Google’s recruiting process is notoriously tedious. Experiences of job candidates range from those who had to pass through a dozen or more in-person interviews to those with years of work experience who were rejected after disclosing their less-than-stellar college grades.
But Google’s growth is causing the search giant to find talent faster. The company is hoping to make the process less grueling for potential new hires while matching the right job for the right candidate more effectively.
First on the list: Google is already working on limiting the number of interviews. The average number of in-person interviews per candidate for June of this year was 5.1 (already down from 6.2 earlier in the year). Google may also add a deadline for submission of staff members’ assessments of potential candidates (right now, no such deadline is in place, making it such that you could interview once and not get a call for another interview until your interviewer gets around to submitting his/her opinion of you).
Sources close to the company say it has traditionally favored candidates’ academic performance, giving more attention to candidates from elite schools. Grade-point average is a factor in that most employees have done well academically. But currently there is no formal GPA requirement, and Google has been known to hire talent with solid professional track records even if no college degrees.
Google may be experimenting by adding short questionnaires for applicants and new interview formats. Another idea on the horizon is to try out an abbreviated hiring process, which would make it possible for some candidates to receive an offer after two interviews.
For the short questionnaires, questions will most likely revolve around a candidate’s past, personality type, and work style preferences. Here are some examples:
Have you ever turned a profit at your own non-tech side business (dog walker, catering, tutoring, etc.)?
How strongly would you describe yourself as someone with an assertive personality?
At work would you prefer to manage others or do the work yourself?
But there is some bad news for all you would-be Google employees: CEO Eric Schmidt explained that Google is “able to now in fact increase the standards by which we select and hire new people.”
Interesting that Google is trying to have the best of both worlds by minimizing the length of the hiring process but raising the bar for would-be employees at the same time. Good luck with that, Google.
