5 ms·

Since when are Google's hiring practices good? As many of us experienced, the process is dismal and extremely disrespectful with the candidates. They get away w

by alecco 8y ago

Since when are Google's hiring practices good? As many of us experienced, the process is dismal and extremely disrespectful with the candidates. They get away with it because of their fame. * Bad scheduling of phone interviews * No answers for long swaths of time * 1 liner rejection emails * Terrible matching of skills vs jobs (e.g. offering entry level SRE to experienced people) * Cookie-cutter interviews Now, what makes me wonder is why are they making this system? What's in it for Google? And good luck expecting them to keep it up for more than a couple of years.

iMerNibor 8y ago
> What's in it for Google? Data, presumably? Also expanding the capabilities of their GSuite to capture more customers into their ecosystem
- cm2187 8y ago
  I think that’s it: it seems everyone (at least Google and Microsoft) is going after SAP and salesforce to become the infrastructure of businesses.
- cobookman 8y ago
  Enterprise offerings have strict data usage guidelines. Aka Google can't use the data. https://gsuite.google.com/learn-more/security/security-whitepaper/page-6.html https://gsuite.google.com/learn-more/security/security-white...
Kudos 8y ago
They're probably pretty good at the logistics of hiring, which this product seems to be focused on. The performance of individual Google recruiters shouldn't impact it.
- Aeolun 8y ago
  Just their hiring practices. One line rejections are not a ‘single recruiter’ thing.
- alecco 8y ago
  But their experience is quite unusual. They have many people keen to join them so they can do stupid things and not notice it. Most other companies don't have this magnet to favor them. Have you tried hiring in tech recently? Good candidates disappear after a week. You have to move fast. And even if you are good many candidates slip through your fingers. I doubt Google's Hire service would help me much on that. * You need someone at least slightly technical to screen CVs. * Then screen round 2 with truly technical people, ideally from target teams. * Then figuring out if any of the job openings is a match for the candidate (from language to expected job position) * Then a very personal call with them * Then a single planned-ahead phone interview with goals (e.g. is the candidate really competent with X) * Then interview on-site in a single afternoon/morning (take them to lunch!) * Offer should be in a short time, ideally the day of the on-site interviews. Or you can do what most people do and just offer 30% above market, cross your fingers, and see what sticks.
  - detaro 8y ago
    If "most people" offer 30% above market, isn't that the new market rate?
    - alecco 8y ago
      It's not a simple thing. For 30% I wouldn't switch my job to a random company whose first impression is hiring incompetence.
      - user5994461 8y ago
        You should switch. Worst case scenario you get back to your current company in a few months with a 30% pay rise.
  - barry-cotter 8y ago
    Or you could hire people no one else is hiring because they don't look like good candidates even though they are. You could build a system to do that. https://sockpuppet.org/blog/2015/03/06/the-hiring-post/ https://sockpuppet.org/blog/2015/03/06/the-hiring-post/ > Build work-sample tests. Instead of asking questions about the kind of work you do, have candidates actually do the work. Careful. I am not saying candidates should spend a 2-week trial period as a 1099 contractor. That’s a terrible plan: the best candidates won’t do it. But more importantly: it doesn’t work. Unlike a trial period, work sample tests have all three of these characteristics: they mirror as closely as possible the actual work a candidate will be called on to perform in their job, they’re standardized, so that every candidate faces the same test, they generates data and a grade, not a simple pass/fail result.
eveningcoffee 8y ago
> What's in it for Google? Control and data? Perhaps they have something dystopian in mind? Edit: It is also another reason to hide from Google.
- andybak 8y ago
  > Perhaps they have something dystopian in mind? Oh come on. We've all conceded the days of "Don't be evil" are long gone but Google's type of evil hasn't quite shifted to that of cackling supervillain. It's an evil bred from arrogance, naivety and self-interest - not from an active intent to corrupt society.
  - go_away_nsa 8y ago
    They are working on censoring search results for the Chinese government. Worse, they are opening a AI research center in China as well. All of that research will be in the hands of the Chinese government and weaponized to control their own population and against foreign countries. Meanwhile, Google backed out of a contract with the US military after moral outrage by their employees.
  - zAy0LfpBZLC8mAC 8y ago
    In other words: It's the same kind of evil as all real evil, not the kind of evil that is purely fictional. Your point being?
    - andybak 8y ago
      I think you're making the same point as me in that case. It was morningcoffee that had James Bond supervillains in mind.
      - zAy0LfpBZLC8mAC 8y ago
        IC--I read them more as "something that is dystopian" rather than "something that is intended to be dystopian".
  - 8y ago
antpls 8y ago
Two long-term aspects, in my point of view : - social AI and automation challenge : recruitment is a process where humans are important and cannot be replaced for now, because of the soft and reassuring aspect of human interactions. The call centers and this will provide nice playfields to make AI more "humans". - data : what could you do if you had access to all the contents of the job offers in the market, the people motivations, and the timeline of all interactions? That's something they may already have access to by buying data from providers, but with that they go to the source. Given the quantity of actors in the online recruitment service field, it is not surprising to watch Google enter the arena.
- himynameistimli 8y ago
  I'm not so certain it's for the data. If it were, then I would assume that the pricing would be much more competitive.
zavi 8y ago
> What's in it for Google? It's part of GSuite so $$$. You have to pay for GSuite.
register 8y ago
I didn't experience most of the points above but I completely agree on the very bad match of skills vs job: that happened to me just a couple of months ago.
mattlondon 8y ago
> What's in it for Google? It is a commercial offering: https://hire.google.com/pricing/ https://hire.google.com/pricing/ This is the software for the logistics of hiring, not "hiring as a service", so I dont think that the things you point out have much to with this unless other companies that purchase this software are guilty of the same things.
TulliusCicero 8y ago
Those issues are due to policies, not software. For example, Google has "cookie cutter interviews" because they intentionally hire most devs as generalists. But another company doesn't have to do the same thing, even if they're using the same tech.
MrMorden 8y ago
I'd describe Google's interaction with applicants as more average than dismal. Ghosting is far more common than you'd think (hence the recent stories about employees ghosting back twice as hard), and if you want utterly clueless ask a coworker who's done classified work about how incompetent Beltway-bandit recruiters and HR departments are.

by alecco 8y ago

iMerNibor 8y ago

> What's in it for Google? Data, presumably? Also expanding the capabilities of their GSuite to capture more customers into their ecosystem

cm2187 8y ago
I think that’s it: it seems everyone (at least Google and Microsoft) is going after SAP and salesforce to become the infrastructure of businesses.
cobookman 8y ago
Enterprise offerings have strict data usage guidelines. Aka Google can't use the data. https://gsuite.google.com/learn-more/security/security-whitepaper/page-6.html https://gsuite.google.com/learn-more/security/security-white...

Kudos 8y ago

They're probably pretty good at the logistics of hiring, which this product seems to be focused on. The performance of individual Google recruiters shouldn't impact it.

Aeolun 8y ago
Just their hiring practices. One line rejections are not a ‘single recruiter’ thing.
alecco 8y ago
But their experience is quite unusual. They have many people keen to join them so they can do stupid things and not notice it. Most other companies don't have this magnet to favor them. Have you tried hiring in tech recently? Good candidates disappear after a week. You have to move fast. And even if you are good many candidates slip through your fingers. I doubt Google's Hire service would help me much on that. * You need someone at least slightly technical to screen CVs. * Then screen round 2 with truly technical people, ideally from target teams. * Then figuring out if any of the job openings is a match for the candidate (from language to expected job position) * Then a very personal call with them * Then a single planned-ahead phone interview with goals (e.g. is the candidate really competent with X) * Then interview on-site in a single afternoon/morning (take them to lunch!) * Offer should be in a short time, ideally the day of the on-site interviews. Or you can do what most people do and just offer 30% above market, cross your fingers, and see what sticks.
- detaro 8y ago
  If "most people" offer 30% above market, isn't that the new market rate?
  - alecco 8y ago
    It's not a simple thing. For 30% I wouldn't switch my job to a random company whose first impression is hiring incompetence.
    - user5994461 8y ago
      You should switch. Worst case scenario you get back to your current company in a few months with a 30% pay rise.
- barry-cotter 8y ago
  Or you could hire people no one else is hiring because they don't look like good candidates even though they are. You could build a system to do that. https://sockpuppet.org/blog/2015/03/06/the-hiring-post/ https://sockpuppet.org/blog/2015/03/06/the-hiring-post/ > Build work-sample tests. Instead of asking questions about the kind of work you do, have candidates actually do the work. Careful. I am not saying candidates should spend a 2-week trial period as a 1099 contractor. That’s a terrible plan: the best candidates won’t do it. But more importantly: it doesn’t work. Unlike a trial period, work sample tests have all three of these characteristics: they mirror as closely as possible the actual work a candidate will be called on to perform in their job, they’re standardized, so that every candidate faces the same test, they generates data and a grade, not a simple pass/fail result.

eveningcoffee 8y ago

> What's in it for Google? Control and data? Perhaps they have something dystopian in mind? Edit: It is also another reason to hide from Google.

andybak 8y ago
> Perhaps they have something dystopian in mind? Oh come on. We've all conceded the days of "Don't be evil" are long gone but Google's type of evil hasn't quite shifted to that of cackling supervillain. It's an evil bred from arrogance, naivety and self-interest - not from an active intent to corrupt society.
- go_away_nsa 8y ago
  They are working on censoring search results for the Chinese government. Worse, they are opening a AI research center in China as well. All of that research will be in the hands of the Chinese government and weaponized to control their own population and against foreign countries. Meanwhile, Google backed out of a contract with the US military after moral outrage by their employees.
- zAy0LfpBZLC8mAC 8y ago
  In other words: It's the same kind of evil as all real evil, not the kind of evil that is purely fictional. Your point being?
  - andybak 8y ago
    I think you're making the same point as me in that case. It was morningcoffee that had James Bond supervillains in mind.
    - zAy0LfpBZLC8mAC 8y ago
      IC--I read them more as "something that is dystopian" rather than "something that is intended to be dystopian".
- 8y ago

antpls 8y ago

Two long-term aspects, in my point of view : - social AI and automation challenge : recruitment is a process where humans are important and cannot be replaced for now, because of the soft and reassuring aspect of human interactions. The call centers and this will provide nice playfields to make AI more "humans". - data : what could you do if you had access to all the contents of the job offers in the market, the people motivations, and the timeline of all interactions? That's something they may already have access to by buying data from providers, but with that they go to the source. Given the quantity of actors in the online recruitment service field, it is not surprising to watch Google enter the arena.

himynameistimli 8y ago
I'm not so certain it's for the data. If it were, then I would assume that the pricing would be much more competitive.

zavi 8y ago

> What's in it for Google? It's part of GSuite so $$$. You have to pay for GSuite.

I didn't experience most of the points above but I completely agree on the very bad match of skills vs job: that happened to me just a couple of months ago.

mattlondon 8y ago

> What's in it for Google? It is a commercial offering: https://hire.google.com/pricing/ https://hire.google.com/pricing/ This is the software for the logistics of hiring, not "hiring as a service", so I dont think that the things you point out have much to with this unless other companies that purchase this software are guilty of the same things.

TulliusCicero 8y ago

Those issues are due to policies, not software. For example, Google has "cookie cutter interviews" because they intentionally hire most devs as generalists. But another company doesn't have to do the same thing, even if they're using the same tech.

MrMorden 8y ago

I'd describe Google's interaction with applicants as more average than dismal. Ghosting is far more common than you'd think (hence the recent stories about employees ghosting back twice as hard), and if you want utterly clueless ask a coworker who's done classified work about how incompetent Beltway-bandit recruiters and HR departments are.