Another Google Recruiting Technique 430
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."
hmmm (Score:4, Insightful)
Been doing this in Mensa mags for a while. (Score:5, Insightful)
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.
Re:Something big on the horizon? (Score:1, Insightful)
There's no such thing as a coder who can't problem solve. That's what coding is.
Re:GLAT - sample questions (Score:5, Insightful)
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.
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.
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.
Re:"test" breaches Australian law (Score:3, Insightful)
What this screening exam did for me was to confirm Google's corporate stupidity.
And so now, a potential employer is aware that you're the sort of person that likes pulling out obscure rules to be an asshole rather than appreciating humor. The sort of person that files lawsuits and makes everyone else miserable due to all the stupid policy in place to avoid liability.
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.
Then the screening mechanism has worked well. It's a good bet that the Google people don't want to work with you either. Heck, I wouldn't want to work with you.
I hate anti-discrimination laws. I'm all for employers discriminating if they want to. If they make stupid policy, it's a pretty good bet that they'll go under -- you don't like hiring women? Fine. You've just cut your potential employee base in half. Have fun trying to outdo your competitor, who hasn't placed that restriction on himself. I disagree with the Libertarians about a lot of things, but I do think that the Invisible Hand does a pretty good job of solving problems relating to employers doing self-damaging things.
Re:GLAT - sample questions (Score:3, Insightful)
I say you can divide this industry into two kinds of people: those who want to hold down a job and have a life, and those who want their job to BE their life. Google is looking for the latter.
Re:Jumping through hoops (Score:3, Insightful)
I'd say that a majority of good/interesting ideas get built up and fleshed out when grad students and researchers at labs/universities just start bouncing ideas around, even if they aren't part of their current project.
If you like CS research, you're likely to go to a conference and come back with a bunch of problems to bouncing around in your head, problems that you didn't immediately drop because they aren't directly applicable to what you're working on.
If you don't like stubbornly working on a problem that doesn't have any immediate application (and a hell of a lot of research doesn't have immediate application), you just might not like research, you know? I mean, I doubt that most research in mathematics could be considered applied. But research in math has given us a lot of tools -- but these tools are often built years after researchers went through solving problems.
Re:Jumping through hoops (Score:5, Insightful)
They got a PhD done.
Re:GLAT - sample questions (Score:3, Insightful)
Re:Nice Troll! (Score:1, Insightful)
A public corporation is mandated by law to make as much money as possible (i.e. accountable to the shareholders). Remember in Fight Club when he describes how the car company figures its recalls? They do it that way because its the law.
Welcome to America...
Re:Is anyone else... (Score:2, Insightful)
Its interesting that they've been advertising for hiring alot in the last year, along with the IPO.
I'd spend some time seriously solving google recruitment problems except:
i)the geekier-than-thou image google is exuding is irridating.
ii)I'm under-graduating may 06. I don't feel like either dropping out or messing around with the google recruiters.
iii)I'm moderatatly sure I could crack most of the google problems, given time.
iv)Is google a research lab or a search engine?
Both are fine, but they are redefining their role, and if they screw it up, they go kaputt!
I might be called "geek" but there are severe problems with the "geek" culture.
But thats coming from a senior with many graduate courses worth of math books on his shelf, a HP49g+, a TI86, and way too many anime CDs.
^_^
Re:GLAT - sample questions (Score:3, Insightful)
Most geeks are ridiculed by people who cannot understand our way of thinking. It would be a nice change to be in an environment where that was not so. Google understands that. They created an environment where geeks thrive. Now they are expanding, and are attempting to keep that environment functional. It's their basis of success.
Re:Been doing this in Mensa mags for a while. (Score:1, Insightful)
That said, I've always wondered if the real test of intelligence in Mensa-style tests was to weed out those who were bright enough to see the futility in such trivia... I've always found there are plenty of puzzles and problems to solve without the need for contrived mental 'pissing contests'.
Re:Jumping through hoops (Score:1, Insightful)
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:Nice Troll! (Score:2, Insightful)
Factor in "customer goodwill", then "Don't be evil" becomes a long-term investment strategy. Screwing over your customers may turn a quick profit, but people / companies stop wanting to do business with you (if there's an alternative). In support of my position, I cite any discussion-page on Slashdot: look for anti-Microsoft sentiment.
Re:GLAT - sample questions (Score:1, Insightful)
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
Just sit.
Suffering is inseparable from existence but inward extinction of the self and of the senses culminates in a state of illumination beyond both suffering and existence.
Re:Resistor lattice? (Score:3, Insightful)
And I think that is an invalid assumption. The resistance can't be assumed to be infinite when they state exactly what it is and it can be calculated to be non-infinite. If your move is up-up-right for the knight's move, and you go down-right-up-up-up you will have another unique path, and the resistance will be a non-infinite 5 ohm. Of course, you can go 200*right-up-up-199*left and have a non-infinite resistance as well. Even if you assumed all other paths to have infinite resistance, you have an infinite number of them. You need to calculate infinity number of paths times 1/infinity resistance. It shortens to infinity/infinity, which needs more mathmetical inspection to determine what the answer is. I'm not up to it right now.