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Google's job search ... and why their recruiting works

Two posts in one today.

This may be old news, but I just noticed today that when you visit Google and type in 'company name jobs', a little job search engine pops up. Try it. Intel jobs. Microsoft jobs, Google jobs. Some company names don't work though. The search engine didn't pop up for a few of my choices: Dell jobs, Electronic Arts jobs, Facebook jobs, Apple jobs, etc. The search results aren't as good as those of a vertical job search site like Indeed or SimplyHired, but it's interesting to see Google is trying to tap into the job search market. I hadn't noticed that before.

Speaking of Google, I saw this link on Jim Stroud's blog in which an Amazon employee (who has now left the company) highlights lessons other companies can learn from Google's recruiting approach: Google's Secret Weapon. Interesting read. Here's my favorite excerpt because it gets to the point of why JobSyntax exists. (That would be "to teach engineers how to be better recruiters," for those of you have not been reading along at home.) :)

What does it take to do a massive recruiting campaign? It takes dedicated resources. You need people, including technical people, whose full-time job it is to do recruiting. Think of the small army of people it must take to do all the things in the list above. Who wrote the GLAT? Who designed the TopCoder problems? Who came up with the billboard math problem? I assure you: they have smart technical people doing recruiting full time as their primary job.

Last I checked, recruiting was our HR group's 8th priority or so, after the Q4 CS/FC rampup, badging systems, perf reviews, PeopleSoft enhancements, and a bunch of other stuff. Amazon Recruiting has no dedicated engineers, and they're stuck begging for project resources from other groups who don't have time. We have no technical people doing recruiting full time. And while we've got a strong campus hiring program, and it's keeping us within Google's hiring numbers (within an order of magnitude, anyway), it smacks of door-to-door salesmanship compared to Google's recruiting megastore. How much longer can we hold out against that kind of concerted effort?

I don't think a company needs fulltime technical resources dedicated to recruiting (I've seen that go very bad for other companies), but I do think recruiting responsibilities should be integrated into every engineer's job. It's too important a task to leave solely up to recruiters. Recruiters are wonderful resources to guide you through the process, but sometimes you just have to do the leg work yourself. It's easier and more effective that way. Google gets that.

gretchen

today's emotion: balanced

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Published Wednesday, June 14, 2006 6:03 PM by gretchen
Filed Under: Gretchen's posts, JobSyntax, Jobseeker tips, Employer tips

Comments

	Anon said: Gretchen? I wondered where you would turn up. Hey, girl, recruiter to recruiter, just wanted to thank you for your efforts in improving our image. I think you did wonders for us. I would like to do the same in my next job, just change the face of recruiting, motivate others to follow suit. Our industry has gone to the dark side. I was actually prepared to do "battle with you" which should be a compliment. I wouldn't have written a blog anything like you. That would have been difference. Distinctive voices. That and every now and then friendly competition-wise sparring with you. I looked forward to it. I thought it would be fun. (if we both worked for competitors. It would have shocked the industry, drove more traffic.) You helped alot of people, Gretchen, and for that I applaud you. I was going to post eventually to your MS site but then you left but here you are! carmkelly [at] cox [dot] net June 15, 2006 6:23 PM
	Icon! said: Since I don't work for Google, I hate to give them tips on how to be even better than they are today. But, it's all well and good that they "get it" from the technical recruiting point of view. Man, they are just fantstic at building brands, and cache around those brands, quickly and keeping all brands in one family. They really prove that keeping it simple and straightforward works. Recruiting is no exception. I'll admit that I "decoded" their original billboard chalenge on my drive into work - what a great thing to keep me occupied - much better than trying to read e-mail and drive in rush hour traffic :). HOWEVER.... Google absolutely does not "get it" when it comes to candidate experience. It's hard to tell if it's becasue they are A) truely aloof; B) really think they are greater than everyone else; or C) the "socially held-back" geeks are running too much of their recuriting department. Either way, they come off very cocky, leave candidates hanging for too long, have a long and meandering process, appear to be looking more for the scientist than the engineer (which is no way to run a company long-term, just ask X-PARC), and act like they know what is best for you, despite what you tell them. No matter what, that is goign to make growing at the rate they want to grow difficult, or risk getting less than idea employees. If they figure that piece out - then they'll truely have "gotten it" and they will be hard to beat. I'm sure many people's milage has varied on candidate experience at Google (or anywhere else), but I'd say that is a far too important, and often overlooked, aspect of the game. From the statistically insagnificant sample set I've come across, this seems ot be a fairly consistant experience. No, I'm not a disgruntled candidate. I love my job, really, I do. At least, that's what my boss tells me ;) June 22, 2006 3:00 AM
	Zoe said: I think candidate experience is one of the things that companies often forget about when interviewing candidates. I've heard a lot of people complain that they feel like corporations have the attitude that "you should be so luck to work here". Honestly, I think that most people don't want to be treated that way no matter how fancy your company is or what you would have to offer in the long run. I certainly wouldn't want to work for a company like that necessarily - what would day to day life be like? June 22, 2006 10:01 AM