Going for a job in Google?

Quazi

Hiya, I've go 2 questions re. getting a job at Google:

I learned that the Google recruitment process is based on a veto system that is when ,you get to the face-to-face interviews (after a number of screening ones over the phone) and get interviewed by managers you'll potentially be working with, if one of them dislikes your personality or smth and votes against you while the rest voted Yes, you're thrown out of the race: is this true and if not, what recruitment rules do they follow?

My other question is:
I've done 6 interviews with them for a role and the whole process from contacting them at a job fair to the last one I did with them lasted 5 months! I never got any feedback as to why they didn't offer me the role in the end(impossible to track them down after not hearing from them) which I found very weird when both party invested so much time and efforts (me in particular).
Surely after the first or second interview, they would know if someone is suitable or not? My belief is that they may be using job seekers to improve their recruitment skills as I had questions which where irrelevant in relation to my 18 years of experience in the particular role they were recruiting for. For instance, I was asked what marks I had got in my French degree nearly 20 years ago in subject areas I had studied but which had nothing to do with the career path I eventually followed! The Google person then went on to compare the Irish system with the French system (when you pass a degree in France, it means you've been successfull in getting it but in Ireland if you pass, you're apparently just short of failing!) which I think is not right as it is not comparable (HETAC is still in its infancy and nobody I know in France has heard of it yet!).

I'm not an expert in recruiting skills but I wonder what your thoughts are:
Have I been taken for a ride for the above reason?
Have you experienced the different recruiting stages at Google and did you feel "unclean" after it was all over without understanding what happened?
I've been googling for years and have had great respect for them but I wonder what Larry Page knows about what goes on at recruitment level?

Anyway, thanks for your replies!

Quazi (oh wait! Maybe that's it: I've got a hump!:eek: )

Supercell

You know what fascinates me about Google job interviews and the many many posts we get here?

No-one ever ever claims to have got the job and follows up to say how its like to work for big G (dare I say McG)

This imho says a lot about what the company is like to work for- whether its Big Bro X10 and we should all be afraid, or Boardsies are all talentless....hmm with 75K users..there are plenty of smart people here (well make that 74,999 + one semi literate ).

No-one ever ever ever, in the history of boards (to my knowledge) has claimed to work for Google and been a regular poster.

We have had IBM heads, Gateway heads, Dell heads, Intel Heads etc etc..but no Google ones

Tbh this scares me a little, I honestly doubt that no-one reading boards is a Google employee, and secondly I honestly don't believe that no-one reading boards is an unhappy Google employee.

Life has thought me that you can't please all of the people all of the time, and 75K happy users..no way..Google scares me little, why aren't their disgruntled employees posting anywhere?

Even a "Google sucks - I can't spend all week playing World Of Warcraft" post would be nice..but theres nothing..its strange..just like their recruitment process.
Cult of Google..good luck...

Wish you best of luck with the job (but am 100% certain we won't hear about it..or at least a genuine version of it!).

vimak

I also went to Google interviews, for a data centre technician position. I had... maybe 5 or 6 phone interviews, and then two hours at Google's office interviewed by four people, two at a time. Interview didn't go as well as I could have hoped for, so obviously I didn't get the position.

It has now been 5 or 6 months already, and the opening is still listed on Google's web site. Is there something wrong with ppl in Ireland or is Google just collecting data on everyone working in IT in Ireland ?) (Maybe they're starting their own Google Recruitement soon...). I can't imagine they wouldn't have found suitable person in six months.

Network Engineering jobs are also about the same as they were six months ago...

leeroybrown

It wouldn't surprise me if they were hiring the people they want and not filling jobs just because they have a vacancy. Some places are like that.

I'm not entirely surprised that there aren't too many people from Google posting about their job. To take the Intel example above, there are probably close ot 4000 directly employed 'blue badge' Intel workers currently in Ireland. There are a decent number of Intel employees who visit Boards. If you read back over the threads about Intel here you'll find that the majority of people who post about them have either left (including me) or want to leave. The majority of Intel workers on Boards probably never mention their affiliation. I never directly mention my current employer. Most of them probably rarely visit the Work board.

Now scale that back to Google who are supposed to be a very good employer, are a relatively recent presence in Ireland and have a much smaller staff base. Based on this I'm not at all surprised that very little is mentioned about Google.

As for their recruitment, I think it is quite a drawn out process but I've got no problem with that. Personally, I think hiring the right people is very important. The one negative impression I get is that their recruitment/staffing people (or external staffing company) tend to drop people without giving enough courtesy calls, etc. I'm guessing that this only happens for the lower level positions. If you want to run a drawn out recruitment process you need to have good communication around it.

tHE vAGGABOND

there was quite a long thread about google here a couple of months ago..

basically their insane long, interview process has put a fair few of us here off working there full stop..

BossArky

Longfield, to answer your question as to why no one here mentions that they work for google:

Most companies I've worked for have clauses in contracts stating that the employee cannot use the name of the company outside of general work use, and cannot associate the company with themselves outside of the job.

This is why I will not say "I work for X" and I'm sure it is the same for many others. Plus, you don't want your name popping up in a search engine when someone (i.e. your boss) types in "Company X, Dublin".

jester77

My girlfriend works for them.
The interview process that you described is just the way it is. You have to have phone interviews with everyone you are dealing with and if one of them is not convinced then tough luck. some of the interviews will be with some of their senior personel in Mountain View as well. Also what they take into consideration is where you studied and your college course and results. They have a league table of colleges and uni's which are given internal ratings. If you studied somewhere that is not on the list then your chances are slim to none.

tHE vAGGABOND

I did 2 phone interviews for a job there. Neither of the interviews was perfect, but at the same time, neither was a disaster..

I got called in for a face to face interview a full 6 weeks after the second phone interview. I dont know how they expect people to sit about and wait for them for that long.

TBH I have heard so many people [here and in real life] complain about their recruitment processes since I moved home from the UK a few months ago, it seems to me that their HR department needs a large kick in the ass tbh.

Metacortex

That sounds like a bit of a nightmare.
You're not trying to get a job in Area 51 FFS.

I can't believe they leave so much time between phone interviews and face to face interviews.

professore

leeroybrown wrote:

It wouldn't surprise me if they were hiring the people they want and not filling jobs just because they have a vacancy. Some places are like that.

I'm not entirely surprised that there aren't too many people from Google posting about their job. To take the Intel example above, there are probably close ot 4000 directly employed 'blue badge' Intel workers currently in Ireland. There are a decent number of Intel employees who visit Boards. If you read back over the threads about Intel here you'll find that the majority of people who post about them have either left (including me) or want to leave. The majority of Intel workers on Boards probably never mention their affiliation. I never directly mention my current employer. Most of them probably rarely visit the Work board.

Now scale that back to Google who are supposed to be a very good employer, are a relatively recent presence in Ireland and have a much smaller staff base. Based on this I'm not at all surprised that very little is mentioned about Google.

As for their recruitment, I think it is quite a drawn out process but I've got no problem with that. Personally, I think hiring the right people is very important. The one negative impression I get is that their recruitment/staffing people (or external staffing company) tend to drop people without giving enough courtesy calls, etc. I'm guessing that this only happens for the lower level positions. If you want to run a drawn out recruitment process you need to have good communication around it.

Spoken like a true GOOGLE employee drone from Sector 7G!

leeroybrown

professore wrote:

Spoken like a true GOOGLE employee drone from Sector 7G!

I figured someone would think that but I'm not a Google employee. My only association with Google is that I use their search engine.

Moonbeam

Maybe they jsut don't employ people who psot to Boards.ie ;P

whippet

my brother works with Google and he posts here most days.

I know he loves his job and is quite happy with it, he does work long hours mind you.

Personally I applied for a position and after a few telephone screenings I got called for the face to face interviews and felt I did a good job. I was told I would hear back on a particular day, which I did and had a good discussion with one of the recruiters as to why I didn't get the job. After that conversation I realised that the job wasn't for me and that there was no way that I would be happy in the role.

Horses for courses and all that, but if you are prepared to give them a wide berth because of the 'horror' stories you hear about the interview process then they probably don't want to hear from you as you more than likely don't suit their organisation.

I didn't find their recruitment process in any way unprofessional, quite the opposite actually, but that is just me.

On the idea of discussing your employer on 'boards' I would never dream of it. My work, social and online life are all seperate, and a quick google of my companies name could bring up something i said many moons ago

BuffyBot

Pay no attention to the man behind the curtain is a phrase which seems to come to my mind when this place comes up.

BossArky

I would be interested to know what these people are doing at Google once they eventually clamber through the recruitment process. Cure for cancer? Brokering world peace deals?

3 of the companies I have worked for (first as a student, second as first real job after Uni, and third as current employer) pride themselves on attracting and retaining the best talent & people.

My point being --> I doubt Google are doing anything extra special, apart from putting themselves on a pedestal. All the other big name successful companies are looking for the best people too. They have them, especially in HR and those who design the recruitment processes.

Flat

i went through the whole google recruitment thingy, phone interview and three interviews in the office

thing was the three people interviewing me were roughly my age, one older, one younger and one roughly the same

I didnt get the job and I know for a fact it was cause the manager fella was the same age as me and he didnt want to rock his little team's boat by hiring somone that might be smarter or have as much experience as him

... so as far as I am concerned google have a pretty poor recruitment process if someone can be turned down on that basis, ie someone in HR should have told the little fooker to suck it up or a more senior manager type should have made the decision

leeroybrown

Flat wrote:

I didnt get the job and I know for a fact it was cause the manager fella was the same age as me and he didnt want to rock his little team's boat by hiring somone that might be smarter or have as much experience as him

...and you actually have proof of this?

Flat

of course not... by 'fact' I mean 'strongly believe'

Tha Gopher

Longfield wrote:

You know what fascinates me about Google job interviews and the many many posts we get here?

No-one ever ever claims to have got the job and follows up to say how its like to work for big G (dare I say McG)

This imho says a lot about what the company is like to work for- whether its Big Bro X10 and we should all be afraid, or Boardsies are all talentless....hmm with 75K users..there are plenty of smart people here (well make that 74,999 + one semi literate ).

No-one ever ever ever, in the history of boards (to my knowledge) has claimed to work for Google and been a regular poster.

We have had IBM heads, Gateway heads, Dell heads, Intel Heads etc etc..but no Google ones

Probably because talking about your company on a public forum isnt the best idea, particularly if you like to check out the forum from work.

I know a girl whos boyfriend works there, "looking at porn all day" is apparently his responsibility (no, seriously, objectionable content or whatever is apparently his role). She said the interviews are tough alright.

valen

Warning: I do work for Google, but I'm not in HR, I'm in Engineering.

To start with, yeah, I drink the Koolaid. Google may have flaws, but its one of the most awesome places to work. If you think you have what it takes to work there, check out google.ie/jobs and see if you are a match for any of them. Mail a friend that works there, ask their opinion. They'll put your name in for a job that matches best.

Why is it good ? I spent last week in Barcelona, at the IEEE Cluster Computing conference, all expenses paid. Engineers are expected to help out recruiters & go to conferences, mingling, trying to find new & interesting people. And advertise Google, I suppose. We got printouts of the cool papers on http://labs.google.com/papers then passed them around & chatted to people about them. Wonderful week. Where else wants you to do that as part of your job ?

I'm surrounded by ****-hot engineers. If you need a problem with your python programming, you mail the python mailing list, and the guy who invented it might answer. We had a meeting one morning with Vint Cerf (Mr TCP/IP) about how to work as a distributed engineering team. It was an amazing few hours. Managers manage ... very little. You do what you know you need to do. We don't hire people that need minding. If you come across someone who is wrong about something, you can tell him, and he'll accept it. One day at lunch, I was chatting to someone who used to be a captain for NASA, and was now working as a Google project manager. Where else ?

I like our review/reward process. Firstly, money is good, shares are great, but the best thing is at the end of the year, you tell your co-workers how they are doing, and give feedback on what you think they should do better. They do the same to you. From all that feedback, and what he sees, your manager has a good idea of what his team is. When you go for a promotion, it's your managers job to fight for you, in front of engineers that are a grade or three above you - so you have to convince your peers that you rock. Office politics don't work here. And the main motivator to work ? Pride in what you do, knowing that changes you make get seen by hundreds of millions of people, and friendly rivalry with your co-workers do to cool stuff when you can.

Really cool people come to have a chat with us, both in the US and in Ireland. Bono was in the Dublin office before I joined. I think the US guys get maybe four visitors a week (they make the videos available, and sometimes they make it to video.google.com). A few guys from ESA called out to tell us about Space, and beg us to add all their astro data to Google Earth, and call it Google Universe. And the amazing thing is...if you get hired, you can do that. 20% time isn't a myth. One of my co-workers got bored one afternoon. Downloaded the Google Earth code & help with the effort to port it to OSX. If you can't program, that's cool. We have people using their 20% time on charity or environmental work, education programmes for staff, or the like.

What you need, you get. They think no engineer should be more than 50 metres from free food, in case they get distracted. You need an dual-cpu Mac instead of a dual-opteron ? That's cool, just ask. That said, the guys in one office logged a ticket looking for a roof-mounted swimming pool one summer. Management did the math, worked out that the roof couldn't support the weight of water, and refused them. That said, the guys in MTV did get a bouncy castle in their office - they had to give up four desks to fit it in though.

The people around here are really sound. The Google Europe ski trip this year was *wonderful*. Maybe a thousand people booked out a valley in the shadow of Mont Blanc in northern Italy. We partied & skied for two days (well, some of us stayed on for the weekend). Great fun. We'ed a big party organisedf or us, in a gym hall - hundreds of people merrily mingling across teams and countries. Even the senior managers were out with us till four in the morning. And that's not a big deal. It's just ... Googley. Sorry if you need to puke at the sentimentality.

Right. The Hiring Process. I think it's one of the best I've come across. If you usually get your jobs because you are good, and know people, so just get recommended into a place...you'll get a shock. Depending on the job, they'll get between 100 and 600 CVs for each person they hire. So, it isn't a shoe-in.

CVs get screened by recruiters that may not know what your CV means, so sometimes it'll get dumped silently; they take 500 CVs, and maybe choose the top 100 (this number has been made up by me just now) to call and chat to, to see what you are like. If they like you, and think you are serious, you'll get a few phone screens, then get called in for serious chats. If you are going to join a biggish team, they'll try get most of the team to interview you. A large number of Google hires came in as referrals from friends - so such CVs are closely scrutinised and always get a response, AFAIK.

Anyway. With such a volume of applicants, Google will risk losing someone good, to make sure that they don't hire someone that isn't good. I've referred some really good friends who were refused. In some cases, where I really thought they'd made a mistake, I'd a chat with the manager who refused them. He might be able to give broad outlines on where my friend was weak, so I could challenge the decision...but after talking to my friend, it turned out they made a good call. A better one than I could have.

When interviewing, you are told 'hire people smarter than you'. And they mean it. The reason you have to interview with so many people is that you might have a personality clash with someone - and if you get six thumbs up, and one thumbs down, the recruiters will chat to the interviewers, try work out why there was a problem, and see can they get a consensus. If you don't get hired, don't be sore...and don't assume it was just because one guy doesn't like you. You must have made a bad impression on more than one...

Last year, I think I interviewed 90 people. So don't moan if you have to do seven interviews. Think of doing 90 ! When I interviewed, I had wait a long time for feedback. There are now many more recruiters based in Europe (we have many European offices, not just Dublin!), so that should go a lot quicker now. We even get to interview our potential managers - after all, if a network manager doesn't know how to solve obscure networks problem and can't repair a busted linux installation, how can he manage people who do ?

If anyone has any questions on Google, Google jobs or Hiring, give me a shout, and I'll try answer them, or get someone to answer them for you. You won't get confidential information, but I don't want Google to get a bad rep for hiring that it doesn't deserve.

I'll also be giving a talk ("Managing Multi-Million Machine Clusters") somewhat based on what we do at the ILUG AGM this month, when ever it gets organised. Give me a shout if you want to be notified about that.

John (Site Reliability Engineer in Google Dublin)

Supercell

valen, thanks for the insight into Google.

I just wrote a knee jerk response, but then deleted it before posting (I do that a lot when a post interests me - thanks for it!)

Very interesting look at the corporate culture, reading that am not suprised that the interview process can be pretty rigorous.

Can certainly understand that it takes a certain type to want and be wanted to work there.

Personally it seems more like a cult to me than a workplace, but if it hurts no-one and everyone is happy its all good.

Alun

Longfield wrote:

Personally it seems more like a cult to me than a workplace, but if it hurts no-one and everyone is happy its all good.

ROFL! It does sound a bit like that, doesn't it? Not that I'd be averse to working in an environment like that myself (fat chance), but I'd be curious as to what the long-term prospects would be like if you worked somewhere like Google and then moved back into the "real world" of office politics and unrealistic schedules ... could you cope?

valen

Alun wrote:

ROFL! It does sound a bit like that, doesn't it? Not that I'd be averse to working in an environment like that myself (fat chance), but I'd be curious as to what the long-term prospects would be like if you worked somewhere like Google and then moved back into the "real world" of office politics and unrealistic schedules ... could you cope?

I do wonder.

After having jobs as varied as working as a non-union cleaner in intensive care & morgues, companies where you had to work regular 24 hour shifts & 24/7/365 on call to stop it going out of business, mind numbing phone support in companies that told you to hang up on customers after 12 minutes, or working in places where it wasn't unusual to be told your paycheck would be a few days/weeks late due to 'cashflow problems' (if at all), Google is a breath of fresh air.

And then you have the guys who get in straight from college, and within few months give out that the Ben & Jerrys fridge is a little cold or that they want to go back to college because they get pissed off that the whole place doesn't work they think it should... I wonder what'll happen when they do move on into another job..

longfield: Yeah, it is a bit like a cult, where most people genuinely love and live for the place. I think if more companies were organised like that, the world would be a better place. I just wish more of them worked under the purview of the european Working Time Directive.

John

leeroybrown

Thanks for the info John. This is also the first time I've seen anyone who has actually worked for Google has said anything about them.

I'm interested in the "Managing Multi-Million Machine Clusters" talk you will be giving but will probably be unlikely to be around Dublin at the time.

EDIT- From your it even makes my job which has a huge amount of flexibility seem regimented.

Supercell

valen wrote:

longfield: Yeah, it is a bit like a cult, where most people genuinely love and live for the place. I think if more companies were organised like that, the world would be a better place. I just wish more of them worked under the purview of the european Working Time Directive.

John

Do you have a plan for life after Google?

eth0_

Valen - on average, how many hours a week do you work?

All this free sh*t google throw at their staff sounds nice when you first hear about it, but I can't help thinking they just try to shackle their employee's to the business. I know a few people in google and they work pretty ridiculous hours. I guess there is a feeling that you 'owe' the company something more in return for that free ice cream.

I also don't know what to make of the evangelical attitude google employee's have toward the company. At the end of the day, it's just a job, and everyone is dispensable, just like in every other company.

Or am I just a cynic?

Kinetic^

eth0_ wrote:

Or am I just a cynic?

I would've said a realist.

In google, you are a number and if a number doesn't want to work OT I would imagine that number would be swiftly told you go be a number elsewhere...........too many numbers

valen

eth0_ wrote:

All this free sh*t google throw at their staff sounds nice when you first hear about it, but I can't help thinking they just try to shackle their employee's to the business. I know a few people in google and they work pretty ridiculous hours. I guess there is a feeling that you 'owe' the company something more in return for that free ice cream.

Aye, some work long hours. I don't like it. I do nine-to-six, sometimes stay late, if someone wants a chat (the californians don't get in till six or seven our time), or if my wife works late. But there is no problem calling in an hour or two late the next day, or working from home if you need to. That said, what's the harm in staying till seven if you've gotten in 20 mins at the scaletrix set and another 40 at guitar hero?

I do see people working way more than they should...they get hooked. It's mostly the younger guys who have energy, no girlfriend or have relocated here so don't have a huge amount taking up their time. And then there are the others who run out at 18:00 with their mountain climbing gear. If you get your work done, that's enough. Anything extra is for you.

That said, if you do two 12 hour on-call shifts over a weekend, you can take the monday off. Few jobs let you do that. Though of course, on-call in Google means something - if I get a page saying something is down, I have to fix it ASAP. All Google services can afford to lose a datacenter or two - but if you don't fix a problem before it grows, or a second problem crops up, it might be reported in a few international newspapers the next day. Which on its own is pretty cool. If scary.

I also don't know what to make of the evangelical attitude google employee's have toward the company. At the end of the day, it's just a job, and everyone is dispensable, just like in every other company.
Or am I just a cynic?

You can be a cynic. But, to me, work is more than a paycheck. It's what I do with more than half of my waking hours. So it better be enjoyable and worth something.

One of my little side-projects this year was as part of the "Best Places To Work" team. We entered the Irish part of the competition for the first time this year. Most companies set the HR & Marketing departments on this, and they produce really good marketing material to show how great they are to work for.

Google thought that doing this with marketeers was unfair, so management got each group (adsense, hr, sysops, production, networks, adwords support, facilities etc.) to nominate someone to help out. Not a marketer, and not a manager. Someone who was 'representative' of the team. At the end of the day, we got a 'special' nomination for most friendly company to work in, and finished in the top 10. This is *unheard of* in this sort of competition, where its common to use the first two or three entries as 'practice runs' until you can work out what the Best Companies judges want to hear.

On 'life after Google'...

When I started in my career, it was all about the technology. I loved tinkering, writing software, telling people about tech. I got the Irish Linux User group going. All my jobs were severely techie. Somewhere around year seven or eight, I burned out, and never turned on my PC when I got home. Google has started to re-ignite that interest again, though in a different way. I don't mess around with linux distributions anymore...I'm more interested in how fast you can install ten thousand machines, or spotting patterns in machine behaviour that can be solved by reinstalling 200 of them, so a human doesn't need to waste his time on them. So, business processes and the human side of engineering is of more interest to me now. Google lets me work on whatever is more interesting.

I can see a time when even that gets boring though. My dream is to wait until the pub licences are unregulated. I'll buy one, and setup a medieval meadery with a bar. If possible, I'll make sure it doesn't even have electricity, so you get good ale, good mead and candlelight. Not a computer to be seen. I certainly couldn't see any reason to leave for another tech company.

John

Evo

do google ever offer any summer work for third level students?

valen

Yes, though it's not very common in the Dublin office.

Check out:

http://www.google.com/support/jobs/bin/topic.py?student=usin

Again, the best thing to do is - if someone that knows how good you are works for Google, send them your CV, so they'll give you a referral/letter of introduction with the application.

John

shoegirl

I've been to a lot of IT interviews over the years and have to say that a long drawn out process can be annoying, but then again, I know of a guy who took 5 interviews to get into his job, but 6 years later, he's still there, they really looked after him and he loves it.

I think it depends on the company. The last 2 job offers I had were on the basis of just one face to face interview (and in one case a phone interview and written tech test), both with good companies. At the same time I've experienced annoying experiences with one or two companies, but I think it boils down to the company culture and what they look for (and if they know what they are looking for). If you don't fit the culture or find an interviewer who just doesn't like you then obviously you won't fit in. Google by the sound of it has a very strong culture that a lot of people won't fit into.

Some companies just have very different hiring methods and some go more on hunchesI think. In fairness to Google, I've also worked in companies where horrendous hiring mistakes were made and these have lasting repercussions. I think I'd prefer to work somewhere that doesn't make these mistakes than somewhere that does.

Lastly, I do think newer companies tend not to have the recruitment process off to a tee quite simply because people are still feeling their way - there may be an element of that in Google.

newestUser

I'm pretty sure I know who Valen is. When I was doing my undergrad course in DCU he was quite active in the Redbrick networking society. I didn't know him personally. It seems like a fair few ex-Redbrick people ended up working in Google. While I was in DCU (which was a while ago) certain people in Redbrick had a reputation for being a bit "weird" and cliquey. I'm not surprised that a lot of these people have ended up working in the same company, eulogising it on boards and elsewhere, leading to people accusing them of belonging to some kind of cult which delights in excluding people. Plus ca change, etc.

I'm painting with broad strokes here,but I think it is true that you have to be "one of the herd" to work in Google. I'm not sure I'd like working there, I don't think I'd fit into this culture, and it'd drive me nuts to be immersed in it. But if people want to work there, and enjoy working there, more power to them!

leeroybrown

I can imagine that anyone who was heavily involved in a netsoc/compsoc and had a strong interest in computing/technology would have been thought of as wierd and cliquey by someone who didn't understand the jokes, etc. I was involved in running a computer society in college and some people I know genuinely couldn't fathom what it was all about.

If Google are going out of their way to bring together people who are genuinely interested in what they do then more power to them. I'd rather be working with smart motivated people than disinterested drones. I've worked in places where the only common ground I had with my co-workers was that we all got paid by the same company. It makes a world of difference to have people around who actually share interests with you and can get on well with you.

I've worked for companies that have had a 'corporate culture' that I found quite negative and stifling. I certainly wouldn't like to work in that kind of environment again. By comparison Google sounds like their idea of 'corporate culture' is something different and positive.

eth0_

about redbrick..I think you have things a bit wrong there. I am a member and I aint a nerd, but I know people on it who work for google and they are *really* good at what they do. Redbrick would have taught them more real life stuff about unix and networking than CA, if they had been admins during their time in DCU!

Just because they happened to end up working in Google together doesn't really mean it's a 'jobs for the boys' thing. Correlation doesn't equal causation

valen

I'm painting with broad strokes here,but I think it is true that you have to be "one of the herd" to work in Google. I'm not sure I'd like working there, I don't think I'd fit into this culture, and it'd drive me nuts to be immersed in it. But if people want to work there, and enjoy working there, more power to them!

It is interesting that the type of engineers that Google Ireland seems to have hired are not the usual mix. Maybe 20% of them are Irish - we have polish, slovenian, austrailian, romanian, english, uruguaian, russian, welsh, american, canadian, french, italian, ukrainian etc. So I'd *strongly* suggest it's neither an old-boys-club or cliquish.

However, of the 20% engineers who are irish, the majority had some sort of connection to Redbrick or the Irish Linux User Group. There are a couple of TCD guys, a couple of UCD guys, and now one from UL. The main thing they have in common are strong problem solving skills, confidence, and a desire to help people. Something which I think Redbrick and the TCD netsoc fostered, so it's not surprising that redbrick/netsoc 'graduates' would be drawn there.

newestUser

Well, I'm in agreement with everything that the 3 posters following my last post said. Birds of a feather flock together; the people that were drawn together in various computer socs are drawing together out in the working world. I'm not for a *second* suggesting that these people did not get their jobs on merit; I know a lot of the people who are/were involved in Redbrick and Netsoc are extremely skilled.

To be honest, my opinion is extremely unbalanced. I'm basing it on a small number of people (you could count them on one hand) who work there. These are people who are religious about Linux, drink lots of coffee, are very bright, neglect their physical appearance etc., in other words, your archetypal techie clones. If you were to tell me that these people weren't trying, at least a little bit, to fit into a particular stereotype, I wouldn't believe you. There are superficial similarities, and not so superficial similarities. I'm not sneering at these people, their appearance, their personalities or any aspect of them. But I do think that there's a degree of uniformity of character in tech environments, and this leads to a certain culture being generated. It's not a culture based on nationality. It's not based on gender or age. It's not based on you turning up in a suit and tie. It *is*, however, based on the way you think and reason, ie being very logical, deterministic, valuing substance over style.

In sum, my observations would probably be more suited to a wildly generalised debate about working in tech in general, rather than working in Google, and I don't know enough people working in Google to have a proper opinion of the company.

KoopaTroopa

You have 18 YEARS of experience and they push you around for six months? Maybe we should boycott Google. *Setting Home Page to www.ask.com*.

I've heard they're slave drivers anyway.

newestUser

Boycott me arse. They've great products, even if I wouldn't like to work for them. Nobody's forcing you to work there.

KoopaTroopa wrote:

You have 18 YEARS of experience and they push you around for six months? Maybe we should boycott Google. *Setting Home Page to www.ask.com*.

jank

Very interesting thread.

I must say. I would like to do a bit of that in a few years. Learning tomorrow's technology. http://labs.google.com/papers/

Working in a Windows Server/Networking Envirnoment is all good but I couldnt see myself doing it forever. Im setting goals for myself to do my CCNP and slowly move into the more challenging network side of things but to also try to get into some type of teaching tech job where I could pursue some research, maybe a phd

When I did my MSc in DCU the one thing that struck me the most was the amount of knowledge there is in the world.

When someone puts their mind to something its amazing what they can achieve.
I never compiled a Java program in my life before that but in a matter of weeks i was compling programs that used a Root CA to encrpyt and decrpyt Mail through RSA, cracking DES and loads of other cryptographic algorithms.

I would love to get into research but Im not sure id have the confidence patience to do that. And most of all I dont know what part of Computer Science I like most!

Valen sounds like you have a great job!

Duffman

Don't be put off by the interview process. Google is a great place to work and I think the interview system has a lot to do with that.

I've heard some stories about people employed in the business side of things that might put you off but engineering is great

Some posters above suggested that it might not be like working "in the real world". This is certainly not the case. Hard work, long hours, office politics and such are as much a feature of the organisation as they are anywhere else.

But certain aspects of the Google environment seem to set it apart from other organisations and really make it an enjoyable place to work - the people, for example. In my experience there are lots of incredibly smart people at Google. But nobody ever seems to be too busy to help you out or too important to take time to teach you something useful.

Obviously you can't be told exactly what you need to do to get through the interviews but I think genuinely wanting the job, and communicating that interest are the best things you can do. There's no question of only hiring a certain kind of candidate. The workforce is pretty much as diverse as it gets.

Hope that encourages you a bit.

hobosoap

Hi All,

Very useful thread, thanks to all the contributors so far. For anyone thinking of applying to Google for a job, can you give some more abstract details about the recruitment process? I think what has been said already about lots of phone and face to face interviews may be easily misinterpreted.

For example, people say they have several phone interviews, fair enough, it's not much inconvenience to take many phone calls. If you get through the phone screening and are called for interview in person, some people have said they had multiple in person interviews.

Does this mean multiple in person interviews on the same day, or multiple in person interviews over multiple days? If the later that would be very trying! How many seperate days?

Also, are there any special techniques used for the software engineering interviews? For example tests - what kind of formats? For example are there standard written exams/multiple choice exams with a certain time allocation to be done in private or whiteboard coding in front of an interviewing panel? Any information like this would be very helpful.

Kamie

valen wrote:

Right. The Hiring Process. I think it's one of the best I've come across.

Just wanted to thank you for your input although the recruitment process is totally different for engineers: don't you get a set of specific questions which if you answer correctly, will get you the job? You can even have the questions prior to the interview, which I would say is a great help. Another thing I noticed is how strange that Google can give feedback to others as part of their DNA but as soon as one is critical of Google, one of their little soldier instantly gets up and fight...

eth0_

Kamie - They won't give you the job if you get all the questions right but come across as a total d1ck or under confident on the phone!

valen

hobosoap wrote:

For example, people say they have several phone interviews, fair enough, it's not much inconvenience to take many phone calls. If you get through the phone screening and are called for interview in person, some people have said they had multiple in person interviews.

We hire a lot of people, into a lot of different jobs. Obviously a Network Deployment Manager will get a very different interview from a security guard.

I can only speak in detail for engineering. Usually, the recruiter will ring you up for a brief chat to see what you are like, and tell you what to expect. They'll have a list of 100 or so questions (which gets changed from time to time), and ask three or four. If you get them right, then they consider you worth an in-depth phone screen with an engineer. If they don't think you are a really bad fit, you'll get a second phone screen. If both sets of feedback is reasonably good, you'll get called in for in-person interviews.

Does this mean multiple in person interviews on the same day, or multiple in person interviews over multiple days? If the later that would be very trying! How many seperate days?

It depends on the job. We won't take someone from Ukraine over for a single interview, and then tell him to call in again a week later. We'll do our best to get all four interviews in one day. If someone is from Dublin, we might ask him to come in twice, so we can be sure we get the best fit of people to interview (we are really busy, on call, have meetings, go to remote offices, etc. so aren't always free when someone wants to come in).

The hiring comittee meets weekly, to discuss all the interview feedback for that week. They are really picky; if they don't think a candidate had a chance to shine, they'll call them back in for another interview or two. If they think someone is a better fit for another job, they'll call them in for another interview with a different team. Obviously, if they aren't 100% happy that the person is a good fit, they'll decline. They get the last word, not the individual interviewers.

Also, are there any special techniques used for the software engineering interviews? For example tests - what kind of formats? For example are there standard written exams/multiple choice exams with a certain time allocation to be done in private or whiteboard coding in front of an interviewing panel? Any information like this would be very helpful.

It's up to the job, the interviewer, and the candidate. A few friends went for SoftEng jobs. They were given worksheets to do before coming in in person. Not something an operations job interview entails. Once you call in, it's up to the interviewer to ask questions they think are relevant to the position in question. There are no exams - that's the kind of thing that'd find its way onto a blog somewhere!

For instance, if you were going for my job (looking after production machines), I'd ask questions to see how you would deal with events like losing a datacenter to a mudslide, or to tell me about any kernel hacking you'd done. If you were going for a Sysops Manager job, I'd ask you about policies for security patches, and risk assessments. Questions with no definite answer. And then, when writing my interview feedback I'd write maybe 2000 words on what I thought of you as a person and a potential hire.
And then, just for the hell of it, I'd ask you how to use tcpdump to find out who was leeching bittorrents down your home broadband connection or ask you to write a linked list in shell.

If you think you are half decent, the Google interviewing process might be worth it. You could learn a lot about yourself doing it.

John