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Another Google Recruiting Technique
Posted by
michael
on Sun Sep 19, 2004 09:00 PM
from the got-job? dept.
from the got-job? dept.
An anonymous reader writes "The new edition of Linux Journal has a special insert: The GLAT (Google Labs Aptitude Test) is a Google recruiting quiz presented as a spoof of standardised aptitude tests. It is filled with math and Google-related trivia."
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High quality blogger. (Score:5, Funny)
Nice modesty there Michael!
orwellian (Score:5, Funny)
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google cache (Score:4, Informative)
http://216.239.57.104/search?q=cache:ARvQ1IJEyucJ
Image Scans of Test (Score:5, Informative)
http://img47.exs.cx/my.php?loc=img47&image=glat-c
http://img47.exs.cx/my.php?loc=img47&image=glat-p
http://img47.exs.cx/my.php?loc=img47&image=glat-p
http://img47.exs.cx/my.php?loc=img47&image=glat-p
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Re:google cache (Score:4, Informative)
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Can't Find It (Score:5, Informative)
hmmm (Score:4, Insightful)
Mirror (Score:5, Informative)
It's in the Mensa Bulletin too. (Score:5, Interesting)
It actually has some neat questions. Lots of fun!
Admit it (Score:5, Funny)
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Re:Admit it (Score:5, Funny)
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Re:Admit it (Score:5, Funny)
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Or even off /. (Score:5, Funny)
Me: Honey, come to bed.
Him: Just one more SCO article to read through, I promise!
Me:
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Re:Or even off /. (Score:4, Funny)
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Re:Admit it (Score:5, Interesting)
TOPS [eskimo.com] (99th percentile, which apparently equates to a 1360 on the SAT, which is surprisingly low)
One in a thousand society [eskimo.com] (99.9th, ~1520 on the SAT), all the way to the Giga society [gigasociety.org] which demands with a straight face an IQ of 196 or higher to join.
Ok, I'm tired of providing links. Look a few pagefuls down on this page http://www.eskimo.com/~miyaguch/hoeflin.html [eskimo.com] and you'll see that such societies are both in abundance and have widely varying selection criteria. I qualify for most - but certainly not all! - of those societies purely on academic test scores (haven't been IQ tested since I was a youth) but don't see the point of them and don't feel like going through the trouble of specialized "entrance exams". I can stroke my ego myself, thank you very much, and defining any of my life strictly on "how smart I am" vs. "what I have accomplished" or "what am I in the process of accomplishing" would be counterproductive imo.
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Re:Admit it (Score:4, Funny)
If you need to feel superior to your fellow man, just turn on the TV for a bit. I'd recommend 10 minutes of "ElimiDate".
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Been doing this in Mensa mags for a while. (Score:5, Insightful)
GLAT - sample questions (Score:5, Informative)
Solve this cryptic equation, realizing of course that values for M and E could be interchanged. No leading zeroes are allowed.
WWWDOT - GOOGLE = DOTCOM
Write a haiku describing possible methods for predicting search traffic seasonality.
What's the next line?
1
1 1
2 1
1 2 1 1
1 1 1 2 2 1
You are in a maze of twisty little passages, all alike. There is a dusty laptop here with a weak wireless connection. There are dull, lifeless gnomes strolling about. What dost thou do?
A) Wander aimlessly, bumping into obstacles until you are eaten by a grue.
B) Use the laptop as a digging device to tunnel to the next level.
C) Play MPoRPG until the battery dies along with your hopes.
D) Use the computer to map the nodes of the maze and discover an exit path.
E) Email your resume to Google, tell the lead gnome you quit and find yourself in a whole different world
What's broken with Unix? How would you fix it?
On your first day at Google, you discover that your cubicle mate wrote the textbook you used as a primary resource in your first year of graduate school. Do you:
A) Fawn obsequiously and ask if you can have an autograph.
B) Sit perfectly still and use only soft keystrokes to avoid disturbing her concentration
C) Leave her daily offerings of granola and English toffee from the food bins.
D) Quote your favorite formula from the textbook and explain how it's now your mantra.
E) Show her how example 17b could have been solved with 34 fewer lines of code.
Which of the following expresses Google's over-arching philosophy?
A) "I'm feeling lucky"
B) "Don't be evil"
C) "Oh, I already fixed that"
D) "You should never be more than 50 feet from food"
E) All of the above
How many different ways can you color an icosahedron with one of three colors on each face?
What colors would you choose?
This space is intentionally blank. Please fill it with something that improves upon emptiness.
On an infinite, two-dimensional, rectangular lattice of 1-ohm resistors, what is the resistance between two nodes that are a knight's move away?
It's 2pm on a sunny Sunday afternoon in the Bay Area. You're minutes from the Pacific Ocean, redwood forest hiking trails and world class cultural attractions. What do you do?
In your opinion, what is the most beautiful math equation ever derived?
Which of the following is NOT an actual interest group formed by Google employees?
A) Women's basketball
B) Buffy fans
C) Cricketeers
D) Nobel winners
E) Wine club
What will be the next great improvement in search technology?
What is the optimal size of a project team, above which additional members do not contribute productivity equivalent to the percentage increase in the staff size? A) 1 B) 3 C) 5 D) 11 E) 24
Given a triangle ABC, how would you use only a compass and straight edge to find a point P such that triangles ABP, ACP, and BCP have equal perimeters? (Assume that ABC is constructed so that a solution does exist.)
Consider a function which, for a given whole number n, returns the number of ones required when writing out all numbers between 0 and n. For example, f(13) = 6. Notice that f(1) = 1. What is the next largest n such that f(n) = n?
What's the coolest hack you've ever written?
'Tis known in refined company, that choosing K things out of N can be done in ways as many as choosing N minus K from N: I pick K, you the remaining. Find though a cooler bijection, where you show a knack uncanny, of making your choises contain all K of mine. Oh, for pedantry: let K be no more than half N.
What number comes next in the sequence: 10, 9, 60, 90, 70, 66, ?
A) 96
B) 10 to the 100th power
C) Either of the above
D) None of the above
In 29 words or fewer, describe what you would strive to accomplish if you worked at Google Labs.
Re:GLAT - sample questions (Score:5, Funny)
F: Wonder why you have a PhD and you're still sharing a cubicle like a code monkey.
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Re:GLAT - sample questions (Score:5, Funny)
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Re:GLAT - sample questions (Score:5, Funny)
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Re:GLAT - sample questions (Score:5, Funny)
Profit
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Re:GLAT - sample questions (Score:5, Informative)
1
1 1
2 1
1 2 1 1
1 1 1 2 2 1
one
one one
two ones
one two, one one
one one, one two, two ones
three ones, two twos, one one
312211
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Re:GLAT - sample questions (Score:5, Interesting)
1) you can obviously never have a digit over 3
2) if you right-justify the numbers you immediately see many 2d structures, as well as periodicity to each column, but the way the pattern changes from one col to the next is not obvious
3) if you sum each row, or look at the differences in sums between rows, there are even more patterns... is there a fibonacci sequence buried in there? will have to spend some more time on this one.
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Re:GLAT - sample questions (Score:4, Interesting)
I'd post the results but I haven't the patience to circumvent the lameness filters.
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Re:GLAT - sample questions (Score:5, Insightful)
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Re:GLAT - sample questions (Score:5, Funny)
Ice Cream in Summer
Football in fall and winter
Porn for all seasons
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Re:GLAT - sample questions (Score:5, Funny)
Schedule a meeting about process improvement and try to horseshit my way into a middle management position so I can wedge my fat ass into a molded chair and order from the salad bar.
Which of the following expresses Google's over-arching philosophy?
Make people jump through hoops to get a temp job.
How many different ways can you color an icosahedron with one of three colors on each face?
This has anything at all to do with being qualified for a job?
What colors would you choose?
Gray, to match the cubicle.
On an infinite, two-dimensional, rectangular lattice of 1-ohm resistors, what is the resistance between two nodes that are a knight's move away?
Lab rat.
It's 2pm on a sunny Sunday afternoon in the Bay Area. You're minutes from the Pacific Ocean, redwood forest hiking trails and world class cultural attractions. What do you do?
Go back to the want ads so I can find a job where I don't have to be tormented by obscure questions before the food runs out.
In your opinion, what is the most beautiful math equation ever derived?
Paycheck - expenses = savings
What will be the next great improvement in search technology?
Finding a job.
What is the optimal size of a project team, above which additional members do not contribute productivity equivalent to the percentage increase in the staff size? A) 1 B) 3 C) 5 D) 11 E) 24
According to middle management, whatever increases the budget.
In 29 words or fewer, describe what you would strive to accomplish if you worked at Google Labs.
Nothing, because the moment anyone "strives" for anything other than the donut list in the modern workplace, they get fired.
Glad to see companies are slowly making the process of building a career a game show.
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Re:GLAT - sample questions (Score:5, Funny)
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Physics Today has it too. (Score:5, Informative)
The September issue of Physics Today [physicstoday.org] also had a GLAT insert. I guess Google's trying for all sorts of backgrounds...
What makes a good Google employee.. (Score:5, Funny)
Google is evil. (Score:5, Funny)
-- Greg
Re:Google is evil. (Score:4, Interesting)
Wrong, the proper capitalization is PhD, meaning lowercased 'h'. Assuming ASCII, the 'h' goes from 0x38 for 'H' to 0x58 for the properly cased 'h'. So the difference between PhD and PHB is really 0x22.
Thereby proving that there actually is something more than just a shave and a haircut between the PHB and PhD.
And yes, this is probably the dorkiest slashdot post I've ever written.
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Google question (Score:3, Funny)
"Orkut" is:
A. Turkish for slow
B. Turkish for painfully slow
C. Turkish for unusable
C. Turkish for "written in painfully slow and unusable ASP.NET"
Jumping through hoops (Score:5, Interesting)
And yes, I may be slightly jealous that I don't work at Google, but honestly this type of thing really turns me off. I guess I'm not what they're looking for then.
Re:Jumping through hoops (Score:5, Insightful)
You'd be surprised home many of the recently hired at my office are of the Ph.D variety. You'd also be surprised that the vast majority of the projects they are in charge of are failing miserably because they can't simply get things done. Oh, they can draw some kick-ass UML diagrams, and they can use all the latest buzzwords with the utmost proficiency...
Then there are a couple of us that have been around for 10 years or more with the company. We are the ones that frankly get it done in crunch time. We are the ones that have never been part of a failed project because we busted our asses when it came to it (but just generally worked smart throughout the process so it rarely came to that anyway).
Sure, I'm bragging a bit here, but it happens to be true. Theory has to meet experience and proven ability, it can't exist in a vacumn. It's nice to hire MENSA members who can rotate geometric shapes in five dimensions in their head and choose the correct figure, but give me the guy who can read through online docs efficiently and can pound out the code when it counts and I don't care if he has a Ph.D or flunked out of high school.
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Re:Jumping through hoops (Score:5, Insightful)
They got a PhD done.
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Re:Jumping through hoops (Score:5, Insightful)
No slight intended, but methinks that maybe you're missing the point of these cute, stupid little brain teaser questions. It's certainly one thing to sit down and slam out something that you either know how to create or can come up with a way to create it relatively easily. It is another thing entirely to solve or approximate a solution to a fundamentally difficult problem and then implement it.
To put it in vulgar terms, Google likely doesn't need people to just get shit done, they need creative solutions to problems that don't have a straight forward answer. Do you honestly think figuring out how to retrieve highly relevant web pages from the whole net based on one or two silly little keywords, in fractions of a second no less, is something you just sit down and program? Do you even think it's something you can beat the current top players at by simply engineering it with current methods? No, it's far more akin to those little problems you hate so much. Sure, there's naive solutions that give a lackluster result, but to do it well it's all a game of tradeoffs, new and novel approaches, application of known approaches or extensions of known approaches in the right instances, a dash of brute force, and who knows what else. If it was straight forward and something just solved by getting shit done then Google and its staff of many PhDs would likely be vanishing due to the costs of keeping all those PhDs around opposed to another company running slimmer and just doing it. Instead they're number one in the search engine world because of their pioneering efforts.
The people who enjoy and excel at those questions, seemingly silly on the surface but generally with deeper implications, are the type that are typically good at doing the sort of research that needs to be done to solve the tricky steps.
Again, none of this is meant as a slight and there really is need for people who are good at architecting and implementing solutions with good work ethics. Many applications are at a point where the technical challenges lie in integration of known solutions and those certainly still need good, hard working architects. On the other hand there's still a definate need for people who like toying with silly questions because that generally translates into enjoying playing with the nuances of more research oriented stuff, simply because they're so often similar. Frankly, if you dislike those stupid little problems then you may well dislike the research experience of bashing your head into brick wall after brick wall trying to come up with a novel solution to a problem which has no real feasible solutions at the moment.
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"test" breaches Australian law (Score:4, Interesting)
I was quite stunned to see the form in my magazine.
The job screening exam clearly breaches Australia's anti-discriminiation laws (simplifying somewhat, Google is asking some questions unrelated to my potential performance as an employee, therefore the questions must be for some discriminatory purpose). I'd be surprised if the same were not true of the US.
What this screening exam did for me was to confirm Google's corporate stupidity.
Google is now first on the list of places I'd never want to work -- what concern is it of their's what I do with my spare time.
I've no idea what Linux Journal thought they were doing by accepting the insert.
Here are the images... (Score:5, Informative)
Please mirror the images. Thanks.
GLAT Images [cruftmedia.com]
My Google recruiting experience.... (Score:4, Interesting)
At the risk of sounding arrogant (and, there's no way I'd post this if I weren't doing so anonymously), I was a very qualified candidate. I solved all their puzzles and made an incredibly positive impression on everyone there I visited. Simiarly, Google made a very positive impression on me. It's been my dream to work for them for many years and I finally had the opportunity!
Then, things sort of turned a little bit worse. I was also being courted by a Very Large Software Company. VLSC also made me an offer. It was better, but the money wasn't the issue. Every few days, someone from VLSC would call me to tell me how important it was that I go to work for them. How excited they were about me and extolling the virtues of VLSC.
First my future boss called. His boss called. HIS boss called. And *that* guy's boss called! At this point it was someone very high up in the company. All of them had the same message: we really want you to come here. They started sending little gifts to my house.
Meanwhile, I heard nothing from Google. Their recruiter called me occasionally but never replied to my emails or indicated having read them on phone calls. I asked if it would be possible to speak to anyone else in Google who I might speak with about the type of work I'd be doing or the people I'd be working with. No one ever contacted me. Now, they were getting ready for their IPO so I suppose they had better things to think about, but the overwhelming impression I got was "Your loss if you don't work here. Whatever, come if you want." Meanwhile, VLSC made it clear it would be *their* loss if I didn't work there and that they'd do everything they could to make it the best place ever to work.
It was incredibly painful to have to give up my dream of working for Google. But ultimately, VLSC convinced me that they were more excited about the work I could do and that I'd have a better opportunity there to do it.
I really wanted to want Google. They made it very hard.
I hope someone from Google reads this and maybe can pass this on to HR folks. It's not something I feel comfortable attaching my name to.
Google presentation or recruitment session? (Score:5, Interesting)
In a nutshell, he hinted that they use Linux, that they have loads of cheap systems which 1) they expect will break down and 2) are cheap to fix, that a large part of the systems indexes content and that another large part of the systems serves content. And Google is hiring.
He constantly repeated that because they went public he was not allowed to be specific. And he wasn't. There was a watchful Google woman that apparently took note of everything that went on and assisted at the proclamations of secrecy. And Google is hiring.
Then he touched the Google policy and hinted that Google has a sort of principle of "not being evil". In my words, this means Google has considered being evil and decided not to be (maybe for the time being). Did I mention that Google is hiring?
Oh yes and they were hiring. Yes hiring, hiring and hiring. There were even forms (as if the audience didn't know where to look for them on Google). And of course he couldn't say anything about the rates, due to... But Google is hiring.
At the end of the presentation I thought:
- Google kicks ass in low cost high performance computing.
- Gmail will give them experience in how to handle confidentially in low cost high performance computing.
- They (and not RedHat) have everything in order to become the next MS.
(Monopoly on a technology and loads of quickly earned bucks.)
- I guess that their going public results in less fun at the company.
- Why do they need/want more money? They are doing OK as it is!
- I decided to let Google have loads of fun with their money and not to take anything of that away from them by applying.
- Oh yeah, they probably want the best for the lowest price. Both in HW and HR.
And not to forget: Google is hiring.Is this really recruiting... (Score:5, Insightful)
Of course, there is lots of kinds of intelligences. I read the Emotional Intellgence book, and it was a bit of an eye-opener. Yep, there's all kinds of smart.
I hate to admit it, but there may be a reason that some of those blasted sales and marketing guys and gals make serious money. We like to think that it's lucky, or BS, or kissing ass (and it could be), but sometimes, it's because "people smarts" can get you far.
Sure, this makes sense for a research lab starting up, but here's something to ponder. MS, IBM and HP all have labs too. And how effective they are is how well they can transfer ideas into development. HP had lots of idea, but consistently could not execute on them. IBM and MS do much better.
You can have too many cooks, after all. For every thinker, there is a doer that is just as valuable, if not more so.
Oh, and Google, now that you are public and MS wants a piece of your action, here's a hint. Arrogance and "we're better than..." can hurt you really, really bad. Just ask Netscape, err, AOL, err, well, you know. Don't get too cocky.
I think of Richard Fenymann at times like this. Nobel Prize winner, who admired an illiterate MC in a local bar for his social skills and how he worked. True smarts is always being ready to learn, regardless of how or what is taught.
Yea, maybe I'm jealous because I can't do those types of puzzles very well. But I still have enough brains to know that there is room for all types, and diversity wins over sheer brain power in the long haul.
Of course, I'm not that brainy. Hell, I'm still posting here, for the love of... 8-)
Re:I would... (Score:3, Interesting)
They are testing your apptitude but also your character - your creativity, flair, and sense of humour.
Don't Worry (Score:5, Funny)
Q: What is the supreme search engine on the planet?
a.) google.com
b.) aol keyword google
Q: What is 8^7 x 32^2 / $ -2352.8a + x + y + $
a.) google = moneyopoly
b.) google = infinite $$
Q: Did you go to standford?
a.) yes
b.) pick this and fail
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Tricky Bastards (Score:4, Informative)
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Re:DUPE! ? (Score:4, Insightful)
As another reply to your comment pointed out, you're and idiot and should not have been moderated up. In fact, you score dropped from the time I saw your comment to clicking reply (not long).
So let's clear it. What you pointed out was a billboard with a question on it to recruit for google.
The GLAT was a little "book" that was a 4 sides of paper (not standard size, smaller). It looked like a school aptitude test in almost every way. It had all sorts of interesting questions in it like "The space below was intentionally left blank. Please improve upon this." and "In an infinate two-dimentional lattice of 1 ohm resistors, what is the resistance between any two points a knight's move away?" and other such things. It's full of that kind of stuff and more.
So in conclusion, this is not a dupe. Why not try LOOKING at things (or even reading the submission) before trying to get karma by yelling DUPE.
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I DO! (Score:4, Funny)
What do I win?
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Re:Is anyone else... (Score:3, Interesting)
Re:Is anyone else... (Score:5, Insightful)
Intelligence measures two abilities: learning and reasoning. Being smart is the application of intelligence.
We all know the guy who's ultra-bright at science or math, but bloody useless in the "real world" or (gasp) interpersonal relationships.
People's motivations differ. That person who is ultra-bright may not see applying that logic as something to persue. The benefit of diversity is this: there will always be someone who can take that logic and apply it to something to make it useful to other people who don't care how it works.
What most people see as the goal of life is getting laid and having children (most of the time subconsciously) thus propogating the species. The basic law of nature (and man) is to survive by any means necessary. Most people make their attempt at immortality via offspring, some through presence (actors), others through published works/name recognition. There are also a number of people who create a fictitious being and place where they will live out eternity in bliss (religion).
Since it is illegal to test people's intelligence in the U.S. for a job, google is going to where the smart people are. I see nothing wrong with that. Reading a person on paper (that they wrote) is not a very accurate means for judging a person's intellect or skills. Testing their abilities just to get to the application is a smart thing to do.
None of this is about elitism. Some people do feel superior to others and are truly elitists, but it is generally the other people who feel inferior and have to tear the "elite" down by any means available.
None of this is an attack on you, so don't take it that way.
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