
Why Working at Google Is Not My Dream Job Anymore - chi42
http://42gems.com/blog/?p=906
======
thothamon
Google is like a corporate supermodel. Their brand is legendary, like Apple or
Facebook. They have so many guys to choose from, and they can afford to be
very picky.

Fortunately for those of us who do not work for corporate supermodels, being
married to the supermodel is not always the heaven one imagines. Maybe it has
its upsides, but a lot of the allure is just image and marketing, and the
reality is much less pleasant than the fantasy.

If working for Google or Facebook or Apple is important to someone, then they
have to take whatever crap these companies dish out. But personally, I'd much
rather work for the NEXT Google than the current one. And if I was going to
work for the current Google, I'd much rather do so by way of them paying me
millions of dollars to buy the amazing product I created, rather than by way
of begging and hoping for a job. Guido van Rossum and Ken Thompson created
amazing things, and because of that, Google hired them.

Therefore, instead of seeking a job at Google directly, a more profitable
approach might be to immediately start creating whatever you really care
about, and let the question of what company creates your W-2 take care of
itself. This is no guarantee that you'll eventually work for Google, but it is
the most likely path to eventually being legitimately in the company of the
van Rossums and Thompsons of the world, and it will probably be a lot of fun
getting there.

~~~
alphonse23
> a more profitable approach might be to immediately start creating whatever
> you really care about, and let the question of what company creates your W-2
> take care of itself.

See, there's a fallacy in this way of thinking that many miss:

Creating something doesn't pay the bills. Getting a successful idea off the
ground takes a lot of time (and connections). Hopefully everybody here does
have a job, but if you don't, then I'm sorry, but I have to say this to you,
please don't spend all your time working on your billion dollar app idea -- go
get a real job. And then once you do have a paying job, if you really want to
spend your remaining free time working on an idea, understand that will suck
and be hard.

> I'd much rather work for the NEXT Google than the current one.

I agree with this.

I'm not saying you shouldn't work on your own ideas -- I certainly do -- I'm
just saying you sound so idealistic -- do you have any idea the real world's a
whole lot crueler.

BTW: Just got rejected from a big tech company after 2-3 months of
interviewing. OP I know your pain.

~~~
McDoku
Mieh, network, freelance and learn to love Montreal :-)

------
untog
_I still remember being in high school and reading about how amazing [...]
their free cafeterias were, their company gyms, massage chairs, and on-site
laundry machines_

 _What computer science undergraduate didn 't dream of working at Google? To
work at the same company with brilliant minds like Guido van Rossum, Leonard
Kleinrock, and Ken Thompson?_

I think these reasons are likely to result in disappointment anyway. The first
set are designed to keep you at work for as long as possible, and the latter
will, sadly, have next to zero impact on your actual working life.

~~~
jknightco
"The first set are designed to keep you at work for as long as possible..."

Jesus Christ, when will this meme die? Google doesn't provide those things "to
keep you at work for as long as possible," they provide them because the
company believes in the simple idea that: happy employees == productive
employees.

I can't possibly understand why people think Googlers are overworked. I work
between 25-30 hours a week. Most of peers work 30-35. Nobody I know works more
than 40 here. (In NYC!)

There are plenty of faults to be found with this company, like any other, but
this is absolutely not one of them.

~~~
moultano
After my experience at Google I'd recommend that any company of sufficient
size provide tasty convenient lunch for free. It's a huge productivity boost.
At other companies, I've seen people waste an hour and a half every day
assembling people to go out for lunch, order, wait, figure out how to split up
the bill, drive back. Much easier to just take that off people's minds.

Dinner and breakfast aren't as useful to provide and I don't think
comparatively many Googlers take advantage of them (though breakfast is nice
if you have a very long commute.) I did when I was young and single, but no
longer. However, I'm virtually certain that providing lunch is a very cost
effective way of getting more work done and is a win/win for everyone.

~~~
johan_larson
I seem to recall the budget at Google for food service was $15 per person per
meal. And the snacks and drinks in the micro-kitchens cost something like $5
per day; they used to cost more, but they also used to be a lot better.

Of course, Google provides really elaborate meals. You could probably get the
cost down to something like $5 per meal, but it would mean fast-food-grade
meals.

~~~
JohnBooty
> I seem to recall the budget at Google for food service > was $15 per person
> per meal ...You could probably get > the cost down to something like $5 per
> meal, but it > would mean fast-food-grade meals.

If the $15/meal figure is accurate and includes all expenses related to
serving the meals (incl. paying kitchen staff and everything) then the food
would only be a fraction of those costs. Going from serving fresh food to
serving the cheapest possible garbage might only take the cost from $15 down
to $10 or something like that.

~~~
johan_larson
Tom Wolfe wrote an interesting passage about old-time food service at Intel
([http://web.stanford.edu/class/e140/e140a/content/noyce.html](http://web.stanford.edu/class/e140/e140a/content/noyce.html)):

"At Intel lunch had a different look to it. You could tell when it was noon at
Intel, because at noon men in white aprons arrived at the front entrance
gasping from the weight of the trays they were carrying. The trays were loaded
down with deli sandwiches and waxed cups full of drinks with clear plastic
tops, with globules of Sprite or Diet Shasta sliding around the tops on the
inside. That was your lunch. You ate some sandwiches made of roast beef or
chicken sliced into translucent rectangles by a machine in a processing plant
and then reassembled on the bread in layers that gave off dank whiffs of
hormones and chemicals, and you washed it down with Sprite or Diet Shasta, and
you sat amid the particle-board partitions and metal desktops, and you kept
your mind on your committee meeting. That was what Noyce did, and that was
what everybody else did."

Surely well below $10 per person for that level of service. :-)

------
TheMagicHorsey
I sympathize with you. My Google interview process took over 6 months,
consisted of over a dozen interviews, including going to their campus twice,
and resulted in a no-offer with no explanation.

This was the second time I was interviewed by Google.

They have some good people, but they have become bureaucratic and they really
don't care that much about what you, as a potential recruit think.

I complained to some friends of mine that work at Google and they were furious
at how I was treated. They talked to some people internally. They said they
would fix things, but I think its just a huge problem.

They are hiring a lot, and their HR processes aren't very good.

They have some good teams though.

~~~
johnward
I know someone who made it through 8 interviews before being told no. I also
know 2 others that were hired but have no idea how long it took them. I still
wonder what it is that makes us want to give up so much of our own time for
their interview process. Do they really treat employees _that_ much better
than other companies? I bet there are a lot of startups that would make me
just as happy. Is it just for name recognition? Maybe they make the processes
arbitrary difficult so that only those who really want to work for Google
actually follow through?

~~~
GVIrish
"Maybe they make the processes arbitrary difficult so that only those who
really want to work for Google actually follow through?"

I think it comes down to the attitude that they'd rather have a bunch of false
negatives than one false positives. Since there is extremely high supply of
qualified applicants they probably don't feel like their bizarre hiring
process hurts them at all. Some people will get turned off by their hiring
processes, but for everyone one of those 10 times as many will jump through
those hoops.

Over time I think Google's hiring processes absolutely do hurt them. The best
of the best in the Computer Science world have many, many opportunities and
they simply don't have to put up with nonsense. If Google is one of 10 suitors
for an exceptional candidate and they take 6-8 months to make a decision, that
candidate may already be long gone, just like the OP.

For now I think Google can get away with it but I feel like in a few years
we're going to be seeing articles about Google's 'brain drain'.

~~~
ufmace
It may already be happening... where if not on HN would you find a community
with a bunch of the best of the best in software? And when was the last time
we saw a post anywhere on here about somebody having a positive experience
interviewing or working for Google? Or anywhere else on the internet for that
matter?

I can see how it's difficult to screen out on the employer side when you're
that big and prominent, but the first people who get screened out with this
kind of stuff are the people with skills and self-respect.

I'm probably far from being a top-tier software person, but I'd like to think
I've learned to respect myself. There are way too many good companies with
competitive pay and sane hiring processes to put up with being jerked around
by Google, especially when the result is probably to be just another cog in
the Google machine. The benefits may be nice, but money will buy you all of
the laptops and gourmet lunches you want. It won't buy you respect.

------
kelukelugames
When I interviewed at Google I was able to bypass the screening and hear back
three days after the onsite. Everything from initial phone call to final
decision took three weeks.

These were the steps I took.

1) Apply through internal referral. Ask multiple people to refer you. 2) Ask
your friends to check up on the application process. Make sure they tell the
recruiters you are further along with with Facebook, Twitter, or some other
competitor. 3) When the recruiter contacts you. Thank them, tell them how much
you want to work at Google, and then mention your tight deadline due to offers
from other companies.

And I had a wonderful experience at Google because of two interviewers in
particular.

1) I failed both questions from an interviewer. They were easy questions and I
managed to crash and burn spectacularly. I don't understand how my interviewer
managed to remain friendly and treated me with respect the whole time.

2) On the last round, I did well enough to score a 3/4\. Yet during our chat,
we talked about my other options and concluded that I should go join Redfin
because developers can make a bigger impact at a smaller company. I
appreciated his honesty.

~~~
oconnore
You can generalize this:

Tips to outmaneuver any bureaucracy: know/bribe people on the inside to help
you.

~~~
ToastyMallows
I understand this is a meta comment, but why is everyone (including the
blogger) using the word bureaucracy? When did Google turn into a government?

~~~
humanrebar
"In modern parlance, bureaucracy refers to the administrative system governing
any large institution."

[http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bureaucracy](http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bureaucracy)

~~~
ToastyMallows
Fair enough, it just felt weird in this context.

------
dsr_
People often ask why Google's hiring process is so Byzantine. It's a company
that likes to innovate, measure statistics, and treat their employees well, so
why do they harass people they might want to hire?

Here's my theory: it may have grown by chance, but it's still there by
intention.

Google can't put you through twelve weeks of basic training to break you down
and form you into their image. Instead, they give everyone a shared hard
experience, at the end of which the successful ones have been welcomed to the
ranks of the elect, and the chaff discarded. Since the process produced you,
the new Googler, and clearly that's good, then the process is good, even
though it was hard.

Now, everybody who stops to think about it rather than feel it will come to
the conclusion that there must have been plenty of the could-be elect among
the chaff. But if you aren't asked to focus on a question, you probably won't
think much about it.

~~~
harryh
Most people that interview at Google don't have the OPs experience. It's just
that those who do are more likely to get noticed.

Your theory is wrong.

~~~
georgemcbay
I've heard the gist of what OP experienced enough times (including from people
I know personally in addition to the ones who blogged about it) that it can't
be that rare, though I'll grant it still might not be the norm.

My own unsubstantiated theory is that Google is okay with primarily hiring
through acquisition and views direct hires as a secondary stream of potential
employees, only greasing the byzantine wheels they've stuck on direct hires
when someone inside with a significant amount of internal political capital
makes a direct recommendation.

In any case, I'd say the luster of Google jobs has worn off in the minds of a
lot of people and it isn't really seen as much different than working for any
other big tech company these days. There are some teams within the company
(just like there are some teams within Microsoft) that people would love to
work for, but the idea of just "working for Google" on its own is no longer
particularly desirable, IMO.

~~~
harryh
The vast majority of Google's hires are not through acquisition.

Your unsubstantiated theory is wrong too.

------
kifler
I had the same experience - but with Shopify.

I knew someone who was hired, given a letter of offer and attended his first
few weeks of training. They walked up to him two weeks later and said we don't
actually need your position right now but would you mind waiting until we call
to set something up? On top of that, they bungled his pay.

An outlier I thought.

Then I went through the hiring process, nobody knew what anyone was going. I
showed up to shadow for a day, nobody knew I was coming despite planning it
all out and scheduling the day with a number of different people. I suddenly
realized I was overqualified for the job, telling the guy I was shadowing what
he needed to do, despite my limited familiarity with the interface.

A few weeks later, after another 3 interviews, they told me I wasn't what they
were looking for because I told them I wanted to get out of my current job
(one that had broken some promises to me)

Another person I went through the hiring process with was never actually
onboarded. Like my other friend, she was given a letter of offer, and
everything sort of fell apart at the end of the day.

~~~
jefe78
Sorry to hear that. Went through similar crap with them. Was not impressed
since I had worked with a few of the people they did hire for other roles.

------
jeffbarr
There's a really interesting presumption in some of the comments on this post.
Namely, that getting the job after an interview is the default outcome, and
that any other represents an exceptional condition.

In every place that I have worked, making an offer (and landing the candidate)
is the exceptional condition. Each step through the recruiting process (resume
submission, one or more phone screens, one or more rounds of interviews,
extension of an offer, and negotiation around terms and conditions) results in
fewer and fewer candidates. I have no idea what the pass rate for each stage
is at a typical high-tech company, but I would guess that it could be between
10% and 15% at best.

In other words, odds are that you are not going to get the job.

Separately, there's no reasonable and legally defensible way to provide
official feedback if the interview process results in a no-hire decision. The
interview is your chance to put your best foot (brain?) forward. If you got
post-interview feedback that said "Your linked-list implementation was O(N
__3) and we wanted O(N), " or "Several of your responses were not in harmony
with the way that we like to build systems" how would you respond, and how
would hiring companies and managers handle the situation with any degree of
efficiency? You had your chance (the interview) to make the case.

~~~
bcoates
> making an offer (and landing the candidate) is the exceptional condition

> In other words, odds are that you are not going to get the job.

The first is true but it doesn't really imply the second:

In my area, the active jobseeker population for development jobs mostly
consists of a gigantic, persistent mass of sub-competent developers (you know
if you aren't one) and people who are always on the lookout for something
better. Anyone else gets picked up pretty damn quickly. If you're in the
latter group, odds are you _are_ going to get an offer (of which you will
reject the majority). I suspect companies that think they're being more
selective at the hiring stage are probably just being capricious; it's not
easy to judge the quality of your own hiring process.

~~~
lilsunnybee
"If you're not getting hired, obviously you're just not qualified to work and
earn a living." Sort of a self-fulfilling prophecy isn't it?

------
Spearchucker
I had a similar experience with Microsoft - 8 interviews over a period of 6
months. Two things that were different from the Google experience is that I
was kept informed of progress and how it all works, and I did land the job (a
better job, so not the one I initially applied for).

All that said, I think it important to have a Google, Apple, Facebook,
Microsoft or Amazon on your résumé. It's definitely not critical, but 5 years
at one of these (or similar) gives you credibility out of the gate that you
might otherwise need to demonstrate through other means. It greases wheels.

------
madengr
You are also older, and maybe realize the free food, stupid chairs, and on
site laundry are gimmicks intended to keep you at work as long as possible. It
really boils down to salary and tangible benefits such has vacation and
healthcare. That free lunch only costs the company $5/day, $1250/year. I'd
rather take that in pay.

~~~
Groxx
To be fair: free (healthier than fast) food is practically an investment.
Healthier people work better, live longer, etc. It's probably worth
$1250/year/person just on those grounds, which could be reflected in better
pay. (given the wage fixing and other things: it probably isn't. but in
principle it's not a pure loss to your paycheck.)

And I'd LOVE to have on-site laundry and/or a shower - then I could bike much
harder/further to get to work and not smell like it all day. Not having that
means pretty strict pacing / length restrictions, which basically means I lose
a large chunk of time that I could be using for exercise.

~~~
serve_yay
But if it's an investment, it shouldn't be a point to be bragged about to
employee candidates -- it's being done to make money, not because it's so
great for me. Don't brag to me about that just like you shouldn't brag about
how the CFO has done some sweet accounting jiujitsu or whatever.

~~~
bmm6o
It's not zero-sum. It can be a sound investment for the company and also
beneficial to the employee. The company shouldn't tout its good working
environment if it positively impacts the bottom line? That's an odd stance.

------
semaphoreP
What I found peculiar about Google's application process was that all of the
emails from Google's recruiters went straight into Gmail's spam folder.

~~~
kelukelugames
Hey I'm new to HN. Why is your name green?

~~~
angersock
They paid for the HN Gold account package.

EDIT:

Downvoting because you lack a sense of humor, or because you are sad that we
don't have such a service yet?

~~~
hackplus
[https://news.ycombinator.com/newswelcome.html](https://news.ycombinator.com/newswelcome.html)

------
michaelvkpdx
As goes the recruitment, so goes the employment.

Despite the efforts of the Valley's largest companies to "be different, think
different, not be evil", etc..., they are human endeavors run by human beings
subject to the same natural laws of behavior and organizational psychology as
the companies they were once trying to "be different" from.

Your story is no different from the typical story of someone trying for non-
trivial employment at IBM, Apple, Microsoft, the Department of Defense, or
even Wal-Mart. Except, perhaps, for the free lunches- which you'll be trying
to avoid after a few months anyway, unless you have given up any semblance of
outside life to join The Party (or The Company).

It is proof that large tech companies, new and old, have not made the type of
change that their execs and founders have always trumpeted. They are still
subject to the same laws of human behavior and organizational development that
affected older companies, the United States, the ancient Greeks, the Catholic
Church, etc...

~~~
com2kid
> Your story is no different from the typical story of someone trying for non-
> trivial employment at IBM, Apple, Microsoft,

I disagree on that last one.

I have interviewed at MS twice, once out of college, and again after I left
the company and wanted to go back to lead a team doing some great stuff. Since
being hired I have myself been involved in many interview loops.

The interviewing process at Microsoft is _very_ streamlined. If there are a
multiple highly qualified candidates for a job it may take 1-2 weeks to get
back to you, we naturally want to interview everyone first and then make a
decision.

If we encounter a situation where multiple candidates that we want to hire and
extra head count exists we may try to hire both, or try to give one of them to
another team who does have head count.

The overall idea here is that Microsoft wants to say hire to all exceptional
candidates that come our way.

For the majority of interviews however, we can get back to the candidate
within a couple of days.

(FWIW I've had the exact same turn around interviewing at Amazon.)

Now part of this is being Microsoft does not have Hiring Committees. This is
both good and bad. Some teams do not have a consistent bar for hiring, and
MS's interview training class just goes over what we legally are not allowed
to say.

The good aspect is that we can be more agile hiring people, and our interview
process varies based on teams needs. While we want to always hire with an eye
towards future potential and growth, different teams and orgs need different
skill sets. A hardware team may want its software engineers to know how to
communicate with EEs and Mechanical Engineers, and future growth in that org
means being able to stretch across multiple disciplines. In contrast, Azure is
going to look more at how well a Dev can live in the world of ops, DB, and
their understanding of large scale computing.

The downside is, as mentioned above, that some teams don't hold the same bar
on candidates.

Now all this said, I have of course seen MS disqualify very highly qualified
candidates for asinine reasons, again this is due to there not being a
standardized hiring process.

------
ef4
I can sum up the whole article in four words: Google is too big. They have
obviously become what they would have despised at the outset: a lumbering
bureaucracy.

But I have no interest in being one fifty-thousandth of Google, and to anyone
who's on the fence, I'd argue that you'll learn more and wield far more
responsibility at a much smaller company.

~~~
hugs
I wish this was studied more. (Or maybe it is, and I don't know about the
research.) My theory is that organizations should follow nature. For example,
when a cell gets big enough, it divides in two. I wonder if it would make
sense to grow a business that way.

~~~
nhjk
I think Fog Creek is a good example of this. They recently split Trello off
into its own company, and Stack Exchange before that.

~~~
hugs
I also think of George Lucas as a good model, too -- looking at all the things
he created that came out of Star Wars (Lucasfilm, ILM, Pixar, THX, etc.)

------
zak_mc_kracken
It's surprising to see this kind of title from someone who's never worked at
Google.

OP seems to be mostly disgruntled by Google's recruiting process, which seems
horrendous, to be honest. But just because there is a lot of red tape before
you can get a job offer doesn't mean the job will suck.

~~~
chris_mahan
I went through the same thing twice at google, but actually failed the over-
the-phone interviews. Bank of America had a firm offer the very next day after
the interview. I've been there 4 years, get great vacation amount and benefits
(401k match, etc) and it's 20-40 minutes from the house, depending on traffic,
instead of in Venice, which would be 1.5 hours. And I get paid well. On top of
that, the work is interesting and challenging.

~~~
vadman
Heh, completely opposite experience with BoA for me. Incredibly disorganized
interviewers (I was waiting for almost an hour between some interviews), the
last 2 out of 5 gave me attitude too. No offer in the end.

Bloomberg was the next place I interviewed at and they had a firm offer that
same day (the HR guy was the last person I spoke to) -- I had them wait
another 4 days since I had 2 more interviews lined up.

~~~
chris_mahan
You took the Bloomberg offer I assume?

~~~
vadman
I did. One of the other 2 jobs turned out to be completely opposite of what
the job offer advertised (consulting instead of R&D), so I lost interest. The
other could have been interesting, but they took their time to get back to me
and I did not want to lose the Bloomberg offer by waiting too long.

------
enraged_camel
I see it as a sign hubris when a company makes you invest a ton of time into
their interview process and then don't even show you the courtesy of an
explanation if no offer is extended.

~~~
magicalist
It depends on what you mean by "explanation". Almost no company will tell you
specifics of why you didn't make the cut (at least in the US) because there
are many, many ways you can spin it into something you can sue over.

That said, with care, there is some feedback that can be given. It would be
great if interviewing could be more of a learning process, especially on the
technical side. "Go read more on taking advantage of cache coherency", "go get
some more experience in software development with a team instead of on your
own", etc

~~~
enraged_camel
Honestly, there isn't even a need for an actual explanation. Just a simple,
"thank you for your time, we decided to move on to other candidates" would be
sufficient. It's called courtesy.

What Google is doing here however sounds like a complete and utter cluster-
fuck. I mean, this:

>>After finding out I passed the interviews, and Google finished doing my
background check, I spent the next two months on an emotional roller-coaster.
I spoke to a couple hiring mangers, exchanged many confused and angry emails
with friends and colleagues at Google, and had numerous phone calls with my
recruiter, whose tone ranged from apologetic to congratulatory. At various
times, I was not entirely sure if I was fully rejected, or if the only thing
standing between me and a formal job offer was some paper work. Many phone
calls with the recruiter (who was very kind and helpful) were required for
clarification, but did little to assuage my annoyance as she was not allowed
to explain any of the inner workings of the hiring process.

Wow. Just wow.

------
VikingCoder
Up until about a year ago (or maybe 2 now?), Larry Page still personally
reviewed every single Engineering resume.

This gives you some idea about what could happen at the "11th hour" at Google.

------
lallysingh
So, to make this more constructive than a rant-article, does anyone know who
does this right? For a large company?

Can it be done with a separate HR staff, or do you need an engineer on the
inside managing this?

~~~
vtbassmatt
Disclosure: I am a Microsoft employee but am only speaking about my personal
observation of our processes. This is not the company's opinion. I believe I
am not disclosing any proprietary information.

Microsoft doesn't always get it right, but the process is designed and
intended to provide a top-notch candidate experience (sometimes at the expense
of the interviewer's time, company's budget, etc.). I primarily have
experience with the college recruiting side of the house. Industry candidates
come through a different pipeline.

* We have people dedicated to logistics: scheduling the loops with engineers, air transit, hotel, rental cars, etc. * A separate group of dedicated people handles the candidate's side: Email them details ahead of time, meet them at the beginning and end of the day, and keep them informed throughout the process. * Although we have an official tool for documenting interview loops, the more important aspect is a strong culture of "warm handoffs" from interviewer to interviewer. What was covered, where did the candidate do well, where could we use a deeper dive to understand the candidate's skills? * Training at multiple levels for interviewers: Before you can begin interviewing, you have to attend a training. Many divisions have historically required additional training. Want to go to campus? There's another training for that. Also, the training now emphasizes how useless "trick" questions are and how to formulate good questions.

There's more, but it veers into proprietary details of the process that I
don't feel comfortable disclosing.

~~~
cdr
When I was in school I was always amazed at how lavishly Microsoft spent at my
no-name tech school. A full time local Microsoft recruiting rep (don't
remember if regional or assigned solely to that school), quarterly Microsoft
events with giveaways, prominent booth at the career fair. Google probably
didn't even know the place existed, but especially at the time they were such
a sought-after company that they probably didn't need to expend any effort on
recruiting.

------
emmapersky
Disclaimer: I work for Google. These are my opinions and not necessarily
Google's.

My hiring experience was slower than other companies, but did not seem
particularily obtuse. It was maybe a few weeks from my initial interview to an
offer. I delayed my interview so I could study and had a waiting period after
offer before I started due to visa, but the core hiring process was just a few
weeks.

Talking with others internally about their experience, it was all pretty
similar. No one I know internally suffered through their hiring process.

It does seem to be the case that we sometimes don't do a good job of properly
rejecting candidates who didn't make the cut, but there are so many factors
that go into these things it's impossible to take a face value a one sided
view.

My advice for anyone who does want to work for Google is that you shouldn't,
if possible, parallelize your Google application with any other companies. Try
here, and if it doesn't work out, continue with your job hunt. But if you try
and speed up the Google process by presenting competing offers, you're gonna
have a bad time.

~~~
dclowd9901
This seems a bit arrogant in the SV job climate. Google doesn't exactly have
the prestige it once did. Yes, it set the current standard most Silicon Valley
engineers enjoy, but most see it as large, unwieldy and less prestigious than
it used to be. Companies like Twitter and AirBnB seem to be grabbing up the
highest end talent and whose names carry some real weight on a resume.

It would behoove Google hiring managers to understand they're not at the top
of the heap anymore for the choicest job in SV.

------
Danieru
Okay since there appear to be people here who know what they are talking about
may I ask a question about what happened to me?

At the end of my Microsoft Internship I got an offer, this triggered a Google
recruiter to contact me and do a phone screener. I'm not sure how well I did
on the interview but when I mentioned I had decided not to take the Microsoft
offer the recruiter said they wanted to push any next stage stuff back a
couple months (4-5 months), they mentioned December.

That was fine by me. In fact I was still fine in November / December because I
was trying to interview at Mozilla and was working on making a contribution in
support of that.

Mozilla hit their hiring cap just after I got the patch accepted. So now I'm
curious what happened to the recruiter? Was the sudden change in tone when I
said I wasn't accepting the offer the recruiter worrying I had lied on my
blog? Was she serious about moving any later interviews until closer to
graduation, and maybe just left the company?

~~~
GuiA
When negotiating (and interviewing for a job is a negotiation), never give
more information than you have to.

In your case, no one but the recruiter (and other people on the hiring
committee) know why you were really rejected; but what's certain is that
telling her that you decided to not take the offer certainly didn't help you.

However, saying something like: "Microsoft's offer is really enticing, and I'm
thinking very hard about it. That being said I've heard so many great things
about Google, and I'd love to work there. Microsoft wants my decision by <end
of month, end of next week, whatever>\- do you think we could go through the
interviews before then?".

That alone wouldn't have gotten you an offer, but it would have made you a
slightly more desirable target.

~~~
Danieru
Thanks Gui, those are good points I'll take to heart.

~~~
GuiA
Keep in mind that interviewing is ultimately a human thing, and thus never
perfect or rational (even though everyone would like to think their hiring
process is flawless and as logical and unbiased as can be).

Prepare as much as you can, go in with your best attitude, etc.- but at the
end of the day, interviews can result into a negative answer for something
completely out of your control. Maybe you remind one of the interviewers of
their ex-boyfriend, or they don't like your voice on the phone, or they've
never used framework X but the guy they just fired was really into X and you
put X as the first thing on your resume, etc. etc. etc.

Don't get discouraged- it's part of the game. I am starting next week at $(big
large company where I've wanted to work since I've been a teenager), and that
was after 6+ months of interviewing, talking to about as many teams, and
hearing "we think we'd be really great at $company but the team you've just
interviewed with isn't the right team for you" every time. Funny thing, the
position I ended up getting is beyond what I could have dreamed of 6 months
ago, and far more interesting+challenging than any of the other teams I
interviewed with there.

There's also nothing wrong with working at a company for a year or two with
the sole intention of getting better so you can re-interview with the company
of your dreams.

Work hard, keep your long term goals in mind, and good luck :)

------
jtbigwoo
We often don't understand is that our inaction communicates just as much as
our actions and speech do. The difference is that the recipient can interpret
inaction to mean whatever they want it to mean. In an interview process, I
could interpret silence from HR to mean that the company has moved on when the
truth is that the recruiter is on vacation.

Google can obviously get away with this because they're still one of the
richest company in the world. When they piss off a candidate, they've got
twenty ready to take her place. For those of us at smaller companies, it's
crucial that we over-communicate during delays and move decisively when
hiring.

------
WaxProlix
I had a similar process out of college, but didn't even make it to the phone
screen portion of the process before getting mad and giving up. Google was
sort of a dream job for me, too, but the recruiting process made it clear that
I was at best a potential cog or a line item to their HR.

They'd never call at arranged times, but did call while I was giving a project
presentation, once during another interview (probably looked good actually,
"Oh it's the google recruiter again." <ignore>)... the whole thing was enough
to put me off. I was a bit older than the standard college grad, so maybe I
just become disillusioned at 8th grade level.

------
deeviant
I recently had a very similar experience with Google.

They have you run through the hoops a full day or two of interviews, then
deliberate for months. I ended up correctly answering every question given to
me, but was in the end rejected, the only feedback I received is that it was a
marginal situation but one committee member "had some doubts".

Being that I didn't graduate from a ivy league school, far from it, my
imagination can come up with many motivating factors of their various hiring
committees. Also, I did not approach Google, their recruiter contacted me
based on my rapidly growing list of successes on my resume.

But in the end, I'm glad they didn't offer my the position, because after
reflection, it was really just the prestige of working for Google that drew me
to even consider an offer from them, when the smaller, more agile and more
innovative atmosphere of a start-up is far more in-tune with my skillset and
mentality.

And while there is no in-house laundry, so I can literally live in my "open
office" without the bother of ever leaving work, I do have a few things in
which I don't imagine I would find at Google, namely: A good work/life
balance, an innovative atmosphere with little bureaucratic inertia and most
importantly, a warm feeling when I'm driving to work in the morning.

In the end, I think it's google's policy of "Let's get the best, forget the
rest" that is slowly taking them from "Do no Evil, be a cool place to work at"
to "stuffy, sterile, homogeneous corporate environment". As people who are
often "the best" have a much higher chance to be the trajectory oriented
egocentric types who rarely, in my experience, produce "the best" outcomes and
seem to be more interested in proving/showing/demonstrating how much
better/smarter/whatever'er they are than everybody else that, despite their
reputed intellect, seem to have a poorly understanding of the prisoner's
dilemma as outlined by game theory.

eplilogue: the start-up I ended up with exceeded the salary requirements I
handed Google, have free food too, and oh yeah, I get to make robots, oh yeah!

------
serve_yay
I recommend disregarding the ping-pong tables, the free organic-sustainable
food, beer, MacBooks, the branding (we are enlightened geniuses constructing
the future), etc. Pay attention to who you will be working with, and for. If
your prospective job will be bullshit janitorial work, it doesn't matter if
Guido van Rossum works there.

Throughout the process of interviewing and joining a new company, they will be
communicating important things to you, whether they realize it or not. Just
listen.

------
laxatives
I had a pretty shite experience with Google applying for internships.

I had gotten through the interview process and told I was being placed with a
team and would get a chance to speak to my new manager in November/December. I
give her my preferences for placement and I waited until a few months before
the summer started and asked my recruiters what was going on, and they said
there were very few positions left and they must have flubbed the paperwork.
She said she would work hard to get my team sorted out. Nothing for a week. I
ask again, she apologizes. Nothing for another week. She apologizes and I
finally speak with my manager. It is one of the teams near the bottom of my
list of preferences. I had several great offers at the time and was by this
point very unenthusiastic. I ask for another team, but am told all placements
have been made and that they will try me again in the future.

Now I get calls/emails from Google recruiters every few months, seemingly
always a few days after I sign a contract to work elsewhere. Are they
intentionally trying to poach me? Anyways, I've had enough of big companies.
I'm going to a startup as the 7th engineer that will let me work remotely as I
sail around the world. I think I've made the right decision.

------
shmerl
Google grew big and its bureaucracy grew with it. As well as many other things
have changed, and not for the better. It's not the Google of the 2000s
anymore.

------
kbd
I went through Google's interview process twice, including passing all the
phone interviews and remote coding sessions and being flown out to Mountain
View, only to be rejected each time.

When they started another recruiting push and asked me to come back and
interview a third time I told them no thanks.

Ironically I wound up working for Google anyway after the startup I worked for
was acquired!

------
rgbrgb
Here's a secret for those who still want to work at Google. Put your resume on
Dice and you'll probably get contacted by a contracting company. My friend who
did this has no college degree and just had to do 2 non-technical phone
screens. He gets free food and whatever and has his dream "job at Google". Now
if you want to get a job at Google doing something interesting, all bets are
off. He works on a large angular app that shows hardware allocations for an
internal team. It's his first programming job at a software company though so
he's learning a lot.

~~~
wyclif
I'd like to hear more about this. It seems like a valid and responsible way
for someone who is not an A+ player and needs some experience to get their
foot in the door.

------
CisSovereign
More and more of these stories seem to be popping up now. It doesn't seem to
be to googles overall detriment though as people are still just as interested
(I think?) to work there. Guess they can get away with it.

------
kelvin0
Is it possible the same people doing the hiring, are the ones doing the tech
'support'?

------
indubitably
"on-site laundry machines"

Let's just pause and think about how INSANE that is. Are people that work at
Google really so hopelessly dependent on their employer that they can't handle
basic bodily sanitation without help?

Let me get this straight. These people are _taking their laundry on the Google
bus_ to _wash their clothes at work_?

Hi, reality much?

~~~
NickM
Plenty of people live in apartments that don't necessarily have laundry on
site. I don't have any firsthand experience, but I'd imagine it'd be a _lot_
more convenient to be able to do your laundry at work for free vs. having to
take a separate trip to a laundromat, feed quarters to the machines, etc.

~~~
danielweber
I think this is key. I have a laundry machine at home, and would honestly be
ashamed to bring in my wash, but if it saved me a trek to the laundromat, and
the google laundry facility was a few minutes walk from my desk, it might give
me a nice break from my day to mindlessly fold clothes.

------
michaelochurch
My guess is that OP is not in the U.S. Google isn't perfect but a 2-month
background check is NOT the norm. A company that dysfunctional would get no
talent.

In my experience, any scrutiny beyond the normal 2-3 references (no back
channel) can be killed by faking (or, better yet, getting) a competing offer.
That type of scrutiny/delay means they're on the fence because they see you as
a low-status (but possibly capable) chump and social proof is often what it
takes to land on the right side.

------
plicense
Well, that escalated quickly!

------
blobbers
It may just me, but I feel like you're just a little sour grapes.

If it was really your dream job, you wouldn't give up on it so easily.

It sounds like the root of it is, you desire to work at a "great perks" type
silicon valley company, not google in particular.

Time to dream again...

------
codr
I don't get it. The blog post is about failing multiple Google interviews,
then complaining that the process is good enough for you, then saying Google
isn't your "dream job" anymore?

How is this different than the old, "I didn't want to go to your stupid
birthday party anyway!"??

Maybe I missed something in the post but I was hoping to read about someone
who had actually worked at Google before criticizing it..

------
segmondy
Get over it, you were not good enough for them and that's what it is. If you
were "google quality", you would have had long had an offer. This is for
everyone else reading this, if you don't want to go through this. You must
dazzle the folks interviewing you. Building amazing products you are willing
to demo, solve interesting problem utilizing ridiculously large data sets, or
in interesting AI domains. Google doesn't want average folks. I don't work at
google or ever did, but your post is one of many lamenting about this.

~~~
curiousDog
Yeah not really, I know far too many "above average" people working there. Not
everyone there is a savant, heck not even close. Companies on wall-street like
DE Shaw have had far superior talent for a while now. And no, not all of their
products are "stellar", some of them are utter shit. Just because you have
accepted mediocrity and self-pity doesn't mean everyone should. Hard-work and
practice goes a long way.

