What criteria determines who should get a position then? What salary should those positions command? Sounds pretty handwavy.
Edit: responders to this comment seem to miss that the parent comment is suggesting Google hire new individuals and train them, not find talent in their workforce and do training there. Thats the unrealistic part- creating a secondary application process for individuals without the skills -- when they already reject a ridiculous number of people with many of the skills.
That is illogical. If a million plumbers and no programmers applied to be programmers, would Google be wrong to not hire them? We are talking about skilled jobs in a specific trade.
This assumes that labour is perfectly re-locatable and everyone has perfect pricing information.
Google literally does offer $1 million salaries for the right positions, the problem is that most of the people who could make that work have already been recruited.
Which is why they pay interns six figures to show up for what amounts to a long job interview, to make sure they get all the new talent the moment it's minted.
If you make it more difficult to recruit people from untapped populations abroad, they won't pay lower tier people more, they'll open offices aboard to capture their acceptable talent.
So yes, there is a shortage of talent that meets the bar. While everyone trained as a book keeper can almost certainly fill any book keeper role, not everyone trained as an engineer can actually fill any role. Not just because some people are shitty engineers, it's because engineering involves spending long periods of time learning domain knowledge that isn't transferrable, even setting aside the fact there are literally thousands of types of engineer.
Well I think Google would quite like the opportunity to find and pitch qualified people. I'm sure they'd happily pay $500 for the opportunity to pitch directly a good candidate who just wanted the bonus on his way to a competitor or startup.
That doesn't really seem applicable. Google is more than big enough that they can hire both people if they are both good unless you're applying for a particularly specialized role which it didn't sound like was the case here.
Any big company has massive variations in employee skill levels. I get the feeling that Google tries to get a certain minimum standard for the people they hire (even if that standard may be high).
That's a false dichotomy. Google has a relative luxury here.
Companies that don't have a large enough pool of quality applicants to hire from need to turn that equation around: rather, they must try hard not to let the excellent applicant get away, as they may not find another.
"The marketplace is fiercely competitive, and they typically need people on the ground right away."
" The time it takes for a new hire at Google to get productive is usually about 6 months to a year."
It cannot be both ways as you please. Either these companies are investing in training or not. If they are, then things like requirements gathering, creating specs, and providing tests should not be something difficult to do. This is a very important part of the job, but is not a part that requires super-intelligence.
Everything points to the fact that these companies do not invest in training and are just trying to select a small number of people out of a large pool.
Yes but I haven't been talking about just Google, and I have been talking about applying in the first place. My point was that some people may not apply, thinking that those jobs require more experience than they do. Think entry-level vs. junior.
1. Only Fan Boys Apply. Only people who are willing to pay $100 to work at google will do so.
2. Only people without other opportunities will apply. For example, why would I pay $100 to apply to google, when I can apply to everywhere else for free.
3. Reduce the number of linchpin applicants. If I know I don't fit the stereotypical google employee, why would I spend $100 to apply and be told no. Where as I might apply for free, and hope they can see that I am actually a good hire, although, I break the mold.
If these aren't enough, how do you handle the PR side of things?
Google is trying to bring good jobs to people in the US who need good jobs by helping to develop their talent and match it to a role within the company. i don't think that's a bad thing. i think Google will be happy to see how well this approach works.
I agree, but I hear more stories from / about ex-googlers along the lines of: I have 20 years experience and 2 PhDs and they have me writing unit tests.
I think its likely hard to hire smart people who don't rock the boat; and thus it takes a long time to hire. It's of course possible (and reasonably likely) that there are only a handful of people that can do the work, but I dunno... with the kind of money that Google has you just open a school and start grooming people specifically for the roles that you have open. Build a pipeline of qualified workers, don't wait for them to come to you.
Yes, I don't think their process is magic. Google gets a good workforce because they are generous and prestigious, which means a lot of good people apply there. And Google is willing to say no to a lot of people in their search for good people. They reject a lot of candidates who would probably have worked out just fine.
I really don't understand the 'investing money into someone' mindset, companies (in my experience) rarely put in much of anything besides a few perks and benefits. Honestly if google wants to get the best of the best why try to hire them? Create them, make programming, IT, etc work apprentice based and let under performing apprentices get drudge work until they gain the knowledge/drive to do the more important work.
Edit: responders to this comment seem to miss that the parent comment is suggesting Google hire new individuals and train them, not find talent in their workforce and do training there. Thats the unrealistic part- creating a secondary application process for individuals without the skills -- when they already reject a ridiculous number of people with many of the skills.
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