Google’s Hiring Policy

June 29th, 2007 by Lars

Is Google missing out on important talents? I think so.

Google quotes:

“Google’s hiring policy is aggressively non-discriminatory and favors ability over experience.” (The Google Culture)
“The need for information crosses all borders.” (Ten things Google has found to be true, #8)
“We rely on the Lake Wobegon Strategy, which says only hire candidates who are above the mean of your current employees. An alternative strategy (popular in the dot-com boom period) is to justify a hire by saying “this candidate is clearly better than at least one of our current employees.” (Google Research Blog)
“Boldly go where no one has gone before.” (Top 10 Reasons to Work at Google, #9)

Some people that Google would have turned down:

Why? Well, Marc Andreeson described Google’s hiring process well: “Have a PhD? Front of the line. Masters? Next. Bachelor’s? Go to the end.”

The people mentioned above never got the right piece of paper to be accepted by Google.

Marc also wrote that it’s a “direct contraction to decades of experience in the computer industry that PhD’s are the hardest people to motivate to ship commercially viable products — with rare exception” and that he’s “unaware of any actual data that shows a correlation between raw intelligence, as measured by any of the standard metrics (educational achievement, intelligence tests, or skill at solving logic puzzles) and company success.”

Marc suggests that’s these criteria are more important:

Drive
Curiosity
Ethics

Saul Hansell, New York Times, wrote that “unfortunately, most of the academic research suggests that the factors Google has put the most weight on — grades and interviews — are not an especially reliable way of hiring good people.”

Jack Roseman, Pittsburgh Post-Gazette wrote that he has “met very smart people with advanced degrees who thought they were brilliant entrepreneurs. Most of them failed.” He also wrote that he has met businesspeople without a degree who have become very successful. His conclusion? “Maybe in addition to IQ and EQ (Emotional Intelligence), there is something we should call BQ — Business Intelligence — and you either have it or you don’t. “

Kate Lorenz, CNN, wrote that “some of today’s most successful people don’t have a college degree. But what they lack in academic credentials, they make up for in tenacity, brains, guts and strong business sense.”

Matthew Herper, Forbes.com, wrote that “chief executives who went to graduate school don’t seem to make any more money for their shareholders than those with no advanced degree.”

All kinds of people use Google. Shouldn’t they be hiring all types of people as well? Is their strategy really the best one?

I believe that Google is a brilliant company with clever employees. I also do not intend to mock education.

I am simply wondering if they are not forgetting a few things at Google? Why are they stuck on degrees? Do they not understand how to leverage the burning man (a festival Larry and Sergey have been known to participate in) principle at the office? Do they really get all the free thinkers that they could?

For a creative and forward-looking company I’d try to, if possible, cover all sixteen MBTI personalities:

ESTJ - “The Supervisors”
ISTJ - “The Inspectors”
ESFJ - “The Providers”
ISFJ - “The Protectors”
ESTP - “The Promoters”
ISTP - “The Crafters”
ESFP - “The Performers”
ISFP - “The Composers”
ENTJ - “The Fieldmarshals”
INTJ - “The Masterminds”
ENTP - “The Inventors”
INTP - “The Architects”
ENFJ - “The Teachers”
INFJ - “The Counselors”
ENFP - “The Champions”
INFP - “The Healers”

Some other articles of interest:

Google competitors, listen up! Here’s a window of opportunity for you to act on. Employ all those bright Google rejects!

The art of interviewing and hiring:

“When you hire people who approach things just like you do, you run the risk of creating an unbalanced team. Plus, you miss out on the inevitable improvement that can result from collaborating with people who will question and challenge your methods and ideas.”
— Chris Musselwhite, Inc.com

“Hire someone with the ability, attitude, and interest in learning new things and tackling big challenges. Specific skills (competencies) can be learned. Don’t hire someone just like yourself, or at least make sure you interview strong candidates who are not like yourself. New ideas are much harder to come by if you never leave your own bubble.”
— Brian Groth, Microsoft

“A common mistake, they mentioned, is that hiring managers tend to hire people that are like them. Instead, they should consider that there may be great candidates that are out there that fit the job but may not fit your personality or way of thinking. In other words, it may be a really bad idea to get a bunch of people who are just like you!”
— Skip Angel

“Traditional interviews don’t help you select top talent. In fact, a large study conducted by John and Rhonda Hunter at the University of Michigan on the predictors of job performance found that a typical job interview increased the likelihood of choosing the best candidate by less than 2 percent. Worse, the traditional job interview is a highly subjective process. Interviewers often have a range of biases that dramatically affect their perceptions of individual job candidates. Despite the best of intentions, interviewers and supervisors have an unconscious tendency to favor people who are similar to themselves.”
— David Meyer, About.com

According to a post by Jeff Barr Google doesn’t seem to have a prospect database that can be queried properly.

Discussion on The Web Analytics Forum: Interview Questions for Web Analyst Position

A bonus video of life at Google:

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