Here Are Google, Amazon and Facebook’s Secrets to Hiring the Best People

[rdtsc]

I like telling my AWS interviewing story. They forgot to call the first time. Then they were "impressed" and invited me for an onsite. All seemed well, except they forgot about me coming that day or just people who were supposed to interview me were gone. Everyone asked pretty much the same "leadership principles" questions, which I refused to parrot back through my "life experiences" -- I guess it went against my own personal "principles".

Oh and they forgot about me during lunch. Not that I was hungry, but it just added to the "oh it can't be as bad as the blogs say, surely..." factor. So sat in the office looking around. After a while started wondering around the hallways, hoping someone would say "Are you allowed to be here? Can I help you?". So that was fun. And that's not all though, also said they'd call within 2 days to let me know the results, which of course ended up being 3 weeks.

It was worth it though -- it made for a great story!

[tamana]

You covered Situation, Task, Action, Resolution; you're hired!

[badmadrad]

So true. I had an Amazon interview where I wanted to hang up. There were moments where I would get questioned or berated for not using such great AWS tech like Opsworks and Cloudformation. Instead of being impressed with my completely valid approach they fixated on the fact I didn't use their stuff and it became a bit combative/snarky. So Amazon certainly isn't for me. Thanks for EC2 and two day shipping though.

[Rapzid]

I had a phone screen from Google I wanted to hang up on because I knew where it was going. They reached out to me for an SRE role in Australia. After a few unscheduled calls at poor times (at the DC doing work) we setup an "interview". It was just a screen where they ask you to rate your self on a bunch of random technologies; between never heard of it and wrote the book. Rated myself 4-6 on most haha. The " interviewer" seemed completely thrown off by this. Expected not to hear back and didn't.

[tsunamifury]

For those not in the know, the Cooper Review is witty blog written by a former Googler... Expect satire not facts.

[GreaterFool]

FWIW this is exactly how my last Google interview went down. So expect facts, even if wrapped in a satire? :)

[gozur88]

Hahahaha. I always laugh when I read headlines like this. A few years back a guy we were dying to get rid of finally left... and went to Google.

[jkchu]

I would recommend reading the article!

[jostmey]

So I actually interviewed at a company where I didn't have clear instructions, had to switch rooms, ect. and it was a real turn off. First, I felt flustered, and I bombed the interview. But I didn't care because it left me with a bad impression about the company. It is funny because going into the interview I thought it would be the coolest place, and about halfway through I had already decided there was no way I would take a job there.

[prdonahue]

Would love to know which company this was with?

[calcsam]

Cached: http://webcache.googleusercontent.com/search?q=cache:61DmBRy...

[yeukhon]

I see 502. I guess I am entitled to the secret sauce because I am trying to get into FB lol.

Anyway, here is the cache version: http://webcache.googleusercontent.com/search?q=cache:61DmBRy...

Basically, this interview process allows you to weed out candidates who

1) disapprove open floor plan work environment, sitting next than six feet away from co-worker (yeah let's cramp twenty people together around so we can hear each other yelling at the headphone)

2) markers are either missing or used up and no one replaces them. oh you want to project your screen? good luck find a working remote or HDMI cable.

[diffraction]

east coast version: order the wrong breakfast, hit 'em right in the grits (http://www.businessinsider.com/charles-schwab-ceo-takes-job-...) (not satire, but should be)

[cyanbane]

Someone get her a job writing for Silicon Valley (HBO). Seems like a great addition.

[xvolter]

I've seen dozens of articles about how Google, Amazon and other large tech companies hire the best. It's a terrible assumption that these tech giants hire the best, they simply can't be picky with their hiring, they need to grow teams to keep up with progress, and replace the members who are leaving. They need to hire quickly, so they refine their hiring process to get qualified candidates, but not the best candidates out there. Sure, they might eventually hire some really good people, but the majority can't be held to a hire standard.

[piva00]

I think a better way to see is that they must be really "efficient" on hiring, even though these companies need a lot of people hired quickly they try to hire the "best possible" with those constraints. So not the best but the best possible for a given timeframe and position.

I don't know how much sense this make outside of my head but that's how I see it, they had to "scale" the process and it kinda works.

[vpayette]

Hilarious and anecdotally true in my one experience.

[chmullig]

Quite true for google. Less (but still kinda) for Facebook IME.

[BinaryIdiot]

Yup, ran into most of these when I interviewed at many of the large tech companies...

[pcurve]

Any basis to this?

Every single article on the site has titles that would give Buzzfeed run for its money.

http://thecooperreview.com/

[aantix]

The "10 Tricks to Appear Smart in Meetings" is a 10/10, or 100% brilliant. http://thecooperreview.com/10-tricks-appear-smart-meetings/

[sna1l]

This is clearly a satire website

[daxfohl]

Their slogan is "Funny because it's true". So, while I didn't quite get the humor, it must be both funny and true.

[seattle_spring]

Did you honestly read the article, then read the homepage, and then come back here and still not realize this was a satire website?

[andy9775]

I think the last suggestion gives that away :)

[tyingq]

Whoosh.

[kearneyandy]

"3 months later, call and offer the candidate a job she didn’t apply for" Even if they accept, you don't need to pay the referral bonus. win, win!

[sidcool]

Is this satire? I would like to believe it, but not sure.

[tomtang0514]

Are you sure those aren't the reasons such company misses great talents?

[wwweston]

That might happen to lesser companies, but not these companies, who are crushing it because they're so full of awesome talent because they only hire the best that hiring methods that wouldn't work for other companies will work for them.

[ryanmarsh]

I honestly thought this was satire.

[EGreg]

But why three months? They don't explain this part very well. Everything else was spot on.