
Google tries new angle on hiring - timr
http://www.ft.com/cms/s/2/80ab3af0-3226-11e0-a820-00144feabdc0.html#axzz1EZht6AS5
======
EnderMB
If I'm perfectly honest, the reason I haven't applied to companies like Google
is because their process scares me. I studied at a modest university and
achieved a good degree, but the kind of horror stories I hear make me firmly
believe that I received a terrible education, because the level of employees
they seem to attract (Jon Skeet, anyone?) are a class apart from myself. It
didn't help that the university next door, a top ten institution, was
regularly visited by the likes of Google.

~~~
alecco
Don't let them make you feel like that. What matters is what you make and how
you interact with people around you.

I've met geniuses who don't make anything interesting out of their lives. They
just play mind games and show off. Nobody really likes them or their "high
standards." Usually they just criticize everybody and everything in some way
or another, instead of helping out. And they are often lazy, covering
themselves by stating things are not "challenging" or worthy of their
highness.

They remind me of those rich guys with sports cars. They wouldn't win any
race. What matters is how you do with what you have. The house of cards of
arrogants falls down if enough people just ignore them. Like the typical high
school hotness scenario.

My ideal hiring test:

    
    
      - What do you code for fun?
      - How do you help people around you?
      - Favorite non-fiction books?
      - Would you like to come over for a hackathon next saturday?
    

Edit: I know one counter-example within Google, though. YMMV

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Nitramp
When I interviewed some months ago, I had one telephone interview and five on-
site interviews. If I understood them correctly, some candidates also go
through a second telephone interview. So a maximum of seven if you include
phone interviews.

The interviews were quite challenging (and of increasing difficulty), but
there was nothing even resembling a trick question or a mind teaser. I
researched a bit before the interviews, and credible results consistently said
that Google always had a policy against such questions. I wonder how the head
of HR can then talk about it as if they were asking such questions recently?

All in all, the hiring process was challenging and exhausting, but never felt
unfair or sloppy/undirected.

~~~
groys
I had a similar experience, 2 telephonics and 4 on-site interviews. This is a
blog post from an ex-googler and it explicitly mentions the manhole question
was banned. [http://www.technologywoman.com/2010/05/17/debunking-the-
goog...](http://www.technologywoman.com/2010/05/17/debunking-the-google-
interview-myth/)

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darren_
I did > 8 interviews with Google and never encountered anything resembling
manhole/ping-pong ball problems; this was more than two years ago and my
friends who've interviewed since haven't mentioned them either.

Still, limiting the number of interviews to 5 or so is at the very least a
positive step towards reducing the chance of people meeting someone from what
steve yegge calls their "interview anti-loop" (see: [http://steve-
yegge.blogspot.com/2008/03/get-that-job-at-goog...](http://steve-
yegge.blogspot.com/2008/03/get-that-job-at-google.html); short version - sets
of interviewers whose favourite subjects/questions happen to not overlap with
your particular specialities, and will therefore have a much dimmer view of
your talents than differently focused colleagues).

Also, a problem with many many interviews is it's even harder for a candidate
who has been given no significant post-rejection feedback to figure out what
needed improvement or where you weren't a good fit; I'm reduced to speculating
that maybe number 7 was a bit iffy? Or maybe 4 and 7?

~~~
brown9-2
I have a feeling the spokesperson in the interview is describing interviews
for positions _other than_ software engineering. It's been well known that
Google doesn't ask brainteaser-type questions for it's SE positions. Positions
like Product Manager on the other hand are a different story.

------
bkhl
I went through 8 interviews (over the course of 8 months) before I got an
offer from Google. By the time Google gave me the offer, I already accepted an
offer from the other company. I told the HR of Google that their process sucks
(of course, I said it indirectly) and she agreed with me. I'm glad to hear
that Google is finally making changes here.

~~~
Stormbringer
Are they still limiting it to only PhDs and Masters? That to me always struck
me as their biggest mistake.

The common perception from people in the industry is that many of the best
programmers are self taught. That doesn't preclude doing a degree of course,
however even the really good programmers I've met that did degrees say that
they really ramped up their learning efforts _after_ leaving university (and
that was my experience too).

~~~
galactus
I don't think they ever limited to only PhDs/Masters (I have 3 friends working
for google, none of them holds a phd or masters degree)

~~~
Stormbringer
They did in the early days.

Good to know they've unbent a little on that as well. Of course it then begs
the question "how then _do_ you hire good programmers?". Solving that problem
would be really interesting (my pay might go up :D )

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arkitaip
"The new approach includes a new “rule of five” that limits the number of
interviews a candidate can attend to no more than that number, said Laszlo
Bock, head of human resources. In the past, would-be Googlers were often
subjected to 12-14 interviews, he added."

Wow, they actually consider 5 interviews to be a lean approach to
interviewing; no wonder their process is convoluted. Methinks Google seriously
needs to rethink their org structure.

~~~
noamsml
Well, depends on how you count. Is 4 one-two hour interviews by different
people on the same day considered one interview or four? (Assuming, of course,
a preliminary phone interview would constitute the fifth)

~~~
rozim
A normal onsite interview is 45 mins and yes, a normal start is the phone
screen which counts as an interview too.

I work at Google and have interviewed O(250) people there.

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WildUtah
They've been sending recruiters to me regularly for about six months. I get
regular pitches and emails about working for them about twice a month from
various people.

I'd like to be able to consider it but I'm not in their candidate pool (around
forty, no regular job for a few years, non-tech schooling, travel, no high
tech work for years before that).

Must be hard to reach out to the kind of people Google does like to hire. My
old friends from that group are always busy.

~~~
dtby
_I'd like to be able to consider it but I'm not in their candidate pool
(around forty, no regular job for a few years, non-tech schooling, travel, no
high tech work for years before that)._

I am not in their candidate pool, either by your standards. Quickly
approaching forty, dropped out of 'society' for 5+ years, non-high tech work
during that period, no Ivy League degree. And, yet, despite the fact that I
have made -exceptionally- clear that I have no interest in working at their
company, they will not stop recruiting me.

I think you should go for it and put in that application. It's way more likely
that they want you to work there than that you want to work for them.

~~~
alecco
This is terrible advice. Going through Google HR's meat grinder you have a
small probability to get in. The process is quite random and it takes a lot of
time and energies from you.

Don't gamble on 1/10. Most likely, you'll feel like crap for nothing. And
don't listen to the 1/10ers, they often rationalize and are fooled by
selection bias.

~~~
dtby
_they often rationalize and are fooled by selection bias._ Assuming you are
talking about me, that's crazy. I have asked, literally, a handful of times
that they never contact me again.

It might be selection bias, but it's not rationalization and it's not fooling
me. It's annoying the crap out me. I hope they go bother someone who is
interested in working there.

~~~
alecco

      > Assuming you are talking about me
    

Er, no. You implied you are not a googler. Perhaps I was talking _to_ you.

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maxbrown
Of course I love that they're seeking out entrepreneurial talent, but the
article doesn't seem to make mention of how they're going to target that in
interview questions. Definitely curious...

~~~
Joakal
Acquisitions? Where else can you find people with entrepreneurial talents?

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klochner
God bless the manhole cover problem. That's been making the rounds for over a
decade.

~~~
alecco
I don't like those problems. IMHO, they encourage rationalizing things that
probably just evolved/happened over time. The real answer for me is because no
better shape happened or showed to be significantly better. Also, since almost
all follow the same shape, it's harder for other shapes to enter the market.
Winner takes all.

~~~
stcredzero
It's not arbitrary. "Because it can't fall in the hole" is a compelling
geometric and safety reason. The circular manhole cover is the simplest shape
that has this property.

~~~
notahacker
The reasons for making the access tunnel beneath cylindrical in shape are
actually far more compelling (remove less material and create a stronger
hole).

Nevertheless, rectangular manhole covers are pretty common.

~~~
stcredzero
_Nevertheless, rectangular manhole covers are pretty common._

I never claimed the market was _perfect_. I find that perfect omniscient
markets a terrible assumption to base analysis on.

The combination of superior cover safety and superior tunnel structure are
pretty compelling, but not everyone chooses the optimal solution. That's just
not how humans operate.

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mkramlich
Kudos to Google for making this change. Sounds like they're reacting to
feedback.

------
16s
They still ask silly questions. It's almost like Jeopardy for Nerds.

* Convert decimal 11 to binary.

* How many bits are in Unix permissions.

* What does set UID mean.

* How do you rm a file named -f

* How are hard links different from soft links

* What does const mean

* More and more Jeopardy for Geeks questions

It was like a Unix/C trivia game. No reasonable person would name a file -f
(but that's beside the point)...it's just fun thinking of all the ways you
could remove it if you ever had to.

~~~
jmillikin
Funny, I got those sort of questions on my first phone screen, and I called
them "pulse-checkers". As in, checking the candidate has a pulse and hasn't
blatantly lied on their resume.

I would expect anyone who's been through a CS101-level class to do small
decimal<->binary conversions in their head, and anyone who's administered a
UNIX system to know how to terminate an option list.

------
spartanfan10
They would probably be more successful in their university recruiting if they
didn't wait until January to start making contact.

------
Bossman
75,000 applications a week? Guess I shouldn't be surprised with how big of a
company Google is, but still crazy to see that number.

~~~
Stormbringer
By my rough calculations they're hiring 1 person for every 650 applications.
That's quite the winnowing process.

If they have two pre-qualifying rounds of CV burning where at each stage they
trash 80% of the CVs, then they'd be down to about 26 before even talking to
anyone. Now four rounds of interviews where 50% of the people are eliminated
and you still have 1.625 people left...

~~~
larsberg
We used to have ridiculous numbers like that at MSFT. If Google is reporting
them the same way, they're not counting re-applications and people who are
completely unqualified and either hoping for a lottery win or are just
satisfying some unemployment requirement.

Seriously, the recruiting folks told me that the vast majority of the "blind
submit" resumes that came in via e-mail and website forms were unchanged
duplicates of things already in the database.

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sliverstorm
Too bad they won't ask about manhole covers anymore. I figured that one out on
my own a long, long time ago. (free points!)

P.S. If you know why they make them round, then do you know why they don't
make them triangular? ;)

~~~
eliben
I'm pretty sure a triangular one _can_ fall down its hole if tilted properly.

~~~
krschultz
They can't.

First off, there will be a small lip to keep it from falling in flat. This
means that the hole is actually smaller than the manhole cover by an inch or
more.

Second, no matter how you orient an equilateral triangle with on point facing
down the hole, there is an edge across the top that is too big to fall in. The
way to visualize this, if you take one edge of an equilateral triangle and
sweep it in a circle around one end, it will be outside of the triangle at all
points except where the corners meet. So trying to drop it in any position
other than with the edges lined up will make it impossible to fall through.
And since there is a lip when the edges line up, it can't fall through.

In contrast with a square or rectangle, if you sweep one of the edges it will
be inside of the square or rectangle at some points (on a rectangle, you have
to use the small sides). This means all you have to do is shove one edge of
the cover down the hole and it will fall in.

~~~
michaelcampbell
> First off, there will be a small lip to keep it from falling in flat. This
> means that the hole is actually smaller than the manhole cover by an inch or
> more.

Exactly, and with a big enough lip/flange, ANY shape will work.

~~~
krschultz
Not a square. The diagonal dimension of a square is sqrt(2) * the edge length,
so roughly 1.414*edge length. So if you rotate the square cover 45 degrees,
you can kick it right down the hole no problem. Sure you could have a cover
that was several inches bigger than the lip, but assuming the lip is only
going to be on the order of .5-3" and the cover is going to be around 24-36"
wide, you can always rotate the square one ot fall down there.

~~~
michaelcampbell
> with a big enough lip/flange

Your flange is not "big enough". For an absurd example, consider a hole 3" to
a side, and a flange 48' in width.

That said, I honestly meant this as a mathematical/rhetorical statement, not a
practical one. So yes, you're correct that for any _reasonable_ flange width
(given the assumption we're talking about steel/iron manhole covers, and
accepted values of the material's strength, etc.), some shapes wouldn't
qualify.

My point was to show that the question, taken at its face value, isn't even a
good question. It assumes a flange, or no shape would work as a cover, as the
cover would simply fall into its own hole. Thus, if we're to assume a flange
(or a taper; it could be argued wine bottle stoppers and the holes they
"cover" are both "circles"), we should be able to assume one of arbitrarily
large size, and then ANY shape will work.

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flyt
This headline should really be "Google lowers the bar"

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booduh
Just wait.

Soon, they'll put shit (err-- a chip) in your brain, then follow you around
for 6 months.

"Its just a trial."

