Of course I'm not disputing that. Google absolutely targets new graduates, very aggressively. We also target experienced engineers, very aggressively. As @mark_

Of course I'm not disputing that. Google absolutely targets new graduates, very aggressively. We also target experienced engineers, very aggressively. As @mark_l_watson said in another comment: "Google is hungry for good people, and they are casting a wide net". Experienced employees are, in fact, valued far more than new grads, since they've proven themselves in industry, and because of that google gives employees substantial referral bonuses for bringing in good people. As for cold recruitment pitches, they typically come from recruiters on linkedin. And its very easy to tell roughly how old I am from my linkedin profile. But you make a fair point about recruitment pitches not being the same as job offers. You say you work in IT - am I guessing correctly when I say you don't work in the Bay Area or Seattle? Because it really is a crazy job market right now, and its probably hard to believe how much so if you don't experience it yourself. Its hugely different from how things were in 2008, when I got laid off by Adobe and had to take a less than ideal job to pay the bills. Today I am very confident that I could get a new job by making a few phone calls, but I choose to stay at google because I'm working on a great product with a great team, at a company that spoils me to a point I actually find embarrassing.