Google's Hiring

How good are you with brain-twisters?

[hannamyluv]

Now, a new aptitude test Google is circulating purports to find the best and brightest. But is it really a brilliant ad campaign?

[internetnews.com...]

Quirky, is one of the words the article uses to describe the GLAT.

Here's a link to it.
http://www.google.com/#*$!/2004/09/pencils-down-people.html

[whoisgregg]

"Pre-employment testing is a science, and [the answers to these questions] are not very objective data," said Sean Lally, an Encinitas, Calif.-based technology recruiter.

"[Hires] are going to be based the quality of the resumes," [Sean Lally] said. "Somebody who has real cultural issues might not get half of the jokes, but if he has a Ph.D. from MIT in the specific type of technology they need, they won't care if he doesn't get any of the cultural stuff."

Wow, Sean Lally would never be hired by Google. Did the writer of the article specifically seek out a commenter that would completely miss the point? Or did the writer also miss the point?

[nalin]

They did some billboards (in Silicon Vally and other prominent places) with something along the lines of

www.[the first 10 digit prime which appears in consecutive digits of e].com,

The website corresponding to the answer then asked one to decipher a pattern and use the next number in the sequence as a password at a third site. The third site redirected to googles hiring page.

It appeared on (a prominent geek portal) and both answers were given in a few hours, kinda killed the whole thing (interest wise) for me.

They also sponsored the world puzzle challange some months back. Overall they have some great recruiting stuff going on, brand yourself and be subtle about discriminitory hiring practices (IE your application takes priority so long as you solve this puzzle).

[httpwebwitch]

Pre-interview SATs are common; they're intended as a way to filter out candidates. I've taken a few myself. I even wrote one when my company was hiring, for their newspaper ad. The ad was written in ASP; in order for a resume to be considered, the cover letter also had to be written in ASP. (the job was for a ASP developer)

IMHO these puzzles (blatantly publicized) are not serious - they're just part of G's PR marketing. Sure Google probaby doesn't hire dimwits, but they probably have plenty of plebes on staff that can't solve a quadratic equation. but they'd have you believe they're an elite crew of Mensa geniuses.

And frankly I think it works. It's a great campaign. I like doing puzzles. and I also wouldn't mind working at Google. wouldn't you?

[bears5122]

Seems like a lot of work that real engineers wouldn't have time to do as they have real jobs. Maybe instead of games, Google should be hiring legit engineers with experience, not those who figured out a puzzle. Could help their bad SERPs.

[quotations]

real engineers

They are just programmers and mathematicians.

Just like when you need to run a real company, you need to hire a real CEO, when you want to create a real system which meets validated and verified requirements, you need to hire some real Systems Engineers.