
Ask HN: Why does Google get away with such bad recruiting practices? - frustrated_90
Recently I&#x27;ve been through the on-site interviews at Google and had a terrible experience. The recruiter went silent after my on-site and my calls are directly going to voicemail. The on-site was a month ago and I&#x27;ve heard nothing regarding my status. I&#x27;ve shared this experience with some of my friends, and they&#x27;ve all had similar experiences. My question is - how is Google getting away with such bad recruiting practices? I&#x27;ve never had a company not call me back after I took a day off work to interview, even if it is bad news! Shouldn&#x27;t bad recruiting practice like this hurt the company&#x27;s reputation? And shouldn&#x27;t people be more hesitant to apply to companies knowing that they will be treated badly?
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busterarm
A buddy of mine interviewed for a fairly senior role at Google (SVP
equivalent) and he had about 6 or 7 in-person interviews within a week or two
before they went radio-silent. 6 months later they contacted him and asked him
to come in for another round of interviews -- at which point he told them he
was going to pass.

Edit: This was a half-decade or more ago.

~~~
honkhonkpants
The idea that randos are just interviewing to be SVPs at Google doesn't seem
particularly likely to me.

~~~
Rotten194
Why do you think OP's friend is a "rando"?

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honkhonkpants
Anybody who claims to be going for an executive position through front-door
recruiting is a rando. Look at the SVPs at Google and look at how they got
that job. Either they have been at Google since the dawn of man, or they came
in through major acquisitions, or they were personally recruited by Larry
Page.

~~~
busterarm
He didn't go through front-door recruiting. They sought him out. He's had
similar roles at major banks.

...and he still had to go through that process. Do 'mere mortals' have to do
5+ in-person interviews?

~~~
ones_and_zeros
I think their point was that for SVP type positions, especially at Google, if
they want you you don't go through multiday interviews. They make a pitch and
give you an offer. But even then that is unlikely.

I think what might be happening is some of the titles don't match between
banks and tech. At a bank there are 1000s of "VPs" and so your friend may be
at that level but really in Google and most tech companies that could be
anything from a Senior Engineer/Team Lead/Director level. In tech, SVP is way
way up there. An example is Marissa Mayer who only attained VP and never SVP
before moving on to Yahoo.

~~~
PaulHoule
I've encountered so many VP's from Goldman Sachs and similar companies that I
can't believe the title means very much.

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PaulHoule
People want to be on the side that is winning. Also, they want minions and one
characteristic of a good minion is unlimited tolerance for abuse. You might as
well start early in the process.

If you join Scientology, for instance, the second thing you do is TR0 Bullshit
where somebody screams as you and you just sit there and don't flinch. After
that they'll scream at you all the time and if you complain they'll tell you
to "keep your TRs in.". If you really cant stand getting abused they don't
want you on board.

------
adamveld12
I had quite a memorable experience where a Google recruiter accidentally CC'd
their post interview survey email instead of BCC. After the initial "haha"
moment we discovered that almost all of the ~2k people in the email list were
African American. A private LinkedIn group was started after that, although I
haven't followed up with it lately.

Also for that particular interview, I waited for an hour and a half in the
lobby before a recruiter finally showed up. It turned out that my recruiter
was let go the day before and my interview time fell between the cracks.
Pretty much the worst experience I've ever had interviewing.

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M_Grey
Because they're huge, they have gobs of money and influence, and people want
to work for them in the hopes of getting a piece of both. Greed is a powerful
force, especially when backed by a complaint ideology.

~~~
thefastlane
curious what you mean by 'complaint ideology' ?

~~~
M_Grey
I mean, "Compliant", but autocorrect bunged me again. My bad!

------
coldcode
Most big companies are terrible at recruiting. Google requires massive numbers
of people so they can't spend much time or concern on any one position or one
recruitee. Even my employer (non SV) can't even post positions for engineers
that make any sense (which is why we get so few candidates).

~~~
tschwimmer
There's no reason why they can auto-generate a "We have decided not to proceed
with your application" email when they move your status to rejected at the
very least. It costs marginally nothing.

~~~
0xCMP
It does when you think you might have another position for them and you don't
want to burn bridges. Which I assume it likely what they're thinking.

~~~
Retric
Not responding burned bridges not just with him but everyone reading this,
sending a polite no would have maintained them.

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codegeek
I am not defending Google here but plenty of reasons I would guess:

\- Lot of people want to work for Google. Plenty of supply

\- Cost/Benefit. The cost of contacting everyone is not worth the benefit.
Probably too many applicants to respond to

\- Because they can. They are Google.

\- They are big. Perhaps a certain division/HR team is worse than others. So
it could come down to specific HR team who is the culprit.

I bet if the supply of candidates go down and they need to find people, they
will respond a lot more.

~~~
nogbit
I interviewed at MS in 2000, they said the same thing during the interview to
one of my questions "Because we can. We are MS.". My response is probably why
I did not get the job.

------
umbs
Like with any BigCo, there are always bad apples (recruiters) and things slip
through cracks. But compared to other similar sized companies, Google is quite
focused on improving their interview processes. You can find lots of resources
online from Google employees explaining it. The one I found very enlightening
is from Moishe Lettvin given at Etsy:
[https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=r8RxkpUvxK0](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=r8RxkpUvxK0)

My own personal experience couple of years ago was good. I failed the
interview though.

~~~
mizzao
Laszlo Bock's _Work Rules!_ highlights many things that have been tried and
implemented at Google to improve recruiting and retention. It might be a bit
effusive, but I think the insights generally do apply to many workplaces.

[https://www.amazon.com/Work-Rules-Insights-Inside-
Transform/...](https://www.amazon.com/Work-Rules-Insights-Inside-
Transform/dp/1455554790)

------
contingencies
Go someplace decent which gives you space, respect as an adult, money and
ethics instead of joining a centralized, politicized, authoritarian spy
network that will treat you like an eternally incapable teenager.

------
strathmeyer
Lol I graduated with a CS degree in 2004 and have been searching for an entry
level software development job ever since. Google was the first and only
company to call me back to tell me I didn't get the job. I think things are
getting worse out there.

~~~
darkstar999
Either you are a really bad developer or you are shooting for the stars. You
really haven't found any work since 2004?

~~~
kzisme
I'm assuming OP was exaggerating...I don't see how they couldn't be based on
the market

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rhapsodic
_> Shouldn't bad recruiting practice like this hurt the company's reputation?_

I imagine it has, to an extent, among their pool of potential candidates.

 _> And shouldn't people be more hesitant to apply to companies knowing that
they will be treated badly?_

I'm sure there are people who have decided not to pursue employment at Google
based on the what they've heard about Google's interview process. But,
apparently, there are still many thousands of good developers who are
undeterred by Google's reputation. So for the time being, in their cost-
benefit analysis, Google has decided they're better off without making major
changes in their hiring process.

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amingilani
Can we have an explanation on why this was flagged?

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elizabethab
I've had the opposite experience. The recruiter proactively provided updates
and kept me up-to-date in terms of expected timeline.

~~~
frustrated_90
I want to meet you! I've seen so many good stories about Google recruiting
online - but I guess my friends and myself aren't big enough sample size to
make a valid conclusion. It is just a bit frustrating, an auto generated email
costs nothing.

~~~
dmoy
It's possible that your recruiter quit and hopped to a different company. That
is one common source for recruiter going dark. It's also possible you got a
really bad recruiter... there's an enormous variance of recruiter quality.

Just guessing here, but auto generated emails are tricky because you don't
want to send people incorrect messaging by accident (for example if your
recruiter wants to swap you between application roles, it may involve a cancel
and add, which could send an auto rejected notice - (hypothetical example, I
have no idea)).

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chinese_dan
They can get away with it because they have an endless supply of intelligent
engineers that want to work there. It's the same effect we see when there is a
monopoly over the marketplace.

~~~
tlb
If so, they underestimate the downside of adverse selection. Bad interview
processes still let you hire lots of people, but select out the people who
care most about processes not sucking. If you do this for a decade, you end up
missing an important element in your organization.

------
secure
If you have any contacts at Google, try asking them to contact the recruiter
directly. That usually works.

Of course, this is not an excuse for the poor treatment you’re receiving, and
I’m sorry to hear that.

------
infodroid
Is your only complaint that the recruiter went silent? Or is that only one
part of the problem? Because it wasn't clear to me from your description what
else went wrong during the process for you to conclude that they have bad
recruitment practices.

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southphillyman
3rd party recruiting agencies get a bad wrap for many justifiable reasons, but
this is one area where they provide value. Even though a company may be using
dozens of agencies each agency will still have an stream of communication to
get real updates no matter how "busy" the hiring HR department is.

Edit: this is assuming the recruiter doesn't go ghost on you themselves that
is....

------
oldmanjay
Do you feel like you needed a little bit more emotional support from people
you probably won't see again?

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ajeet_dhaliwal
Because people, even very good people, especially very good young people put
up with it. I did. Would I now? No. If a Google recruiter contacts me now I
say pass. Ain't nobody got time for that (at a certain age or when you've gone
through it enough).

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jinkies
I had a good experience with Google. The recruiter contacted me at every
chance with updates about where things were. It took two months from first
being contacted but after I had another offer they sped up the process,
scheduling an in person interview two weeks out. After that it was still three
weeks until I received an official offer. What probably made the biggest
difference was having another offer on the table. It put more urgency on
getting me through the process.

------
TheMog
I've interviewed there a couple of times over the years and I was less than
impressed by the process.

Doesn't stop people from applying and they seem to end up with the candidates
they want, so it's probably working for them. They have to standardize on some
process, this one seems to produce the desired results and with the number of
candidates they get, I assume that they're not worried about false negatives,
but are worried about false positives...

------
khedoros1
I had a good experience interviewing with Google earlier this year. Sometimes
there were a couple weeks between steps of the process, but I always had a
clear sense of when I'd be contacted next, and the recruiter and interviewers
always held to the schedule. I was rejected, and got the notice promptly (a
few days after the interview).

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thefastlane
any response at all following an interview puts a company at above average
these days.

that said, my experiences with google have been _way above average._ probably
one of the few companies where i genuinely enjoyed interviewing (i usually
hate interviews). follow-ups were very informative as well. sounds like you
got a flaky recruiter.

------
MrZipf
Could be that the recruiter left. My perception is that recruiters have
greater churn in bi companies.

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SysArchitect
Google called me back and let me know that they position they were hiring for
was filled and that they would keep my information on file.

Have been getting their recruiters calling every 6 months since, and that was
almost 8 years ago now.

~~~
GFK_of_xmaspast
Sounds like they kept your info on file tho?

~~~
SysArchitect
That they have. I don't really mind them reaching out every 6 months
personally...

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kjsingh
Good thing about Amazon is that they consider even interviewees as customers..
and customer obsession is their way to go!

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theremightbe
Dell did a very similar thing to me a few months ago. I think its just a
symptom of large companies

~~~
mercurysmessage
It's happened to me fairly often at small companies, although that could just
be something to do with where I live.

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mercurysmessage
From my experience, this is very normal. I'm surprised you don't find it
normal.

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tofupup
if you get the job make sure it doesn't happen to the next person.

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rajacombinator
the sooner you stop expecting employers to treat you well, the better tbh.

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no_wave
They pay a lot

~~~
ergo14
They do? Czech salary range at google is less than 6k USD/mo i think.

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ThePawnBreak
How does that compare to local salaries?

~~~
ergo14
It seems similar to other bigger IT companies in the region. Nothing special -
but then again I never did any deep research on the subject.

