16 ms·

What I'm wondering about is that they mention long hiring process as a reason for quitting the job. They finally made it to the end and they quit because of tha

by methyl 11y ago

What I'm wondering about is that they mention long hiring process as a reason for quitting the job. They finally made it to the end and they quit because of that?

learnstats2 11y ago
It shows disrespect for the employee's time. That might not cause you to quit immediately, but it might be an indicator for other problems and you might become more acutely aware of those when you start. Also, now you have "I passed the Google hiring process" on your CV.
- BrandonY 11y ago
  Would someone really put "once offered a job by Google, but declined" on their resume? Who am I kidding, of course SOMEONE would, but more than one or two people?
  - freyr 11y ago
    No, you work there for a short time and then you jump ship.
  - YokoZar 11y ago
    There are a fair amount of companies that, during their hiring process, will basically say "Oh, you have an offer from Google? Forward it to us, add 10% to the base, and we'll hire you without further interviewing."
- hinkley 11y ago
  I've had beers with a lot of people who had given two weeks at various employers, and in many cases where the person was a little disgruntled, their narrative went all the way back to the beginning of their employment. Which to me means that the way you treat them during the interview and their first weeks at work end up being part of the calculus of Stay or Go. I've really taken this to heart, and I'm profusely embarrassed if for instance their equipment is not there day 1 and I'm working order.
rifung 11y ago
I also found it a bit strange but I think it affects your overall impression of the company and how they treat their employees.
marincounty 11y ago
Personally, when an employer made me jump through hoops, asked too many personal questions, or just pissed me off during the hiring process; I happily accepted the job. I never forgot what they put me through though, and showed zero allegiance to the organization. I put on a smile, and kissed the right people, but in reality; I was a horrid employee. I don't think companies realize how certain employees hold grudges? That HR idiot who calls every phone number on the resume, and talks for too long should be fired.(I know they're suspose to keep it brief in most states, but as a past employer, they have kept me on the phone for too long. I have had HR dudes call me when they were out at dinner--drinking--heavily.. I had one lady ask me, "Does the girl do drugs? She seems like the type?" I was floored. The women in question had a slight speech impediment, but overqualified for the position. I would like to do away with resumes. I always felt a test would make the process fairer, and would do away with nepotism, padded resumes, and all the other BS we have had to put up with? (By the way--it is illegial for an employer to check your credit score in California.)
deleted 11y ago
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deleted 11y ago
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potatolicious 11y ago
I'm in that boat right now so maybe I can shed some light. Bad hiring practices represents a lot of organizational dysfunction, some of which impact your every day work, and since the hiring process is your first contact with the company it's often the first thing to come to mind. Bad hiring practices also cause you to be interviewing candidates. A lot. "Google-style" tech hiring is characterized by generally meaningless interviews with very, very low acceptance rates. This is not just frustrating for candidates who fail, but also the people who get to interview them. When I was at Amazon I was in this situation - a combination of poor hiring practices and organizational dysfunction meant that all of a sudden I was literally spending 5+ hours every single day interviewing people. It was brutal and demoralizing - doubly so when a candidate everyone liked is rejected for seemingly arbitrary/bureaucratic reasons. The sheer gauntlet of back-to-back interviews candidates are subject to also means that for every one candidate, many engineer-hours are spent interviewing them. The impact of diverting this much time towards interviewing candidates instead of actual work is easily felt.
- ridiculous_fish 11y ago
  5+ hours every day? That's astonishing! Were you interviewing for your own team, or for the company? Why did you put up with it? Were you the hiring manager? If not, surely you could have insisted on a reduced interview load?
  - potatolicious 11y ago
    I was only interviewing for open position on my own team, it was pretty insane - and I didn't end up putting up with it, it was the thing that finally convinced me to leave Amazon, though there were of course other reasons. To summarize the situation - we were a pretty scrappy team of 3 engineers that gradually took on more and more work as the scope of our work increased. There was an org-wide hiring freeze put in place because of the general doom-and-gloom right after 2008, so our demands to hire more people to cope with the increasing workload were repeatedly refused. Come ~2011, the company starts breathing again and finally lifts the hiring freeze, at which point 7 engineering positions suddenly opened on my team, and the 3 of us became nearly full-time interviewers. I was gone within a few months, my other coworker soon after, and the most senior engineer on the team transferred within the company. I'm not sure what the salient lesson is here - don't try to hire for 7 positions simultaneously with only 3 interviewers? Don't put a hiring freeze in place when there's obviously more work to be done? Something. There were also lots of problems with the recruitment and hiring process itself: - the quality of candidates we were getting from HR was very poor. Each of us wasted incredible amounts of time phone screening candidates who were wildly mismatched with the role, or straight up not qualified. Our phone screen fail rate was easily >90%, and this not only was disappointing for the candidates but also kills your interviewers' productivity and morale. - Amazon has the "bar raiser" system. The standard on-site interview at Amazon was a full-day (6-8 hours) of back-to-back interviews, including lunch. One of these interviewers is a designated "bar raiser", who is usually a more senior, particularly trusted (or just political) person. This person can veto even an entire room full of "yes" decisions - and this happened with some regularity. It is absolutely devastating for team morale when an arbitrarily appointed person - who usually isn't even on your own team - vetoes a candidate that everyone on the team liked. This naturally resulted in us interviewing even more people, and more frustrated because we knew even if the candidate passed with flying colors there's still a chance they'll be caught by the bar-raiser's decimation and arbitrarily be rejected. That last part is the situation I'm in at my current place - I'm at a smaller company where one of the original high-level engineers insists on interviewing everyone. He's also a fan of gotcha brain teaser problems - so even well-qualified candidates who interview well with the rest of the team will get into a room with him and he'll veto the candidate when they fail his teaser-of-the-day.
obastani 11y ago
From reading the posts in the article, it seems like the long hiring process raised expectations: people were willing to put up with it because they thought working at Google would be great, and were all the more disappointed when they found out they didn't like it there.

by methyl 11y ago

What I'm wondering about is that they mention long hiring process as a reason for quitting the job. They finally made it to the end and they quit because of that?

learnstats2 11y ago

It shows disrespect for the employee's time. That might not cause you to quit immediately, but it might be an indicator for other problems and you might become more acutely aware of those when you start. Also, now you have "I passed the Google hiring process" on your CV.

BrandonY 11y ago
Would someone really put "once offered a job by Google, but declined" on their resume? Who am I kidding, of course SOMEONE would, but more than one or two people?
- freyr 11y ago
  No, you work there for a short time and then you jump ship.
- YokoZar 11y ago
  There are a fair amount of companies that, during their hiring process, will basically say "Oh, you have an offer from Google? Forward it to us, add 10% to the base, and we'll hire you without further interviewing."
hinkley 11y ago
I've had beers with a lot of people who had given two weeks at various employers, and in many cases where the person was a little disgruntled, their narrative went all the way back to the beginning of their employment. Which to me means that the way you treat them during the interview and their first weeks at work end up being part of the calculus of Stay or Go. I've really taken this to heart, and I'm profusely embarrassed if for instance their equipment is not there day 1 and I'm working order.

rifung 11y ago

I also found it a bit strange but I think it affects your overall impression of the company and how they treat their employees.

marincounty 11y ago

Personally, when an employer made me jump through hoops, asked too many personal questions, or just pissed me off during the hiring process; I happily accepted the job. I never forgot what they put me through though, and showed zero allegiance to the organization. I put on a smile, and kissed the right people, but in reality; I was a horrid employee. I don't think companies realize how certain employees hold grudges? That HR idiot who calls every phone number on the resume, and talks for too long should be fired.(I know they're suspose to keep it brief in most states, but as a past employer, they have kept me on the phone for too long. I have had HR dudes call me when they were out at dinner--drinking--heavily.. I had one lady ask me, "Does the girl do drugs? She seems like the type?" I was floored. The women in question had a slight speech impediment, but overqualified for the position. I would like to do away with resumes. I always felt a test would make the process fairer, and would do away with nepotism, padded resumes, and all the other BS we have had to put up with? (By the way--it is illegial for an employer to check your credit score in California.)

deleted 11y ago

[deleted]

deleted 11y ago

[deleted]

potatolicious 11y ago

I'm in that boat right now so maybe I can shed some light. Bad hiring practices represents a lot of organizational dysfunction, some of which impact your every day work, and since the hiring process is your first contact with the company it's often the first thing to come to mind. Bad hiring practices also cause you to be interviewing candidates. A lot. "Google-style" tech hiring is characterized by generally meaningless interviews with very, very low acceptance rates. This is not just frustrating for candidates who fail, but also the people who get to interview them. When I was at Amazon I was in this situation - a combination of poor hiring practices and organizational dysfunction meant that all of a sudden I was literally spending 5+ hours every single day interviewing people. It was brutal and demoralizing - doubly so when a candidate everyone liked is rejected for seemingly arbitrary/bureaucratic reasons. The sheer gauntlet of back-to-back interviews candidates are subject to also means that for every one candidate, many engineer-hours are spent interviewing them. The impact of diverting this much time towards interviewing candidates instead of actual work is easily felt.

ridiculous_fish 11y ago
5+ hours every day? That's astonishing! Were you interviewing for your own team, or for the company? Why did you put up with it? Were you the hiring manager? If not, surely you could have insisted on a reduced interview load?
- potatolicious 11y ago
  I was only interviewing for open position on my own team, it was pretty insane - and I didn't end up putting up with it, it was the thing that finally convinced me to leave Amazon, though there were of course other reasons. To summarize the situation - we were a pretty scrappy team of 3 engineers that gradually took on more and more work as the scope of our work increased. There was an org-wide hiring freeze put in place because of the general doom-and-gloom right after 2008, so our demands to hire more people to cope with the increasing workload were repeatedly refused. Come ~2011, the company starts breathing again and finally lifts the hiring freeze, at which point 7 engineering positions suddenly opened on my team, and the 3 of us became nearly full-time interviewers. I was gone within a few months, my other coworker soon after, and the most senior engineer on the team transferred within the company. I'm not sure what the salient lesson is here - don't try to hire for 7 positions simultaneously with only 3 interviewers? Don't put a hiring freeze in place when there's obviously more work to be done? Something. There were also lots of problems with the recruitment and hiring process itself: - the quality of candidates we were getting from HR was very poor. Each of us wasted incredible amounts of time phone screening candidates who were wildly mismatched with the role, or straight up not qualified. Our phone screen fail rate was easily >90%, and this not only was disappointing for the candidates but also kills your interviewers' productivity and morale. - Amazon has the "bar raiser" system. The standard on-site interview at Amazon was a full-day (6-8 hours) of back-to-back interviews, including lunch. One of these interviewers is a designated "bar raiser", who is usually a more senior, particularly trusted (or just political) person. This person can veto even an entire room full of "yes" decisions - and this happened with some regularity. It is absolutely devastating for team morale when an arbitrarily appointed person - who usually isn't even on your own team - vetoes a candidate that everyone on the team liked. This naturally resulted in us interviewing even more people, and more frustrated because we knew even if the candidate passed with flying colors there's still a chance they'll be caught by the bar-raiser's decimation and arbitrarily be rejected. That last part is the situation I'm in at my current place - I'm at a smaller company where one of the original high-level engineers insists on interviewing everyone. He's also a fan of gotcha brain teaser problems - so even well-qualified candidates who interview well with the rest of the team will get into a room with him and he'll veto the candidate when they fail his teaser-of-the-day.

obastani 11y ago

From reading the posts in the article, it seems like the long hiring process raised expectations: people were willing to put up with it because they thought working at Google would be great, and were all the more disappointed when they found out they didn't like it there.