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Ask HN: Why does Google get away with such bad recruiting practices?
Recently I've been through the on-site interviews at Google and had a terrible experience. The recruiter went silent after my on-site and my calls are directly going to voicemail. The on-site was a month ago and I've heard nothing regarding my status. I've shared this experience with some of my friends, and they've all had similar experiences. My question is - how is Google getting away with such bad recruiting practices? I've never had a company not call me back after I took a day off work to interview, even if it is bad news! Shouldn't bad recruiting practice like this hurt the company's reputation? And shouldn't people be more hesitant to apply to companies knowing that they will be treated badly?
- thefastlane 10y agoany response at all following an interview puts a company at above average these days. that said, my experiences with google have been way above average. probably one of the few companies where i genuinely enjoyed interviewing (i usually hate interviews). follow-ups were very informative as well. sounds like you got a flaky recruiter.
- PaulHoule 10y agoPeople want to be on the side that is winning. Also, they want minions and one characteristic of a good minion is unlimited tolerance for abuse. You might as well start early in the process. If you join Scientology, for instance, the second thing you do is TR0 Bullshit where somebody screams as you and you just sit there and don't flinch. After that they'll scream at you all the time and if you complain they'll tell you to "keep your TRs in.". If you really cant stand getting abused they don't want you on board.
- chinese_dan 10y agoThey can get away with it because they have an endless supply of intelligent engineers that want to work there. It's the same effect we see when there is a monopoly over the marketplace.
- tlb 10y agoIf so, they underestimate the downside of adverse selection. Bad interview processes still let you hire lots of people, but select out the people who care most about processes not sucking. If you do this for a decade, you end up missing an important element in your organization.
- strathmeyer 10y agoLook at which of my friends work for Google.... it wasn't the intelligent ones. What they are choosing for is sort of obvious.
- dajohnson89 10y agoWhat are they choosing for?
- no_wave 10y agoThey pay a lot
- ergo14 10y agoThey do? Czech salary range at google is less than 6k USD/mo i think.
- ThePawnBreak 10y agoHow does that compare to local salaries?
- ergo14 10y agoIt seems similar to other bigger IT companies in the region. Nothing special - but then again I never did any deep research on the subject.
- TheMog 10y agoUnless that's changed very recently, they seem to be convinced that the perceived prestige of working for Google is worth a lot and thus they can get away with paying average or below average. At least that's been my experience.
- strathmeyer 10y agoLol I graduated with a CS degree in 2004 and have been searching for an entry level software development job ever since. Google was the first and only company to call me back to tell me I didn't get the job. I think things are getting worse out there.
- hajrice 10y ago12 Years. Sounds quite long...?
- rkho 10y agoOP's been posting that same rhetoric for the past 1+ years on HN, I genuinely can't tell if they're trolling or not.
- carlmcqueen 10y agoI just tripped down the rabbit hole of skimming said comments back a few years, you're not kidding.
- rkho 10y agoExactly what I did :)
- darkstar999 10y agoEither you are a really bad developer or you are shooting for the stars. You really haven't found any work since 2004?
- kzisme 10y agoI'm assuming OP was exaggerating...I don't see how they couldn't be based on the market
- rewrew 10y agoWas that a typo? Did you mean to type 2014?
- M_Grey 10y agoBecause they're huge, they have gobs of money and influence, and people want to work for them in the hopes of getting a piece of both. Greed is a powerful force, especially when backed by a complaint ideology.
- thefastlane 10y agocurious what you mean by 'complaint ideology' ?
- M_Grey 10y agoI mean, "Compliant", but autocorrect bunged me again. My bad!
- secure 10y agoIf you have any contacts at Google, try asking them to contact the recruiter directly. That usually works. Of course, this is not an excuse for the poor treatment you’re receiving, and I’m sorry to hear that.
- busterarm 10y agoA buddy of mine interviewed for a fairly senior role at Google (SVP equivalent) and he had about 6 or 7 in-person interviews within a week or two before they went radio-silent. 6 months later they contacted him and asked him to come in for another round of interviews -- at which point he told them he was going to pass. Edit: This was a half-decade or more ago.
- honkhonkpants 10y agoThe idea that randos are just interviewing to be SVPs at Google doesn't seem particularly likely to me.
- Rotten194 10y agoWhy do you think OP's friend is a "rando"?
- honkhonkpants 10y agoAnybody who claims to be going for an executive position through front-door recruiting is a rando. Look at the SVPs at Google and look at how they got that job. Either they have been at Google since the dawn of man, or they came in through major acquisitions, or they were personally recruited by Larry Page.
- busterarm 10y agoHe didn't go through front-door recruiting. They sought him out. He's had similar roles at major banks. ...and he still had to go through that process. Do 'mere mortals' have to do 5+ in-person interviews?
- ones_and_zeros 10y agoI think their point was that for SVP type positions, especially at Google, if they want you you don't go through multiday interviews. They make a pitch and give you an offer. But even then that is unlikely. I think what might be happening is some of the titles don't match between banks and tech. At a bank there are 1000s of "VPs" and so your friend may be at that level but really in Google and most tech companies that could be anything from a Senior Engineer/Team Lead/Director level. In tech, SVP is way way up there. An example is Marissa Mayer who only attained VP and never SVP before moving on to Yahoo.
- elizabethab 10y agoI've had the opposite experience. The recruiter proactively provided updates and kept me up-to-date in terms of expected timeline.
- frustrated_90 10y agoI want to meet you! I've seen so many good stories about Google recruiting online - but I guess my friends and myself aren't big enough sample size to make a valid conclusion. It is just a bit frustrating, an auto generated email costs nothing.
- dmoy 10y agoIt's possible that your recruiter quit and hopped to a different company. That is one common source for recruiter going dark. It's also possible you got a really bad recruiter... there's an enormous variance of recruiter quality. Just guessing here, but auto generated emails are tricky because you don't want to send people incorrect messaging by accident (for example if your recruiter wants to swap you between application roles, it may involve a cancel and add, which could send an auto rejected notice - (hypothetical example, I have no idea)).
- coldcode 10y agoMost big companies are terrible at recruiting. Google requires massive numbers of people so they can't spend much time or concern on any one position or one recruitee. Even my employer (non SV) can't even post positions for engineers that make any sense (which is why we get so few candidates).
- tschwimmer 10y agoThere's no reason why they can auto-generate a "We have decided not to proceed with your application" email when they move your status to rejected at the very least. It costs marginally nothing.
- Retric 10y agoWhen McDonalds will treat minimum wage workers better than you are treating people there is no excuse.
- thrill 10y agoSeems like they could spring a couple of bills for a technical writer to polish the requirements when the end result is likely to be a six digit salaried employee.
- infodroid 10y agoIs your only complaint that the recruiter went silent? Or is that only one part of the problem? Because it wasn't clear to me from your description what else went wrong during the process for you to conclude that they have bad recruitment practices.
- tofupup 10y agoif you get the job make sure it doesn't happen to the next person.
- tofupup 10y agoif you get the job make sure it doesn't happen to the next person.
- umbs 10y agoLike with any BigCo, there are always bad apples (recruiters) and things slip through cracks. But compared to other similar sized companies, Google is quite focused on improving their interview processes. You can find lots of resources online from Google employees explaining it. The one I found very enlightening is from Moishe Lettvin given at Etsy: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=r8RxkpUvxK0 https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=r8RxkpUvxK0 My own personal experience couple of years ago was good. I failed the interview though.
- mizzao 10y agoLaszlo Bock's Work Rules! highlights many things that have been tried and implemented at Google to improve recruiting and retention. It might be a bit effusive, but I think the insights generally do apply to many workplaces. https://www.amazon.com/Work-Rules-Insights-Inside-Transform/dp/1455554790 https://www.amazon.com/Work-Rules-Insights-Inside-Transform/...
- SysArchitect 10y agoGoogle called me back and let me know that they position they were hiring for was filled and that they would keep my information on file. Have been getting their recruiters calling every 6 months since, and that was almost 8 years ago now.
- GFK_of_xmaspast 10y agoSounds like they kept your info on file tho?
- SysArchitect 10y agoThat they have. I don't really mind them reaching out every 6 months personally...
- codegeek 10y agoI am not defending Google here but plenty of reasons I would guess: - Lot of people want to work for Google. Plenty of supply - Cost/Benefit. The cost of contacting everyone is not worth the benefit. Probably too many applicants to respond to - Because they can. They are Google. - They are big. Perhaps a certain division/HR team is worse than others. So it could come down to specific HR team who is the culprit. I bet if the supply of candidates go down and they need to find people, they will respond a lot more.
- pascalxus 10y agoAnd, there's a pretty large oversupply of talent in the bay area, so there's plenty of potential candidates to burn through, for a region of this size.
- nogbit 10y agoI interviewed at MS in 2000, they said the same thing during the interview to one of my questions "Because we can. We are MS.". My response is probably why I did not get the job.
- theremightbe 10y agoDell did a very similar thing to me a few months ago. I think its just a symptom of large companies
- mercurysmessage 10y agoIt's happened to me fairly often at small companies, although that could just be something to do with where I live.
- southphillyman 10y ago3rd party recruiting agencies get a bad wrap for many justifiable reasons, but this is one area where they provide value. Even though a company may be using dozens of agencies each agency will still have an stream of communication to get real updates no matter how "busy" the hiring HR department is. Edit: this is assuming the recruiter doesn't go ghost on you themselves that is....
- contingencies 10y agoGo someplace decent which gives you space, respect as an adult, money and ethics instead of joining a centralized, politicized, authoritarian spy network that will treat you like an eternally incapable teenager.
- adamveld12 10y agoI had quite a memorable experience where a Google recruiter accidentally CC'd their post interview survey email instead of BCC. After the initial "haha" moment we discovered that almost all of the ~2k people in the email list were African American. A private LinkedIn group was started after that, although I haven't followed up with it lately. Also for that particular interview, I waited for an hour and a half in the lobby before a recruiter finally showed up. It turned out that my recruiter was let go the day before and my interview time fell between the cracks. Pretty much the worst experience I've ever had interviewing.
- mercurysmessage 10y agoFrom my experience, this is very normal. I'm surprised you don't find it normal.
- MrZipf 10y agoCould be that the recruiter left. My perception is that recruiters have greater churn in bi companies.
- rhapsodic 10y ago> Shouldn't bad recruiting practice like this hurt the company's reputation? I imagine it has, to an extent, among their pool of potential candidates. > And shouldn't people be more hesitant to apply to companies knowing that they will be treated badly? I'm sure there are people who have decided not to pursue employment at Google based on the what they've heard about Google's interview process. But, apparently, there are still many thousands of good developers who are undeterred by Google's reputation. So for the time being, in their cost-benefit analysis, Google has decided they're better off without making major changes in their hiring process.
- khedoros1 10y agoI had a good experience interviewing with Google earlier this year. Sometimes there were a couple weeks between steps of the process, but I always had a clear sense of when I'd be contacted next, and the recruiter and interviewers always held to the schedule. I was rejected, and got the notice promptly (a few days after the interview).
- amingilani 10y agoCan we have an explanation on why this was flagged?
- oldmanjay 10y agoDo you feel like you needed a little bit more emotional support from people you probably won't see again?
- ajeet_dhaliwal 10y agoBecause people, even very good people, especially very good young people put up with it. I did. Would I now? No. If a Google recruiter contacts me now I say pass. Ain't nobody got time for that (at a certain age or when you've gone through it enough).
- TheMog 10y agoI've interviewed there a couple of times over the years and I was less than impressed by the process. Doesn't stop people from applying and they seem to end up with the candidates they want, so it's probably working for them. They have to standardize on some process, this one seems to produce the desired results and with the number of candidates they get, I assume that they're not worried about false negatives, but are worried about false positives...
- jinkies 10y agoI had a good experience with Google. The recruiter contacted me at every chance with updates about where things were. It took two months from first being contacted but after I had another offer they sped up the process, scheduling an in person interview two weeks out. After that it was still three weeks until I received an official offer. What probably made the biggest difference was having another offer on the table. It put more urgency on getting me through the process.
- rajacombinator 10y agothe sooner you stop expecting employers to treat you well, the better tbh.
- kjsingh 10y agoGood thing about Amazon is that they consider even interviewees as customers.. and customer obsession is their way to go!