One thing I can't stand is "recruiters" who invite you to come interview with them. Oh, great, you "invite" me to come torture myself for months on end just so I can have a snowball's chance in hell at getting a job? This is 2012. If you want to learn about me, go on my website and read my blog posts, look at my current projects, and download my resumé.
If you think I'm so great, make me an offer. Don't spam my inbox with "We're Hiring!" e-mails.
As someone who does a fair amount of hiring, I would never hire someone off the strength of their (supposed) work alone. The ability to problem solve under pressure and their ability to communicate effectively with others are really important factors I won't get from looking at their Github account.
I agree in situations where the candidates are the ones doing the outreach. However, what I'm saying is that I don't want to be recruited by a company unless they've actually heard of me before and think my work is on par with what they want. It's bullshit to me to be spammed by a company that claims you'd be great with their team, only to be dumped into the same candidate pool as 800 other applicants.
From memory, it goes something like this for technical positions:
Initial telephone call with a HR person, where you are asked to rank yourself on a scale of 0 to 10 in a number of technical areas. Some simple technical questions, where the HR person has the answer in front of them, with ample remarks from Google engineers to help them judge if you completely failed or had a clue.
3 telephone calls with Google engineers, where you're asked to solve technical problems and questions over the phone. Some of this may involve programming "live" in a Google Doc where the interviewer is connected to.
You're flow in to a Google location. (You don't get to choose which one) 5 Live interviews over 45 minutes each where you're asked to solve technical problems on a blackboard. Most of them aren't extremely difficult, but they cover a wide enough range of topics (and the interviewers go in depth on each one of them) so you should expect to struggle with some of them. During the break at noon you're shown all the perks of the relevant Google office.
You're flown home. You may or may not get an additional phone interviews. At the end, the HR person guiding the process subjects your file to a hiring committee. After a week or two they call you back and tell you if you made it or not.
Sounds about correct that the entire process takes 3 months. The time in between phone interviews takes a while, you need to find mutual scheduling for being flow in, etc.
I get loads of "opportunities", by HR people from employment agencies that never even had contact with the company they'll be presenting me to. By comparison, companies doing the same thing isn't that bad.
If you think I'm so great, make me an offer. Don't spam my inbox with "We're Hiring!" e-mails.