't want to spend the time. It was a remote interview, somewhat far along the process (e.g. after screening and some technical) via Skype, but sound only, no video. I found that a bit weird not seeing the person I was talking to. But realized during the screen-programming-session the interviewer was busy doing something else, so it was probably why.

notacoward3• 10 years ago

I think it's true that they're filtering for people who value that opportunity, but I'll also note that those people fall into two important categories. First are those who want to work at Google itself. Second are those who want to have Google on their resume, and an extra bucket of money from being overpaid for a few years, as a way to jump-start whatever they do next (including startups). Google is glad to have these ambitious, slightly mercenary types pass through, making contributions while there and then seeding the rest of the industry with allies. If Google were just hiring the lifers their interview process would be even more rigorous but less burdensome and demeaning. They're deliberately selecting for ambition and determination as much as actual talent.

pjmlp• 10 years ago

Well at least it has put me off, after being rejected twice.

I did not even apply, rather was invited by their HR.

Most likely I am not skilled enough to work there and am just a vocal average developer, fair enough, no complaints about it.

But then don't spam me all the time saying how great addition I would be to whatever team X, either I am an average developer or a great addition to the team.

bobdole12342• 10 years ago

You're always learning, just because you're not where you need to be today, doesn't mean you'll never reach the bar.

arikrak• 10 years ago

I'm not sure what role the author is referring to, but I never heard of ordinary job applicants taking 6 months. I applied to Google online for a software engineer position and their recruiter reached out to me the next day. We scheduled an in-person interview a couple weeks later (since I wanted a little time to prepare). After the interview, it took a little under two weeks for them to move forward to meeting potential teams, and one more week for an actual offer to be finalized. It could take longer than this, but they keep candidates in the loop.

rockdoe2• 10 years ago

There's plenty of people with far, far worse experiences.

edent5• 10 years ago

Author here. I'm just going by what the recruiter told me. He was clear that they need to do due diligence and that I could expect up to a 6 month process.

I sounds like yours took around 6 weeks - which I still consider to be quite a long time. My friend told me she went through 3 months of interviews.

These weren't for Director Level (or whatever Google calls them) but for senior product manager type roles.

Of course, neither you nor I have data about the average length from application to onboarding, so it is hard to argue specifics.

BuuQu9hu• 10 years ago

Google's ethics put off talented applicants.

dgreensp• 10 years ago

Yes, absolutely. Google is legendary for this. They are turning off not just talented applicants, but presumably applicants with other options and applicants with a good dose of self-respect who won't put up with such a long, impersonal process.

I've been in the world of 20-to-30-person start-ups for the last several years and seen some amazing recruiting processes. Emails to new leads are personal, not copy-pasted, and take context into account. Phone screens weed out all but the most likely applicants to work out. On-site interviews are a chance to get to know the team. Offers are made quickly, even same-day.

loukrazy• 10 years ago

I interviewed with Google. While waiting for a response from my on-site interview I interviewed with another company and received an offer. I did not end up receiving an offer from Google but it did not make a difference as I already accepted the other job. It took Google almost a month after the on-site to get through their various levels of review.

riskneural3• 10 years ago

Well, I politely declined the next stage when I heard it was a brain teaser round. I don't really seem to do well in brain teasers. I don't at all get a kick out of puzzles that aren't a means to an end. Does anybody else have that feeling?

collyw• 10 years ago

What gets me is the numerous companies that expect you to do this, or take a day or two to build a mini project before even getting the chance to speak to anyone technical about the job.

akhilcacharya5• 10 years ago

I heard it was a brain teaser round

A brain teaser? Like a puzzle? Or do you mean a coding interview?

Brain teasers haven't been asked in years AFAIK.

riskneural3• 10 years ago

The term brain teaser was used explicitly. It would have been something data science/statistics related.

viuviuviuz• 10 years ago

don't worry...from what I've heard it's boring work anyway

setq• 10 years ago

The recruitment process is ridiculous. If you can get through the Google gates, you can get a close enough salary with equity if that's your sort of thing and start in a week.

And you'll end up working somewhere that your voice counts and the company is not a high profile privacy and political target.

Might have to buy your own lunch though.

pmiller2• 10 years ago

It could actually be worse: at least the actual work environment seems to be decent enough, once you get in. I've explicitly turned down interviews (i.e. I actually responded to the recruiter, rather than just letting the email sit in my inbox) with Amazon because of how much the day to day would suck, based on experiences of people I know.

johan_larson3• 10 years ago

What did you hear?

raverbashing2• 10 years ago

Yes, Google has read the "How to make enemies and alienate people" book and likes to apply it

But to be fair, they're not the only ones doing it. Sadly.

It's quite funny when recruiters come offer me repeatedly the same opening that I was rejected from on grounds of "not good enough test results" or "not enough experience in certain areas" (which sometimes are a 100% fair rejection but more often than not have a pass "grade" of slightly below top marks, which does not make sense, especially for your run of the mill web company).

camoby• 10 years ago

Yes.

onion2k3• 10 years ago

6 interviews over a period of months isn't necessary to find great hires; it's a way of filtering people out of the interview process. The cost of losing out on talented people is balanced, at least in part, by the fact that their process puts off far more older, experienced developers and managers with families than younger people who dedicate a chunk of their life to the company.

A job interview is a negotiation. Go in to it with a clear goal - "a solid offer after 3 interviews" is a good baseline for a giant like Google - and if you don't get what you're looking for, be willing to walk away.

johan_larson3• 10 years ago

I would expect Google to reject that proposal flat out. They are incredibly keen on process and in this case the process feeds into one of their core ideas, namely that hiring the very best is crucial. Unless you are a major figure within the industry, they'll insist you do it their way, full stop.

onion2k3• 10 years ago

Google today is operating as if they're Google 10 years ago - back then they were an incredibly exciting company with more potential than practically any other business if you were a talented developer. That really isn't the case now. Google are still phenomenal, but so are other companies now. Google can't say "do it our way or you get nothing" when a good potential hire will be interviewing with half a dozen or more other 'unicorn' companies, especially when those other companies are doing world-changing, ground-breaking work whereas Google's core products are mature, essentially finished things that lack that excitement.

marktangotango• 10 years ago

I once consulted at a Big Corp that also focused on hiring and burning through fresh college graduates. I imagined the culture must have been a bit like google as a result. This was a large health care company in the midwest. They didn't have the prestige to hire from Stanford or CMU, but they could get some of the best grads from second and third tier schools.

They'd hire these kids in and put them to work on their legacy monstrosity, expected 50 hour work weeks, mediocre benefits, and mediocre pay. The result was a lot of really talented people literally wasting years and not advancing their skills, and not getting to use any current, marketable technology. It was also a highly toxic environment as these same capable people crucified each other in code reviews and one-up-man-ship.

Obviously google must not be quiet that bad, but I'm also sure they have a lot of really talented people wasting their abilities on internal CRUD apps.

dgacmu3• 10 years ago

This is... very, very much unlike Google. Almost the opposite; Google puts a lot of work into figuring out how to keep its employees happy. And, if anything, it has the opposite problem than "working on a legacy monstrosity" - there's enough internal mobility that it's hard to convince people to work on something lame. (Obvious bias: I work there a day per week still.)

hga2• 10 years ago

Google puts a lot of work into figuring out how to keep its employees happy.

I'm not sure how you can say this for a company that's notorious for using closed allocation.

Worst horror story I've heard, here on HN, was an EE who was also good at Python. He sure thought he was hired to do hardware, but found himself stuck writing Python to test hardware. Not wanting to end his EE career, he of course had to resign.

And, yes, I know in theory you're able to quickly transfer out of that first position if it's not a good fit, but like the anecdote above, we've heard too many stories where that doesn't work in practice.

As others have noted, the whole thing for non-VIPs seems expressly tuned for new college graduates, who, in the case of this closed allocation policy, generally won't mind working on "whatever" for 18 months.

HillRat• 10 years ago

Yeah, both of the big Midwestern HCM shops have that reputation, though one considerably more than the other (one also being a bit more forward-thinking with things like SMART on FHIR, so there are places you can still do interesting development, I would imagine).

On the other hand, they're a bit like any ERP system -- if you can stomach spending years inside the horror show of their systems, you can do quite well as an independent consultant for health systems just making the products work. But if you have a particular love for computer science qua computer science, yeah, not the right place to land.

dvcrn2• 10 years ago

Did the process put me off? Absolutely. So much so that I don't want to apply again.

Before even starting the interview process, I took weeks to reviews algorithms, chopped through interviewcake/hackerrank/leetcode challenges, did numerous test-interviews on pramp and made sure Google was the last of my interviews to get as much experience in as possible. In the end, it didn't matter.

The phone call was almost not understandable. My interviewer had a horrible accent and extreme background noise, almost like he was in a public space with a really bad microphone. I had to ask 5 times to repeat his question or clarify what he meant which definitely irritated him as well.

When asked before the interview in what language I would like to do it, I said python. My interviewer gave me a C++ question (+ C++ class) with streams (I think that's what it was? I'm not a C++ guy). When mentioning that I said I want to do it in python he said "oh uhm... well, just implement your solution in python then", which was a little weird because python doesn't support streams.

I asked numerous times during the interview if I understood his question correctly, he said yes. I went ahead with implementing it that way and then later he asked me why I did it this way and that he wanted something else.

It was a disaster. I didn't pass the interview (they were 50:50 on me) and do not plan to apply again. I am at a great startup now and probably forgot most of that algorithm and data structure knowledge again.

IshKebab• 10 years ago

I had a similar experience. Terrible phone call quality. They asked me loads of questions about testing which wasn't what I had applied to.

Retric• 10 years ago

It's not surprising.

They need to pay a lot because of terrible highering practices. It's a perverse incentive at highly profitable companies where people inside benefit from rejecting talent thus creating artificial scarcity.

You see the same at big banks where even low skilled jobs have huge barriers to entry. It's also a reason many private companies don't go for Ivy League applicants as it can corrupt a functional company.

Jack000• 10 years ago

to add another anecdote, my phone screen was quite good but at the in-person interview I was told to give a presentation on past work. One person didn't show up and another left in the middle to take a phone call and never came back.

All in all it was a positive experience but it definitely felt like hiring isn't a big priority to them, compared to other companies I've interviewed at.

grosbisou2• 10 years ago

Same experience. Lots of noise making it hard to ask questions. The guy sounded like he was blackmailed to do that kind of job. He asked me to "sum the contiguous number in the array". So I start writing the code looping through the array, finding the boundaries and adding the elements. After 15min the guy is like "why did you add the elements? I asked you to summarize them."

Ok. Never answered their email again.

akhilcacharya5• 10 years ago

They do this on purpose to make you clarify the question.

dvcrn2• 10 years ago

I read your comment a few times and still don't quite understand the difference between "summarize" and "sum" in this context (non-native english speaker here). Care to explain what exactly he wanted?

mabbo2• 10 years ago

I have friends in the local Google office, and once long ago I interned there. A few years ago I decided to stop telling off the recruiters and give it a go.

I had 4 interviews where I needed to be exceedingly clever very quickly. I was for two of them, and wasn't for two of them, and so I was a no-hire. Given a few days to think through the problems again, I was able to solve them all in my head- just not in 45 minutes. None of the interviews asked about my ability to design systems, how to test or manage large-scale applications, how to gather requirements and work with customers.

My conclusion is that Google is primarily looking for people who either have every algorithm and problem memorized and ready to regurgitate, or exceedingly clever people who can solve tricky problems on the spot. I guess this works for them, as they're a very valuable company. On the other hand, I sometimes wonder if it works despite this process they have.

donretag2• 10 years ago

"None of the interviews asked about my ability to design systems, how to test or manage large-scale applications, how to gather requirements and work with customers."

No company will ever ask such questions, which is mind boggling. They will all ask minute questions about sorting algorithms which you will never code instead of asking questions related what you will be doing day to day or stuff that is actually critically important.

No one asks design questions, perhaps because it is an open-ended question. But aren't those the best question for a role that often requires coming up with new solutions?

EDIT: perhaps I was too harsh by saying "never". In my experience, companies have occasionally asked about design, but very few and very little in terms of the ratio with algorithm questions. Part of the problem is the "new interviewer every 45/60 minutes" style of interviewing. They all come in and start off with an algorithm question. Each and every one (at least the technical ones).

forgottenpass• 10 years ago

No company will ever ask such questions

Once you get outside the bubble where development process is a dirty word and/or meme cargo culted from a blog, they often do. Especially companies with immutable external quality standards to design and test towards.

throwanem• 10 years ago

No company will ever ask such questions

Not true in my experience, and the company that did ask such questions turned out to be a great place to learn a lot in a hurry. It also turned out not to be a good long-term fit, but I'm a much better dev for the experience, and I don't regret it at all.

nigelk• 10 years ago

My interview for Google as an SRE in late 2009 consisted of well over half design questions around improvements of a system with lots of users.

One of the best series of questions I've ever gotten in an interview. We probably spent close to an hour just on one major aspect of the service.

dagw• 10 years ago

Ironically I've found that non-software companies are a lot better about this than software companies when hiring programmers. They are much more likely to ask questions along the lines of "here's a typical problem we might have, give us a high level overview about how you might help us solve it".

lostmsu• 10 years ago

That's not true very much. Both Facebook and Amazon are asking systems design questions.

mabbo2• 10 years ago

Replying 11 days later so maybe you never see this but...

I'm an interviewer (and SDE) at Amazon and (at least in my division) we won't do a hire loop for a non-entry level engineer that doesn't include a design interview. It can make or break a candidate, but if you've been in the industry for a few years we expect you have some ideas beyond "Get a bigger database server" when we ask how you'd scale a solution.

CoolGuySteve• 10 years ago

I solved everything with time to spare and they still rejected me. So it doesn't really matter, they can find some other reason to reject you.

For me, they said my C++ wasn't "neat enough" which really pissed me off because we had several minutes at the end of each session where I could have cleaned it up if they had asked.

Anyways it was a complete waste of time.

miiiiiike• 10 years ago

My friend was hired last week and somewhere near the end of the process the headhunters asked him for referrals. When he asked me if I'd be interested I said "Nope. Not wasting my time on the interviews" almost instinctively.

ska2• 10 years ago

I suspect that the hiring process varies quite a bit by role and group, and mostly people talk about the worst cases.

I did part of the process once (a few years ago) and it was very straightforward. Roughly it looked like: Initial call "are you interested" on Tuesday, someone else on Wednesday for 30 min. They arranged a flight & hotel that Sunday, I spent Monday interviewing and visiting with 5 groups if I recall correctly, flew home that night.

So just under a week from first contact to interviewing finished. We started talking positions but I decided to take another opportunity the following week and stopped the process, so I don't know how long that might have taken for approval or negotiation. However, they had seemed confident they could get it sorted out in a couple of weeks.

So just anectdata but doesn't feel at all like the dragged out versions people talk about.

ithkuil• 10 years ago

yeah, people tend to complain loudly when it goes wrong (and it does happen). I had a very pleasant experience for what is worth.

osullivj2• 10 years ago

When designing a hiring process one should consider the balance between false positives and false negatives, and the cost of the process. Obviously we all want to hire talent and reject duds. A cheap quick process runs the risk of false positives: hiring duds. An expensive lengthy process tying up lots of top staff will eliminate the false positives, but at cost. So to reduce cost filters are introduced: online tests, homework, phone calls rather than face to face. And the filters increase the risk of false negatives - rejecting real talent.

tedmiston2• 10 years ago

While this is an accurate description of Google's process, and it seems like they intentionally designed it this way (willingness to reject false negatives), I'm not sure what the point is that you're making about it.

osullivj2• 10 years ago

My point is to explain the hard headed calculation behind a hiring process that has a lot of folk crying "not fair!"

dajohnson89• 10 years ago

I was contacted by a Google recruiter, and she told me how grueling the interview process was. She said I could use up to four weeks to study. No thanks. I have a full time programming job. The notion of coming home to practice balancing a binary search tree, or finding the kth smallest prime palindrome in a linked list or whatever.....is revolting.

noarchy• 10 years ago

This has essentially been my attitude. If you're interviewing me based on my experience in my profession, why should I have to study for anything? We're talking about things I do 8+ hours per day. Study? That would only be needed if the questions are specifically not related to the job I'm expecting to do.

donretag2• 10 years ago

For me, the main reason why I turn down Google's requests for interviews is blind allocation. Google wants you to go through interview after interview without knowing what role you might get. I am far too experienced to accept whatever random job a company might have. The last time they contacted me and told them no, they came back with an actual position of Site Reliability Engineer. Definitely a job I do not want. Imagine going through the interview process only to be offered a position that is not to your liking?

It has been almost a year since I heard from Google. They are due to send me another email soon.

highlynt• 10 years ago

I recently joined Google and it definitely didn't work that way. You aren't usually interviewing for a specific team, like with smaller companies. But once you get past the interview your recruiter works with you to find teams that you will be interested in. In my case I talked to 3 hiring managers that were all working on the exact type of project I expressed interest in. I've seen it work this way a bunch of times when hiring for my team since joining.

I'm sure it doesn't always work this way but from what I've seen it's certainly the intention.

zzalpha3• 10 years ago

But once you get past the interview your recruiter works with you to find teams that you will be interested in

That just confirms his/her point.

If you don't know what you'll be doing until after you've gotten through the recruitment process, it's blind placement.

marssaxman2• 10 years ago

I wish that such a process had existed in 2011 when I went to work at Google; my experience there might have been less miserable and consequently less brief.

Eridrus2• 10 years ago

What part of the process have you guys found to take so long? I turned down an offer there 6 years ago, but it didn't take anywhere near 6 months, and from on-site to offer was about a week or two. I'm going through their process again now and based on current progress I expect the whole thing to wrap up in less than a month. It's not the fastest process I've seen, but it hasn't seemed worse than other large companies to me.

ohstopitu• 10 years ago

I do want to add that, I've personally had a GREAT interview experience at Google (might be a exception based on the rest of the comments but I do want to put it out here).

I had been initially selected for the position of Sales Engineer. Over the course of the interviews (3 in total - over the course of 2 weeks), I felt like I knew what was going on, what stage I was in and what questions were asked (as in, the reasoning behind the questions - the stuff they wanted to test me on).

However, after the 3rd interview, I was told that I fit another position better and they wanted to interview me for that position instead (great position, but in SF which I was not interested in).

Over the course of the last 4 months, I've been to 100s of interview and I can safely say that MY Google interview experience is in the top 10 (and if they are hiring in Ontario, Canada, I will definitely apply and hope to get interviewed again).

janoc• 10 years ago

I have recently turned down another Google recruiter like this as well. Position in a domain that is not really my key field and only, maybe, after their crazy interviewing process.

I am sorry, but I don't have time nor money for days of this coding test/trick questions nonsense, especially as I would have to travel for the interview abroad. I am 40 years old, have plenty of experience, scientific publications on the subject, code in public repositories available and even can supply personal references if someone wants to call those people. If you want to treat me like a kid fresh out of the school expect the same treatment back.

And even if you do all this, you are not guaranteed to get any specific position - when I have asked the recruiter what kind of position would I be interviewing for - junior, senior, developer, team leader, whatever, I was told "this is not how we work - if you pass the interviews, then we will assign you to a team that we think best fits with your experience". So, in other words - go through the grueling interviewing process and finally discover that the position may not even be relevant for you, completely wasting everyone's time.

No, thank you. I have better things to do with my time.

zzalpha3• 10 years ago

So, in other words - go through the grueling interviewing process and finally discover that the position may not even be relevant for you, completely wasting everyone's time.

Oh but you see that's where you're confused.

You see, you aren't interviewing for a position, in order to pursue your interests or advance your career.

You're interviewing to work at Google.

And thank your lucky stars if they accept you! Because OMG Google!!!

chiefalchemist5• 10 years ago

Lol. How true. They have more or less one cash cow product (ads) that prints them money. The rest are just self-indulgent hobbies subsidized by that cash cow.

And that's grounds for self proclaimed greatness? Sure, Google does some cool stuff. But their (self-proclaimed?) greatness is overrated. To. A. Fault.

adwww2• 10 years ago

Likewise. Sure, I'd like to work for Google.

But I also make good money Not working for Google, and getting non-google jobs is a simple matter of picking up the phone and calling one of a handful of recruiters I know.

I guess I'll never know if Google think I'm talented, and I'll never know what I'm missing not working there. I can live with that!

tedmiston2• 10 years ago

I've been reached out to by Google recruiters a few times over the past couple years (Facebook too, but I've heard there process isn't quite as time-consuming). I have never applied or interned there. I did get a Google Foobar invite and solved some of those problems but didn't choose to submit to Google. I went to an average mid-size school in the midwest, probably relatively unknown to them. I did some grad school which they seemed to notice; maybe they reach out to everyone who did CS grad school.

One thing I have noticed more than any other place is that the early stage / non-tech recruiters really spent time digging into my LinkedIn or Stack Overflow CV to ask specific questions, even in non-technical aspects like being an RA in college or study abroad. I wish everyone did this. It made me take them more serious as being interested in me and not just people.

I would really enjoy the opportunity to work for Google. I'm self-employed as an independent contractor with plenty of work. Most recently I turned the Google recruiter down after he sent a prep deck as I realized between prep, interviews, travel, etc, I'd be committing 100+ hours to the process. That's a lot of time and lost money, so despite having the desire to work there, at the end of the day I concluded it'd be a better use of time to opt-out than partially commit to an intensive process with very indefinite time bounds. The recruiter seemed surprised though — maybe people don't do this so much.

wht3beb332• 10 years ago

You developers don't get it. Think outside of the box. It's like that recruiter emailed me about a new awesome sounding job and I never heard from them, wonder why? Well you know why? Because it was an automated email and the job didn't exist.

Back to Google hiring process. It's a perfectly legit way for Google to discriminate. Do you think Google doesn't know their hiring process is stupid? They do. They don't want to hire experienced, smart engineers. They want to hire inexperienced engineers. Only those will work for free pizza, longer hours. If you are not willing to study 4 weeks for the interview, then you won't be staying until midnight to write code in exchange for free pizza.

Let's talk about working at fun projects at Google? Really? Do you think fixing CSS issues in Gmail will be a fun project? I'd rather not work at Google and ;

* Have time to do my own laundry.

* Have time to eat out any time with my own money.

* Come to work at 9 leave at 5 and enjoy my life.

* Work with cool people and have fun, instead of working under stress with bunch of arrogant people.

This is exactly the people Google wants to hire. Inexperienced, not so smart engineers. I'd never, ever work for Google, and they would never want to hire someone like me. See, their interview process works perfect for them.

guiomie• 10 years ago

Have you worked at Google? You seem to really know what's it's like over there.

All these points you've mentioned about a good place to work, is pretty much what I've been experiencing at Google. Great life work balance if you want it. When it comes to big corp, It seems like a great place to work if you have kids.

The interview process wasnt much longer than any other Big corp ive interviewed with. I was in a position where I had and liked my job, so I was in no rush to leave.

wht3beb332• 10 years ago

Are you a developer at Google or marketing/sales/helpdesk, etc?

swingbridge• 10 years ago

There's no question Google no longer attracts the best of the best talent. Hopefully that's not news to the folks at Google.

johan_larson3• 10 years ago

Where do you think the best of the best are going instead?

akhilcacharya5• 10 years ago

From what I can gather "best" go to companies with even more stringent hiring bars and processes, like Airbnb, Quora, Dropbox, and the Quant firms.

elif• 10 years ago

I absolutely hated my interview experience, but that did not turn me off completely. I stayed in touch with recruiters in case I decided it became a good time to move.

What put me off of Google was the declining adherence to "don't be evil" to the point of it almost becoming an ironic joke, with Eric's shady dealings with HRC's campaign being the final straw.

awinter-py• 10 years ago

Important to distinguish btwn web silo hires and R&D hires. The fun jobs at G like driverless cars and ML are targeting relatively rare skillsets. The technical managers in those silos are likely mining their rolodex and visiting schools.

It's the boring stuff (web maintenance & integration) where the managers are burned out (or just bad managers) so they farm out hiring to recruiters.

Acquihire process is lighter-weight per-candidate and gets around the blind allocation point people are making here.

EnderMB2• 10 years ago

For me, it's less about the hiring process, and more about actually getting an interview.

When I finished my CS degree, I considered applying for Google, but I ended up working in a startup instead, which is probably for the best, because I ended up getting thrown into the deep end and learning a ton.

A few years later, I had worked at a few agencies, and had a few decent projects/promotions under my belt, so I decided that I'd apply to Google, just to see what my chances were. I submitted my CV, and got a flat-out rejection. Not to worry, I thought. There's always another time. A year ago, I submitted my CV again, and after about two weeks I received another rejection.

It might be because I work on the .NET stack, but Google won't touch me, it seems. I wouldn't consider myself a bad developer by any means. I've contributed to open-source, I've got a decent rep on Stack Overflow, none of my employers would have anything bad to say about me. I've had offers for interviews from Amazon and once from Microsoft; I refused the former, and accepted the latter, although the recruiter never got back to me. Personally, I consider the process to be quite fun, and while I've probably forgotten most of the content from my Algorithms classes, above anything else I think it'd be a nice thing to try, even if I don't get the job. At the very least, it'll be a good opportunity to test myself to see if I can (re)learn the stuff I'd need to be a Google developer.

akhilcacharya5• 10 years ago

I would contact a recruiter directly, you could probably find a few emails on LinkedIn. It's surprising though, I was under the impression that they interviewed everyone.

EnderMB2• 10 years ago

I've tried that too, and still no luck! I've got three different Google recruiters, and I've messaged about roles in different areas before, and no bite.

It's really weird. I get at least 5 emails a day from recruiters in general, and the occasional email from a larger company, but Google clearly don't want me.

shubhamjain• 10 years ago

There is a distinct possibility that a data-driven company like Google, having huge budgets for optimising their talent-finding machinery, is already aware about the holes in their hiring process. There might be no resounding reason for big-G to catch every talented engineer out there; they just need to catch enough of them which, considering their glamour, shouldn't be that difficult. Having the bar raised high, even if superficially so, they can continue to attract the crème de la crème

known• 10 years ago

2 billion lines of code in ONE repository? https://www.wired.com/2015/09/google-2-billion-lines-codeand...

brudgers• 10 years ago

Google's interview process is bureaucratic because Google is bureaucratic. It's just another enterprise once you get past all the 'ping-pong tables and beanbag chairs.' Employees ride buses, eat in cafeterias, and are permitted to use only approved programming languages. Company's of Google's economic size pretty much have to be.

One of which is Go. A fine language that meets Google's purposes but lacking map/reduce etc. I can only imagine the difference in perception if Oracle mandated something like that. Anyway, Google's hiring process has to select for people who will not be unhappy [metaphorically] programming in Go. Everybody ain't cut out for corporate life, and talent that doesn't thrive in Google's cultural straightjackets [every company has them] is better for being filtered out.

Google has the data to know who is likely to work out and who is not. The hiring process reflects that.

chiefalchemist5• 10 years ago

Kinda. Goggle, like every company, does what it does because it believes it has served it well.

Sure Google does TONS of cool stuff but very few things have been market successful. In short, Google makes a TON of money from ads. But it uses blindness and denial to view that as a cultural / company wide success. Take away ads and Google is just another fuckup struggling tech company.

bobdole12342• 10 years ago

So, you're saying the fact they've been making billions in profit isn't success?

chiefalchemist5• 10 years ago

If Goggle, FB, etc. were serious about diversity, they'd address this. The fact is, they don't want diversity. They want assimulation. The hiring process setting that tone.

They, being blind to their own blindness, keep asking: How can we get more diverse? How can we get X, Y and Z to join us?

It's the wrong question.

The better question is to gaze into the mirror and ask: What are WE doing that makes us SOOOOOOOO unappealing to X, Y and Z?

Nuff said.

intralizee• 10 years ago

I had read all the horror stories online about google interviews before going into one.

My interview had the interviewer and I on the phone simple enough. She had glanced and really had only glanced at my resume and I assume just noticed I had worked at 'x' which was good enough for her mind of recruiting. She didn't even look at any projects I had worked on or have any questions aimed towards previous work. I was good enough to her for the next stage of interviewing but I ended up wanting to just cut dealing with their interview shit out of my life at that point. Pathetic company that wants me to slave away memorizing from some book to pass an interview process that hires plebs that probably surf Facebook all day while attempting to hire college grads that may have interned at other tech companies.

gpderetta• 10 years ago

I actually don't mind coding tests and whiteboard interviews, as I take the former as a challenge and I tend to do decently on the latter.

My issue with G interview process is how long it takes. Last time I was looking to change job (I was soon to be a father and wanted something more stable), I did a round of interviewing for a few companies. All did a phone interview and quickly followed up with an on site interview. In less than a week I had a few nice offers.

In the same time frame G came back, after the phone interview, with an offer to come to the office for the first of a few rounds of interviews. Although I was interested, I had to decline as I couldn't really justify the time, and instead took one of the other offers, which is a shame as I have quite a few ex-colleagues working there and I would love to join them.

geebee2• 10 years ago

I interviewed with google, once. I enjoyed the process more than most here, though in some ways, that really just shows how badly I've been treated in other interviews.

It's not really an interview. This is the hardest thing for people outside our field to understand when they hear the word "interview". Our interviews are essentially exams, and google is probably the purest form of the interview as exam style of hiring. I studied data structures and algorithms, and took series of four one-hour oral whiteboard exams. I was treated politely and well, and had a nice lunch.

Really, they're exams. You might spend less than 5% of your time talking about the job, your background, your interest. You show up, they test you at the whiteboard.

I was a no hire. This is fine, but the secrecy around the exam and feedback, I think, reflects what's so wrong with this situation. There are, as I understand, actual numerical scores and notes about me and my performance in a database at google, along with images of the solutions I wrote on the whiteboard. However, I am not allowed to know anything about these scores or notes.

Imagine if you took the LSAT and applied to law schools, only to be rejected with the reason that your scores "weren't what we're looking for", but you aren't allowed to know what your score actually was! Or, perhaps, that you sat for your nursing or medical boards, and were told "you were strong in some areas and clearly studied hard, but we've decided not to allow you to become a physician or nurse at this time..."

I've written a bit about all this on HN before - our severe problem here is that we take exams, under conditions that many people view as very stressful, but with absolutely none of the rights that are often accorded a student. No clear study path, no information about who will be grading you or what that person's qualifications are, and - most importantly - no right to understand how you were graded or why you passed or failed.

This is what I don't want to participate in anymore. I'm nearing the point where I would rather leave the field than be a part of it.

That last part drives me especially nuts, because google is one of the companies constantly beating the drum about a "shortage" of developers. Do they not see how their own behavior contributes to this shortage?

edent5• 10 years ago

However, I am not allowed to know anything about these scores or notes.

Are you in the UK? The Data Protection Act is very clear that you have the right to any information a company holds about you. All EU countries have a similar law.

If you are in the EU, you should be able to write to Google and demand the data they have. That might burn your bridges with them - but at least you'll know what they thought of you.

geebee2• 10 years ago

That's interesting. I'm in California, so not sure if this is an option.

I agree that this might burn bridges, so obviously that's something I'd need to reconsider. It also speaks volumes about the problems around technical interviews that simply asking how your performance on an exam was scored is a potentially career limiting act.

Keep in mind, this is a company that was involved in a clearly illegal wage-fixing scheme. I do think it's worth treading carefully here.

Tech has a long, long way to go.

jimmywanger• 10 years ago

An interesting data point. It seems that non satisfied potential employees are far more likely to vocalize their experience than satisfied ones.

The ones who castigate the process the most either failed the process or chose not to enter it, and ultimately failed to get an offer.

Whereas I know plenty of people who were able to get an offer with a minimally invasive interview process. Having somebody able to refer you in is key, skips a lot of the BS.

Does Google's Hiring Process Put Off Talented Applicants?

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