6 ms·

I like the google approach for more senior roles - you interview for 2+ months, get approved, and only then do you actually start to look for an actual role at

I like the google approach for more senior roles - you interview for 2+ months, get approved, and only then do you actually start to look for an actual role at the company. They invert the job/approval process.

Someone1234 5y ago
I like the concept, but the amount of uncompensated time candidates have to give to the company is excessive and a lot of non-Google companies couldn't get away with it.
- sam0x17 5y ago
  Yes, I had the smug joy of getting to tell my Google recruiter to f off back in 2014 because of a number of red flags in their interviewing process, very early in my career. I don't regret it at all, and actually my decision to simply take a short-term research internship at a DoE lab instead (and surprisingly) opened a number of doors in the startup world for me that I wouldn't have even known exist otherwise. In my case one major red flag was "having to fly somewhere before I have an official offer", and I can only imagine the new zoomer crowd leans much more in that direction. FANG doesn't respect your time or effort at all, they think you should be honored just to be in their presence. That shit doesn't fly anymore.
  - mgkimsal 5y ago
    Had somewhat similar experience... 2014/2015 maybe. Unsolicited call out to me, asking me to interview. I had a couple of questions - one of which included salary range. I was being expected to go take days off and fly to them, but they wouldn't give me even a basic range. Nothing. I declined to go further. I told someone who then said "well... that's not the way you get a job!" And I said "but... I didn't want a job. They called me. They wanted a worker, but wouldn't do me the courtesy of basic information before I was to drop whatever I was doing and come running to them on their timetable".
  - VRay 5y ago
    Getting a free all-expenses-paid weekend in Mountain View is a perk to a lot of people If I weren't busy with the familoids at home I'd love a free plane trip and fancy hotel stay. Er, in non-pandemic times at least
    - KerryJones 5y ago
      I think the point is that many people _are_ busy with familoids. I took them up on this offer early in my career when I had less "adult" responsibilities, but as those tend to increase it makes this increasingly hard to deal with.
    - hn_user82179 5y ago
      It can be nice but at the end of the day can be a massive inconvenience to people with dependents. Single parents, unless they have a good support network, might find it especially difficult.
    - sam0x17 5y ago
      > If I weren't busy with the familoids at home That + never ending pandemic + etc But also, it's really shitty to fly somewhere only to get rejected. Been there, done that.
  - pb7 5y ago
    On-site interviews are done by most companies. They require you to fly if you don't live in the area. This isn't a red flag for most people.
    - sam0x17 5y ago
      It's unheard of in the startup world. I don't even know anyone outside of the startup world anymore so I can't speak to whatever FANG and the remaining crumbling enterprise companies are still doing at this late hour.
econnors 5y ago
It's like this for all levels of SWE as well based on my experience
secondcoming 5y ago
Wait, what? You get 'approved' to look for an actual job?
- rahimnathwani 5y ago
  The hiring committee approves your 'packet' and agrees you should be hired for a particular job family and level within that family. Then the recruiter will help connect you with teams that have open head count. If there's a mutual fit, the company will make a formal offer.
  - secondcoming 5y ago
    So, in the initial interview rounds you're not interviewed by the teams with open head count? Seems inefficient to me. How long does it normally take to find a team with a 'mutual fit'?
    - lumost 5y ago
      This is about maintaining quality. At a large company it’s easy for one manager to lower the bar, or have the bar fall out of entropy. Several companies fight this with a standard interviewing pipeline, of course most candidates will be displeased if they spend 1 month interviewing and then get dropped into a random team.
    - pkrotich 5y ago
      I think they do so to avoid culture split - giving individual team hiring decision from the get go can create culture bias, people would only give opportunity to people they "like" or that match the current culture, leading to inbreeding of sort. Just look at what was happening at Cisco with caste based hiring.
    - rahimnathwani 5y ago
      The time can vary. In my case (for a product manager role) it took a few weeks. But I was in China so there were only a couple of options. You're not interviewed by teams with open headcount. I never met my interviewers again.
deleted 5y ago
[deleted]
htrp 5y ago
> They invert the job/approval process. Do any of the other FAANGs (MAGMAs??) do the same now?
- sweettea 5y ago
  Meta usually doesn't even bother finding you a team before hiring you, at least at L5 (senior) level... they hire based on a standardized interview process, you start with a 6 week bootcamp to get familiar with their systems, and then you have two weeks to find a team. There are a few cases where you're hired for a specific team and skip the 2 week team-matching period, but this is the general pattern.
  - MattGaiser 5y ago
    So wait, you basically start on a 8 week contract? Is that how that works?
    - somerando7 5y ago
      No, you start with a fulltime offer, it's just called "bootcamp". It's our way of doing all the HR stuff (paperwork, medical, legal, etc) + you taking some courses on areas you're interested in specific to fb + you exploring teams and finding one that you will work at.
      - MattGaiser 5y ago
        And if you don't get a match in those two weeks?
        fatnoah 5y ago
        It's not a strict two weeks, and the process is much more about being pursued than finding a team. For example, a typical bootcamper in NYC will hear from 40+ teams.
        5y ago
whimsicalism 5y ago
The length of Google's hiring process is absolutely screwing them in this market. Seems like they don't really feel like competing for hot candidates anymore.
- roland35 5y ago
  Google told me recently that their process typically takes 6-8 weeks! They are absolutely losing candidates but they must have enough applicants to still be ok.
  - whimsicalism 5y ago
    I think it matches that Google salaries are trending relatively downwards compared to the competition. They only want people who are Google obsessed.
kelnos 5y ago
That sounds awful. By the time you've accepted the offer and started at Google, you have very little leverage to ensure you end up on a team/project that you like. I would never accept an offer without knowing what I'd be working on.
- biztos 5y ago
  It gives awesome cover to slackers though. "Yeah I don't think I was put on an appropriate team..."
darth_avocado 5y ago
I can vouch this is a terrible process. Unless you interview ONLY at Google, you almost always won't work there. When you are actively looking, you usually want all your interviews to be close to each other (within weeks) to evaluate offers and make the best decision. It's extremely unhelpful if one company is still in the "screening" phase because they take months to progress, while others are already extending offers. The options then are that you wait and risk letting go of other offers, let go of Google, or join a new company and leave within months. All of these options look terrible to me.
- romanhn 5y ago
  The other option is that you strategically queue up those Google interviews well in advance of all others. I did that and they still managed to keep dragging their feet when I wrapped up the rest. Oh well.

Someone1234 5y ago

I like the concept, but the amount of uncompensated time candidates have to give to the company is excessive and a lot of non-Google companies couldn't get away with it.

sam0x17 5y ago
Yes, I had the smug joy of getting to tell my Google recruiter to f off back in 2014 because of a number of red flags in their interviewing process, very early in my career. I don't regret it at all, and actually my decision to simply take a short-term research internship at a DoE lab instead (and surprisingly) opened a number of doors in the startup world for me that I wouldn't have even known exist otherwise. In my case one major red flag was "having to fly somewhere before I have an official offer", and I can only imagine the new zoomer crowd leans much more in that direction. FANG doesn't respect your time or effort at all, they think you should be honored just to be in their presence. That shit doesn't fly anymore.
- mgkimsal 5y ago
  Had somewhat similar experience... 2014/2015 maybe. Unsolicited call out to me, asking me to interview. I had a couple of questions - one of which included salary range. I was being expected to go take days off and fly to them, but they wouldn't give me even a basic range. Nothing. I declined to go further. I told someone who then said "well... that's not the way you get a job!" And I said "but... I didn't want a job. They called me. They wanted a worker, but wouldn't do me the courtesy of basic information before I was to drop whatever I was doing and come running to them on their timetable".
- VRay 5y ago
  Getting a free all-expenses-paid weekend in Mountain View is a perk to a lot of people If I weren't busy with the familoids at home I'd love a free plane trip and fancy hotel stay. Er, in non-pandemic times at least
  - KerryJones 5y ago
    I think the point is that many people _are_ busy with familoids. I took them up on this offer early in my career when I had less "adult" responsibilities, but as those tend to increase it makes this increasingly hard to deal with.
  - hn_user82179 5y ago
    It can be nice but at the end of the day can be a massive inconvenience to people with dependents. Single parents, unless they have a good support network, might find it especially difficult.
  - sam0x17 5y ago
    > If I weren't busy with the familoids at home That + never ending pandemic + etc But also, it's really shitty to fly somewhere only to get rejected. Been there, done that.
- pb7 5y ago
  On-site interviews are done by most companies. They require you to fly if you don't live in the area. This isn't a red flag for most people.
  - sam0x17 5y ago
    It's unheard of in the startup world. I don't even know anyone outside of the startup world anymore so I can't speak to whatever FANG and the remaining crumbling enterprise companies are still doing at this late hour.

econnors 5y ago

It's like this for all levels of SWE as well based on my experience

secondcoming 5y ago

Wait, what? You get 'approved' to look for an actual job?

rahimnathwani 5y ago
The hiring committee approves your 'packet' and agrees you should be hired for a particular job family and level within that family. Then the recruiter will help connect you with teams that have open head count. If there's a mutual fit, the company will make a formal offer.
- secondcoming 5y ago
  So, in the initial interview rounds you're not interviewed by the teams with open head count? Seems inefficient to me. How long does it normally take to find a team with a 'mutual fit'?
  - lumost 5y ago
    This is about maintaining quality. At a large company it’s easy for one manager to lower the bar, or have the bar fall out of entropy. Several companies fight this with a standard interviewing pipeline, of course most candidates will be displeased if they spend 1 month interviewing and then get dropped into a random team.
  - pkrotich 5y ago
    I think they do so to avoid culture split - giving individual team hiring decision from the get go can create culture bias, people would only give opportunity to people they "like" or that match the current culture, leading to inbreeding of sort. Just look at what was happening at Cisco with caste based hiring.
  - rahimnathwani 5y ago
    The time can vary. In my case (for a product manager role) it took a few weeks. But I was in China so there were only a couple of options. You're not interviewed by teams with open headcount. I never met my interviewers again.

deleted 5y ago

[deleted]

htrp 5y ago

> They invert the job/approval process. Do any of the other FAANGs (MAGMAs??) do the same now?

sweettea 5y ago
Meta usually doesn't even bother finding you a team before hiring you, at least at L5 (senior) level... they hire based on a standardized interview process, you start with a 6 week bootcamp to get familiar with their systems, and then you have two weeks to find a team. There are a few cases where you're hired for a specific team and skip the 2 week team-matching period, but this is the general pattern.
- MattGaiser 5y ago
  So wait, you basically start on a 8 week contract? Is that how that works?
  - somerando7 5y ago
    No, you start with a fulltime offer, it's just called "bootcamp". It's our way of doing all the HR stuff (paperwork, medical, legal, etc) + you taking some courses on areas you're interested in specific to fb + you exploring teams and finding one that you will work at.
    - MattGaiser 5y ago
      And if you don't get a match in those two weeks?
      - fatnoah 5y ago
        It's not a strict two weeks, and the process is much more about being pursued than finding a team. For example, a typical bootcamper in NYC will hear from 40+ teams.
        5y ago

whimsicalism 5y ago

The length of Google's hiring process is absolutely screwing them in this market. Seems like they don't really feel like competing for hot candidates anymore.

roland35 5y ago
Google told me recently that their process typically takes 6-8 weeks! They are absolutely losing candidates but they must have enough applicants to still be ok.
- whimsicalism 5y ago
  I think it matches that Google salaries are trending relatively downwards compared to the competition. They only want people who are Google obsessed.

kelnos 5y ago

That sounds awful. By the time you've accepted the offer and started at Google, you have very little leverage to ensure you end up on a team/project that you like. I would never accept an offer without knowing what I'd be working on.

biztos 5y ago
It gives awesome cover to slackers though. "Yeah I don't think I was put on an appropriate team..."

darth_avocado 5y ago

I can vouch this is a terrible process. Unless you interview ONLY at Google, you almost always won't work there. When you are actively looking, you usually want all your interviews to be close to each other (within weeks) to evaluate offers and make the best decision. It's extremely unhelpful if one company is still in the "screening" phase because they take months to progress, while others are already extending offers. The options then are that you wait and risk letting go of other offers, let go of Google, or join a new company and leave within months. All of these options look terrible to me.

romanhn 5y ago
The other option is that you strategically queue up those Google interviews well in advance of all others. I did that and they still managed to keep dragging their feet when I wrapped up the rest. Oh well.