Google gets around 3 million applications a year now, according to HR head Laszlo Bock, and hires 7000. That means only one in 428 applicants end up with a job, making it far more selective than institutions like Harvard, Yale, and Stanford. Those are pretty thin odds, but when Bock joined in 2006 from General Electric, Google’s hiring process was even more daunting—especially since the company’s future was by no means a sure thing.
“My last week at GE the CEO of my division took me aside, and said ‘Laszlo, this Google thing is cute, but I don’t really think it’s going anywhere. When you’re ready for a real company we’ll hold a job for you, and you can come back any time,'” Bock said in a speech at LinkedIn’s Talent Connect conference yesterday
It took some convincing to get people on board back then, Bock says. Many were taking pay cuts to join, and they had to run the guantlet to do so: “Hiring took 6 to 9 months and people sat for 15 to 25 interviews. It was an awful experience.” The company was also notorious for asking impossible brain teasers, which Bock says he hates and is still working to eradicate from Google interviews.
Things are a bit more orderly now that Google is perhaps the most sought-after employer in the world, with a workforce of more than 50,000.
A former co-worker of mine got hired there, it can't be that difficult.
ReplyDelete