Recruiters are always pulling this "let's be edgy and relevant crap." It's two extremes, Googlers with the "Prove that you're smart enough for us!" and Microsoftees with the "You're sooooo smart, you should apply here!" (Actually, "Hey, Genius!" Oddly enough, once you've put in your paperwork the hiring processes are exactly the same.
This is the kind of crap that gets freshmen excited, but no one else is going to stop doing real work.
As far as I can see from the outside, Google is much like any other Java/Web 2.0 cube farm: miserable salt-mine drudgery - though with above-average pay, plush armchairs, and free lunches.
Here is what one notable Google escapee had to say after doing his time:
"The interchangeable component model of software engineers seemed to work reasonably well there. It's just not a business model in which I wish to be involved, at least not on the component-provider side. So after a year at Google I quit and returned to JPL."
You have to wonder whether the CS faculty at Stanford, MIT, et al are thrilled or disappointed with the perception that they've become a pipeline for 9-5 coders (even if it is google).
If that's the correct answer (which according to a TechCrunch commenter, with working showed, it is), it's not Google. There's a voicemail system saying something along the lines of "Congratulations on solving the second, harder puzzle. Unfortunately, we're not Google, but leave your name and number - you won't regret it."
Obviously that piqued my interest. Once solved and visited, it was simply an upload link for your resume for generic jobs at google.
So anti-climactic.