

Radical Solution to Google's Hiring "Problem" - orijing
http://dailycow.org/node/1091

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tptacek
This post doesn't get it. Even the most desirable companies in the world are
still under insane competitive pressure for the best candidates. What A-player
would shell out even a pittance to apply for a role? Even among the majors
(which isn't where all the action is at right now), there are many
alternatives to Google.

~~~
joblessjunkie
A-players do not submit unsolicited resumes, and would never have to pay a
fee. They would be head-hunted or introduced directly through colleagues. They
get plane tickets, expensive dinners, and nice lodging. They are completely
above this fray.

B-players -- those who are qualified, but without connections -- should be
happy to pay $25 to know that a real person will actually read and categorize
their application. I would personally find this more confidence-inspiring than
just mailing off a resume into the void.

The millions of unqualified, hopeless candidates are the problem. The
mountains of recycling they generate aren't just bad for Google, they're bad
for the B-players as well, who literally get lost in the shuffle.

~~~
tptacek
I would be less likely to consider working for a company where I knew that my
peers would be filtered through an application-fee process. You have to
consider the impact on A-players even if you think the A-players will simply
dodge it. If Google knew ahead of time _exactly_ who the A-players were, it
wouldn't have to worry so much about resumes.

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noahc
This seems fraught with adverse selection issues.

1\. Only Fan Boys Apply. Only people who are willing to pay $100 to work at
google will do so.

2\. Only people without other opportunities will apply. For example, why would
I pay $100 to apply to google, when I can apply to everywhere else for free.

3\. Reduce the number of linchpin applicants. If I know I don't fit the
stereotypical google employee, why would I spend $100 to apply and be told no.
Where as I might apply for free, and hope they can see that I am actually a
good hire, although, I break the mold.

If these aren't enough, how do you handle the PR side of things?

~~~
endtime
>The optimal thing to do with those revenues would be to return them to
successful applicants: Say, 4% of the 250,000 applicants get job offers and
60% of them accept the job. Then they can get anywhere between $1041 and $4166
in "bonus bonus" (i.e. bonus on top of the sign-on bonus) to keep the program
revenue-neutral.

Another idea would be to pay out the bonus to anyone who receives an offer,
rather than just those who accept one. I think this addresses your second
point, Noah, because if I think I have a good chance of getting an offer from
Google then I might actually expect to profit for having applied.

~~~
orijing
Not sure why you were downvoted for that because you bring up a good point
(upvoted).

The thing is, that would encourage people to apply for the sake of gaming the
system--essentially wasting a lot of recruiting time even if they didn't want
to get the job.

~~~
endtime
Well I think Google would quite like the opportunity to find and pitch
qualified people. I'm sure they'd happily pay $500 for the opportunity to
pitch directly a good candidate who just wanted the bonus on his way to a
competitor or startup.

------
famousactress
I don't buy it. It's a barrier to entry, but is it one that correlates with
better candidates? I find it hard to believe that there's a compelling
correlation between people willing to pay to apply and people Google wants to
hire.

If you're looking for a barrier to entry, makes more sense to look for one
with likely correlations (has worked at companies whose employees tend to be a
fit at Google, has authored a popular open source library, etc..)

But even then, these are all ways to cut costs and shrink the hiring funnel..
which seems like the exact opposite of what Google is trying to do. They're
clearly pretty comfortable with the amount of money they spend per hire in
recruiting, and I don't see any evidence they want to tighten-up the candidate
pool at the risk of missing out on good hires.

[Edit]: On second thought, Google adopting this strategy does seem like a
helpful solution to Facebook's hiring problem :)

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sardonicbryan
This doesn't make sense to me at all. Assuming the goal is to increase the
percentage of applications that are "high quality," I think an application fee
would be detrimental.

If you are a highly desirable employee, you probably have many potential
employment options. If Google imposes both an additional cost and additional
step to its application process, then only applicants where:

Chance to work at Google + Application Fee/hassle > Chance to work somewhere
else

Will apply.

~~~
orijing
That's a great point you bring up. Of course one of the assumptions, which may
be wrong, is that Google is a desirable place to work.

If you are a highly desirable employee, you would likely get an offer at
Google and have your application fee paid back in multiples--the point of the
revenue neutrality is to encourage "highly desirable employees" to apply, not
to discourage them. But I can see how it's hard to get over the psychological
hurdle of paying to apply.

~~~
sardonicbryan
I think it's not whether Google is a desirable place to work, it's whether
it's more desirable a place than other places that do not require an
application fee.

Or, to be more pedantic about it, whether the marginal value of applying to
Google is worth the cost.

My hypothesis is that for most good candidates, working at Google is not
highly differentiated vs, say, Facebook, Apple, hot startup, etc. It might be
for some subset of applicants (potentially those with big interest in search,
or people who live right next to a Google office). Of course, those people
would have applied anyway.

My instinct is that many more desirable applicants would just think, "I'll
just apply to Facebook and Apple instead and see what happens."

Pulling out your credit card is just such a big conversion barrier that I
can't see this being a good idea.

~~~
orijing
Yea, the conversion barrier is a big one. The argument rested solely on the
"expected value" of applying versus not, where E[applying] = E[marginal value]
- E[marginal cost] = Pr(Will get a job and take it) * $4166 - $100. So if
Pr(Will get a job and take it) >= 100/4166, then it would make sense to apply.

Of course, most people would not think like that, which is the problem.

------
orijing
Hi everyone, author here.

Thanks for all the comments. I love it here because HN is always so critical
(but not in the hateful way that Reddit makes me sick). Keep the criticisms
coming.

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wulczer
Apart from being a image disaster, I don't think that would actually work.

A hiring strategy for Google (and one I believe they're following, judging by
the calls my friends are getting) is combing places like development mailing
lists or open source projects contributors and proposing these people jobs.
I'd say that's how they get their rock stars.

And for people that are not destined to lead teams or research groups, they're
simply doing what any large company does: have a HR department and hire folks
that pass the filters, then evaluate them while they're there.

------
rflrob
Seems like the kind of thing that Google might want to test before actually
implementing. Surveys are notoriously inaccurate and fraught with other
concerns, but a "Would you have been willing to have paid a $25 application
fee" question on the application itself would give some idea of the false
positive (not discouraging unqualified applicants) and false negative (scaring
away people they end up hiring) rates.

------
ig1
Charging applicants is illegal in most developed countries. It's way too easy
for companies to exploit desperate unemployed people.

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zach
Have they ever referred to it as a problem?

With Google, I always assume they want as much training data as possible for
their machine learning. We all know about GOOG-411, right?

I bet they're thrilled. And if they get around to competing with LinkedIn and
Indeed, they're going to have some great data to work with.

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shib71
Not only is this solution is just as arbitrary as any other filter, it would
have a profound impact on company culture.

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protomyth
A fee scheme relies on the applicant being very sure that s/he is what the
company is looking for. The higher the fee, the more sure s/he has to be.

The problem is when applicants aren't really sure, and don't have quite enough
information on what the company would view as a good candidate. Given some of
the stories that have circulated in the press about Google's hiring criteria,
I am pretty sure their is a chunk of candidates that Google would want that
won't be sure enough to apply.

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nostrademons
Interesting idea, but I don't think it would work in practice.

I remember doing a straw poll of coworkers and how they were hired. The vast
majority either never applied (they were recruited or referred by friends) or
they applied on a lark, without seriously intending to work for Google, and
found that over the course of the interview process, they liked it. You don't
apply on a lark when it costs $100.

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thematt
It would seem odd that a company who's mission is to organize the world's
information is afraid of too many applications.

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ippisl
There's a better solution. using pre-arranged coding challenges , and testing
candidates using automated testing (including automated scoring mechanism), to
filter quality candidates.

see <http://codility.com/> .

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gfunk911
If an applicant is judged to be a reasonable applicant, but is not hired,
Google could refund the fee. Basically, you get your money back if you weren't
completely insane to apply.

This probably introduces even more problems, but it's an idea.

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bugsy
Right. Because if there is a shortage of something, like highly talented
people in a field, then the best way to attract them to work for you is tell
them it is a privilege they have to pay for.

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poink
Why would Google want fewer applicants? Hiring is a search problem, and
negative results can be as useful as positive results in training a filter.

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akashs
how about this: go back to the difficult tests and puzzles they used to have.
make it a pre-requisite to send in an application. that would reduce the
number of apps and ensure applicants meet a high bar at the same time.

(also not sure how smart it is to charge $100 to people who are looking for
jobs and consequently may not have the money to apply)

