4 ms·

All of these recruitment horror stories are starting to scare me about Google, but I wonder how much of it is selection bias. Anyone who has a good experience a

All of these recruitment horror stories are starting to scare me about Google, but I wonder how much of it is selection bias. Anyone who has a good experience almost definitionally gets sucked into the G-Vortex and basically never gets heard from again, right? I have a friend who just accepted a position at Google, and she said the process was long and arduous, but it wasn't a horror story.

yid 15y ago
From my point of view, they or someone inside clearly thought I was "good", and I obviously passed the minimum clearance test from HR. Since I didn't even get a single technical interview, they could not have developed their opinion on my abilities further. I can therefore be possibly valuable to the company in the future, but as a result of this idiocy, am completely put off by them, especially since I've got offers from the other biggies. A better approach would be to vet me thoroughly before contacting me. In other words, only contact me if you're sure that you can at least put me through a single interview.
Travis 15y ago
A long and arduous process with a job at the end makes it a long fought battle that you were victorious in. Getting a rejection after that (and all the psychological baggage that comes with a company "rejecting you") makes it a bitter loss. Same process (just as broken), but the outcome is hugely influential. I think you're spot on, tho -- the squeaky wheel is the one that complains to internet forums.
noctorne 15y ago
Well, I know Googlers pretty well. Even internally, they say their hiring process really sucks. Not one person told me this, 80% of the people I talked to told me the same thing. I personally wont blame the interviewers or the recruiters, they are doing their job. I blame their messed up Hiring Committee. I don't understand why the hiring committee can't collaborate with the interviewers and hiring manager to hire a person. Everything is done through writing, and the hiring committee does everything quietly on their own. I even wonder, is the hiring committee a computer?
- jacques_chester 15y ago
  > I even wonder, is the hiring committee a computer? That information is well above your classification level, citizen. Are you a communist?
- nostrademons 15y ago
  That's done to eliminate bias. Remember how a couple days ago, there was a story on HN about how interviewing really sucks, because ultimately, what determines whether you get the job or not whether you happen to have a personal rapport with your interviewer? People end up caring more about how you present yourself socially than what you know. The hiring committee is Google's answer to that. The idea is to completely divorce the hiring decision from people who have personally known the candidate. Instead, there's a very broad written information channel between interviewers, references, recruiters, and the hiring committee. But it remains written, so that all your unconscious biases about people stay out of the decision, and at least in theory, it's all based on hard data.
  - gergles 15y ago
    But this an overly-academic approach to the problem. Your interviewers will still write in whatever they write, as colored by their perceptions and rapport with you. If they write that you had a bad interview, then that's going to poison the HC. There's no way around this. The HC appears to serve only as a layer of noise/a random selection filter to determine who is actually offered a job.
    - nostrademons 15y ago
      It forces you to back up your opinions with data, though. As long as the decision is made by humans, you will never get a completely unbiased result, because humans have biases. It's the same in every field - people pretend science is objective because it relies on data, but if you read Kuhn, you'll see that a lot of science is personality cults and subjective opinions and schools of thought. People pretend Google's search algorithms are objective because they rely strictly on numbers and data, but they're written by humans, and humans choose which data is important. But that doesn't make the data useless. The act of being forced to support your opinions with data makes you dig much deeper into them, and surfaces relevant information that'd otherwise be ignored immediately because it doesn't fit your preconceptions. Think about science vs. polemics. If you're actually doing original research in a scientific field, you'll realize that there's a lot of uncertainty hidden behind "the scientific consensus", and a lot of other ways of interpreting that same data. But that doesn't mean that the scientific consensus is wrong. It may be wrong, but it's probably less wrong than whatever vitriol Ann Coulter or Glenn Beck or Michael Moore is spouting at the moment.
prospero 15y ago
I was hired by Google, but shortly after getting my offer my recruiter, who was in charge of getting me placed with a team, disappeared. Presumably he was fired or quit, but no one ever gave me a reason; he simply stopped responding to my emails, and then a week later his voicemail wouldn't let me leave a message. At that point, I contacted his boss, who thanked me for "letting her know". A few days later I got a call from my new recruiter, who was going on vacation the following day for two weeks. I didn't end up getting placed with a team until about three weeks later. It's not exactly a horror story, but it wasn't a great first impression either. Other engineers I talked to had similar stories.
akanet 15y ago
My first day at Google was yesterday. The interview process was a typical full day affair with questions ranging from algorithms to large scale systems design. I had a blast, and definitely stumbled on some questions, but I found it infinitely enjoyable. HR was responsive and helped me find an Android plushie for my girlfriend. To be fair, I definitely believe all of these horror stories are true and deserved. I think that Google just operates at such a ridiculous scale that it's hard to get everything working together just right. I believe "the system works" in the majority case, but that outliers are particularly bad.
- erikb85 15y ago
  Shows that you really got Statistics. With so many people who go through the hiring process of Google every day, there just must be a good number of very bad and strange experiences, resulting from even a small and very unlikely set of coincidences. We for sure don't know enough about the data to confidently say Googles hiring process is good or bad.
munificent 15y ago
I'm a Googler. I found the hiring process exhausting, but I felt it was thorough and fair. My recruiter did a fantastic job of walking me through the process and letting me know what was going on. I'm sure Google has made lots of mistakes hiring people, but there's always a bias towards complaint. Most people don't have the energy to type up a "everything went fine" reply.
- lupino3 15y ago
  I second that. I'm a future Google SwEng intern, my recruiter was always kind and helpful, even in tasks that wouldn't strictly be her duty, and the whole process (4 phone interviews x 45 min. each) was a bit lenghty (2-3 months) but fair, challenging and enjoyable. Interviewers have also always been kind and helpful.
nigelk 15y ago
My hiring process at Google was reasonably long and rigorous, but it certainly wasn't a horror story. I left about six months ago, and while there were things I didn't like about the hiring and interview process, it was still significantly better than any other place I've worked.
- kelnos 15y ago
  Really? I went through the Google interview process back in 2006, and I had a fantastic time. The level of transparency was a little frustrating, but everyone I was in contact with was polite and responsive, and I never found myself waiting for replies. The on-site interviewers were really fun to talk to, and I left with a great impression. But I wouldn't call the process significantly better than anywhere else. I've had plenty of other interviews on par with that, some better, some worse.
  - nigelk 15y ago
    Sorry, I wasn't particularly clear there. From the viewpoint of interviewer and hirer rather than interviewee, I thought the process was better than anywhere else I've worked. I liked the expected level of rigor, I liked the decisions being made by a separate committee, and I liked the salary package being set by yet another group. The main problems I saw were: * recruiters dropping the contact chain with the candidate * interviewers not preparing enough * not enough of a feedback cycle to interviewers about their performance.

yid 15y ago

From my point of view, they or someone inside clearly thought I was "good", and I obviously passed the minimum clearance test from HR. Since I didn't even get a single technical interview, they could not have developed their opinion on my abilities further. I can therefore be possibly valuable to the company in the future, but as a result of this idiocy, am completely put off by them, especially since I've got offers from the other biggies. A better approach would be to vet me thoroughly before contacting me. In other words, only contact me if you're sure that you can at least put me through a single interview.

Travis 15y ago

A long and arduous process with a job at the end makes it a long fought battle that you were victorious in. Getting a rejection after that (and all the psychological baggage that comes with a company "rejecting you") makes it a bitter loss. Same process (just as broken), but the outcome is hugely influential. I think you're spot on, tho -- the squeaky wheel is the one that complains to internet forums.

noctorne 15y ago

Well, I know Googlers pretty well. Even internally, they say their hiring process really sucks. Not one person told me this, 80% of the people I talked to told me the same thing. I personally wont blame the interviewers or the recruiters, they are doing their job. I blame their messed up Hiring Committee. I don't understand why the hiring committee can't collaborate with the interviewers and hiring manager to hire a person. Everything is done through writing, and the hiring committee does everything quietly on their own. I even wonder, is the hiring committee a computer?

jacques_chester 15y ago
> I even wonder, is the hiring committee a computer? That information is well above your classification level, citizen. Are you a communist?
nostrademons 15y ago
That's done to eliminate bias. Remember how a couple days ago, there was a story on HN about how interviewing really sucks, because ultimately, what determines whether you get the job or not whether you happen to have a personal rapport with your interviewer? People end up caring more about how you present yourself socially than what you know. The hiring committee is Google's answer to that. The idea is to completely divorce the hiring decision from people who have personally known the candidate. Instead, there's a very broad written information channel between interviewers, references, recruiters, and the hiring committee. But it remains written, so that all your unconscious biases about people stay out of the decision, and at least in theory, it's all based on hard data.
- gergles 15y ago
  But this an overly-academic approach to the problem. Your interviewers will still write in whatever they write, as colored by their perceptions and rapport with you. If they write that you had a bad interview, then that's going to poison the HC. There's no way around this. The HC appears to serve only as a layer of noise/a random selection filter to determine who is actually offered a job.
  - nostrademons 15y ago
    It forces you to back up your opinions with data, though. As long as the decision is made by humans, you will never get a completely unbiased result, because humans have biases. It's the same in every field - people pretend science is objective because it relies on data, but if you read Kuhn, you'll see that a lot of science is personality cults and subjective opinions and schools of thought. People pretend Google's search algorithms are objective because they rely strictly on numbers and data, but they're written by humans, and humans choose which data is important. But that doesn't make the data useless. The act of being forced to support your opinions with data makes you dig much deeper into them, and surfaces relevant information that'd otherwise be ignored immediately because it doesn't fit your preconceptions. Think about science vs. polemics. If you're actually doing original research in a scientific field, you'll realize that there's a lot of uncertainty hidden behind "the scientific consensus", and a lot of other ways of interpreting that same data. But that doesn't mean that the scientific consensus is wrong. It may be wrong, but it's probably less wrong than whatever vitriol Ann Coulter or Glenn Beck or Michael Moore is spouting at the moment.

prospero 15y ago

I was hired by Google, but shortly after getting my offer my recruiter, who was in charge of getting me placed with a team, disappeared. Presumably he was fired or quit, but no one ever gave me a reason; he simply stopped responding to my emails, and then a week later his voicemail wouldn't let me leave a message. At that point, I contacted his boss, who thanked me for "letting her know". A few days later I got a call from my new recruiter, who was going on vacation the following day for two weeks. I didn't end up getting placed with a team until about three weeks later. It's not exactly a horror story, but it wasn't a great first impression either. Other engineers I talked to had similar stories.

akanet 15y ago

My first day at Google was yesterday. The interview process was a typical full day affair with questions ranging from algorithms to large scale systems design. I had a blast, and definitely stumbled on some questions, but I found it infinitely enjoyable. HR was responsive and helped me find an Android plushie for my girlfriend. To be fair, I definitely believe all of these horror stories are true and deserved. I think that Google just operates at such a ridiculous scale that it's hard to get everything working together just right. I believe "the system works" in the majority case, but that outliers are particularly bad.

erikb85 15y ago
Shows that you really got Statistics. With so many people who go through the hiring process of Google every day, there just must be a good number of very bad and strange experiences, resulting from even a small and very unlikely set of coincidences. We for sure don't know enough about the data to confidently say Googles hiring process is good or bad.

munificent 15y ago

I'm a Googler. I found the hiring process exhausting, but I felt it was thorough and fair. My recruiter did a fantastic job of walking me through the process and letting me know what was going on. I'm sure Google has made lots of mistakes hiring people, but there's always a bias towards complaint. Most people don't have the energy to type up a "everything went fine" reply.

lupino3 15y ago
I second that. I'm a future Google SwEng intern, my recruiter was always kind and helpful, even in tasks that wouldn't strictly be her duty, and the whole process (4 phone interviews x 45 min. each) was a bit lenghty (2-3 months) but fair, challenging and enjoyable. Interviewers have also always been kind and helpful.

nigelk 15y ago

My hiring process at Google was reasonably long and rigorous, but it certainly wasn't a horror story. I left about six months ago, and while there were things I didn't like about the hiring and interview process, it was still significantly better than any other place I've worked.

kelnos 15y ago
Really? I went through the Google interview process back in 2006, and I had a fantastic time. The level of transparency was a little frustrating, but everyone I was in contact with was polite and responsive, and I never found myself waiting for replies. The on-site interviewers were really fun to talk to, and I left with a great impression. But I wouldn't call the process significantly better than anywhere else. I've had plenty of other interviews on par with that, some better, some worse.
- nigelk 15y ago
  Sorry, I wasn't particularly clear there. From the viewpoint of interviewer and hirer rather than interviewee, I thought the process was better than anywhere else I've worked. I liked the expected level of rigor, I liked the decisions being made by a separate committee, and I liked the salary package being set by yet another group. The main problems I saw were: * recruiters dropping the contact chain with the candidate * interviewers not preparing enough * not enough of a feedback cycle to interviewers about their performance.