Google's Answer to Filling Jobs Is an Algorithm

An anonymous reader tipped us to a New York Times article about Google's newest HR tool: an algorithm. Starting soon, the company (which gets roughly 100,000 applications a month) will require all interested applicants to fill out an in-depth survey. They'll be using a sophisticated algorithm to work through the submitted surveys, matching applicants with positions. The company has apparently doubled in size in each of the last three years. Even though it's already 10,000 employees strong Laszlo Bock, Google's vice president for people operations, sees no reason the company won't reach 20,000 by the end of the year. This will mean hiring something like 200 people a week, every week, all year. From the article: "Even as Google tries to hire more people faster, it wants to make sure that its employees will fit into its freewheeling culture. The company boasts that only 4 percent of its work force leaves each year, less than other Silicon Valley companies. And it works hard to retain people, with copious free food, time to work on personal projects and other goodies. Stock options and grants certainly encourage employees to stay long enough to take advantage of the company's surging share price. Google's hiring approach is backed by academic research showing that quantitative information on a person's background -- called 'biodata' among testing experts -- is indeed a valid way to look for good workers."

Thankfully they changed the GPA thing

[odano]

I was one of those people who was hired with the under 3.0 GPA, and while getting the interviews was difficult, the people doing the interviewing really didn't care. They asked me to solve problems and show that I could do the job, and that was all they cared about.

Luckily for me I dont have to worry about it anymore, but especially in the technology field why should GPA be more important than actual projects and experience?

Why man holes are round

[c0d3r]

Man holes are round because if they were square, they'd fall in the hole, Mr Fuji, and I'd move the mountain with smoke and mirrors or perhaps optical rays into retnas.

Re:They're not losing money fast enough...

[Ludedude]

So they can't fall in the hole of course...

Wait, what's happening?

Re:They're not losing money fast enough...

[Atzanteol]

Why guess? They're a publicly [google.com] traded company.

Re:Bias

[general_re]

Except "people with less work experience" is not a protected group, so it's not unlawful to discriminate on the basis of previous work experience, unless you do so with the intent of discriminating against an actual protected group. I'm just guessing, but I'd say it would be awfully hard to win a case based on such "discrimination", short of someone admitting that they did it to avoid hiring women.

No. See Griggs v. Duke Power Co., 401 U.S. 424, 431-2 (1971). A plaintiff can show that some employment criterion or criteria results in a disparate impact upon a protected group, regardless of whether discrimination is overtly intended or not. The burden of proof then shifts to the employer to show that said criteria are a necessary requirement for the job(s) in question. If they can't, they lose. Even if they can, if the plaintifss can come up with an alternate business practice that satisfies the employer's interests without resulting in a disparate impact, they lose. Good or bad, that's the law.

Re:Thankfully they changed the GPA thing

[panaceaa]

Smart, but not *too* smart. Too smart people have ideas and go and start their own companies.

This statement could not be further from the truth. One of my fellow co-workers is brilliant and he ran his own hosted content management company for years before joining Google. The three people who started a company that eventually became Google Talk are still working here in Kirkland, Washington. One of my friends here at the Kirkland office just moved to San Mateo, California, to work with the engineers at YouTube and learn from their entrepreneurial experiences. And just yesterday we had the founder of JotSpot, which Google acquired a few months back, come to help us with our latest product strategy. The people here are extremely smart, they have run their own companies in the past, and Google's very happy to have them. (And as far as I can tell, they're happy to be here :).)

Re:Bias

[Threni]

> Except "people with less work experience" is not a protected group

In the UK, after recent tightening of anti-agist discrimination, you need to make sure that you aren't going to get into trouble for asking for people with over n years experience, or similar.

Re:They're not losing money fast enough...

[dirc]

Lets see... 10,000 employees, on average, costing the corp ~$200k each... that's... $20 billion a year... in salaries/benefits/office space/etc. Are they even making that much? Are they paying their workers with ``profits'' from stock sales?

10,000 employees at $200k each is $2 billion a year, not $20 billion a year. Google is making enough to cover those costs even if they double the number of employees and do not increase revenue at all. You can look at a summary of their revenue, and their expenses as a portion of revenue here: http://biz.yahoo.com/e/061108/goog10-q.html [yahoo.com]

They are making a handsome profit.

Re:Psychological profile included ala The Game?

[Anonymous Coward]

e) Wait a few seconds for OS X to finish starting up

Re:A lawsuit waiting to happen

[Bugmaster]

But a human would never tell the computer to explicitly consider marriage. Instead, the computer would be trained (or, rather, train itself) to draw conclusions from all kinds of disparate data, which could amount to inferring whether the applicant is married or not. What happens then ?