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Tossing my hat in the ring with a similar experience. Was approached in 2003 because of an app I had written that got attention, and was told that Googlers want

Tossing my hat in the ring with a similar experience. Was approached in 2003 because of an app I had written that got attention, and was told that Googlers wanted to speak with me about the app. What followed was three calls with gate-keepers of sorts, between which there was zero knowledge transfer from call to call. None of them inquired about the app and all of them asked questions so unrelated to the app that they might as well have been interviewing me for a position writing Sanskrit. On the last of the 3 calls I asked the interviewer when someone was going to inquire about the app, to which the person replied that they had no idea what it was and that they were told I had applied for a position. Though they couldn't tell me what that position apparently was. I kindly requested they not contact me again. I'm no all-star, I don't think I'm special, and I was still pretty green back then. But that experience permanently put me off from any interest in that company. It would seem Google HR / Recruiting hasn't improved in all these years.

mindfulplay 9y ago
To be fair, if any company hired you based just on your app, it would be unfair to you and the company. Most software companies thrive because of generalist SWEs who need to demonstrate consistent performance. It might be that the app was a foot in the door but might not be applicable past that initial point
- johannes1234321 9y ago
  Well, maybe they also hire to own the app and the user base behind it or some technology in it.
- waisbrot 9y ago
  I mean, you maybe wouldn't just send an offer letter to someone who wrote an app, sure. (But depending on what they wrote, maybe you would. Something reasonably large and open-source, where they ended up incorporating a substantial amount of code from other contributors?) But if someone's got 30kloc sitting there, why wouldn't you look at that body of work instead of starting from scratch with "please write FizzBuzz on this whiteboard"?
  - vlovich123 9y ago
    Because reading someone else's proprietary code exposes the company potentially to liability? Not just claims of IP theft, but there would have to be legal vetting that you have the right to show that code in the first place. Also, I have no way to confirm how much of the code you wrote yourself.
bartread 9y ago
My take on Google's hiring process, having observed a few people going through it, is that it's a complete nightmare. Unfortunately I don't think there's any incentive for them to change because so many people are willing to go through that nightmare in order to work there. My whole approach to recruitment is to strip the process down as much as possible to make it as easy and appealing as possible for people to apply, but that's because I have to: I work for a company nobody's heard of, and which doesn't have engineers queuing up to work for them.
- mieseratte 9y ago
  In my experience, the recruiters are some of the best, nicest folks I've had the pleasure of dealing with. I know that's a low bar to crawl over in the world of copy-paste recruiters, but they were good folks who made sure things worked, and when my interviewer failed to call, made sure to prod his ass. Now, I didn't get past the phone screen but the experience actually interviewing was so piss-poor I doubt I'd have pressed on had I passed. The interviewer managed to call nearly 30 minutes late, spent about as much time talking about himself as he did asking me questions, and when he actually asked questions he would proceed to repeat what I had said as if I hadn't even said anything.
pzh 9y ago
This sounds like “Our engineering director was very impressed with your experience, and we would like to set up a 15 min call to find out what you actually do.” Pretty much a recruiter tactic. They discover some random nugget of info about you and then they use it as a lead to cold email you. If you respond, they apply for an entry level position on your behalf.
adrianmonk 9y ago
> three calls with gate-keepers of sorts, between which there was zero knowledge transfer from call to call That may have been disorganization, but there's also a decent justification for intentionally limiting knowledge transfer. You get 3 independent opinions that are not biased by the others.
fjsolwmv 9y ago
Sounds like you ate the recruiter linkedin spam bait, or whatever the thing was then. "We are very impressed with your $EXPERIENCE and our engineers would like to talk to you."
joeldg 9y ago
long long ago, probably 2005, they called me up and said they were going to interview me for a different position than what I had applied for... I had applied for a developer position and they wanted to interview me for a systems engineering position. I said "I didn't apply for that position as I don't think I qualify for it" They said "Just go with it". Predictably, I bombed it, one question I remember is what is the name of process id #1 in linux. Never applied at Google again.
stanleydrew 9y ago
> It would seem Google HR / Recruiting hasn't improved in all these years. I agree that your experience in 2003 was terrible, but to draw this conclusion from the article is extremely presumptuous. There are lots of well-intentioned people working in recruiting at Google, and you are suggesting that none of them have made any improvement in the process in 15 years?
- smt88 9y ago
  Time doesn't necessarily guarantee improvement, especially when a company is growing and not necessarily well-managed

mindfulplay 9y ago

To be fair, if any company hired you based just on your app, it would be unfair to you and the company. Most software companies thrive because of generalist SWEs who need to demonstrate consistent performance. It might be that the app was a foot in the door but might not be applicable past that initial point

johannes1234321 9y ago
Well, maybe they also hire to own the app and the user base behind it or some technology in it.
waisbrot 9y ago
I mean, you maybe wouldn't just send an offer letter to someone who wrote an app, sure. (But depending on what they wrote, maybe you would. Something reasonably large and open-source, where they ended up incorporating a substantial amount of code from other contributors?) But if someone's got 30kloc sitting there, why wouldn't you look at that body of work instead of starting from scratch with "please write FizzBuzz on this whiteboard"?
- vlovich123 9y ago
  Because reading someone else's proprietary code exposes the company potentially to liability? Not just claims of IP theft, but there would have to be legal vetting that you have the right to show that code in the first place. Also, I have no way to confirm how much of the code you wrote yourself.

bartread 9y ago

My take on Google's hiring process, having observed a few people going through it, is that it's a complete nightmare. Unfortunately I don't think there's any incentive for them to change because so many people are willing to go through that nightmare in order to work there. My whole approach to recruitment is to strip the process down as much as possible to make it as easy and appealing as possible for people to apply, but that's because I have to: I work for a company nobody's heard of, and which doesn't have engineers queuing up to work for them.

mieseratte 9y ago
In my experience, the recruiters are some of the best, nicest folks I've had the pleasure of dealing with. I know that's a low bar to crawl over in the world of copy-paste recruiters, but they were good folks who made sure things worked, and when my interviewer failed to call, made sure to prod his ass. Now, I didn't get past the phone screen but the experience actually interviewing was so piss-poor I doubt I'd have pressed on had I passed. The interviewer managed to call nearly 30 minutes late, spent about as much time talking about himself as he did asking me questions, and when he actually asked questions he would proceed to repeat what I had said as if I hadn't even said anything.

pzh 9y ago

This sounds like “Our engineering director was very impressed with your experience, and we would like to set up a 15 min call to find out what you actually do.” Pretty much a recruiter tactic. They discover some random nugget of info about you and then they use it as a lead to cold email you. If you respond, they apply for an entry level position on your behalf.

adrianmonk 9y ago

> three calls with gate-keepers of sorts, between which there was zero knowledge transfer from call to call That may have been disorganization, but there's also a decent justification for intentionally limiting knowledge transfer. You get 3 independent opinions that are not biased by the others.

fjsolwmv 9y ago

Sounds like you ate the recruiter linkedin spam bait, or whatever the thing was then. "We are very impressed with your $EXPERIENCE and our engineers would like to talk to you."

joeldg 9y ago

long long ago, probably 2005, they called me up and said they were going to interview me for a different position than what I had applied for... I had applied for a developer position and they wanted to interview me for a systems engineering position. I said "I didn't apply for that position as I don't think I qualify for it" They said "Just go with it". Predictably, I bombed it, one question I remember is what is the name of process id #1 in linux. Never applied at Google again.

stanleydrew 9y ago

> It would seem Google HR / Recruiting hasn't improved in all these years. I agree that your experience in 2003 was terrible, but to draw this conclusion from the article is extremely presumptuous. There are lots of well-intentioned people working in recruiting at Google, and you are suggesting that none of them have made any improvement in the process in 15 years?

smt88 9y ago
Time doesn't necessarily guarantee improvement, especially when a company is growing and not necessarily well-managed