I know multiple people (including myself) who have passed up opportunities at Google because of how long it takes for them to make a hiring decision. It's incredible how much value they must be leaving on the table.
At some point, Google won't be the kind of place that people wait around for. Then they're really screwed.
Google used to hire A+ players -- the cream of the cream of the crop. The workforce at early Google was spectacular. Everyone wanted to work there -- tenured faculty were leaving their jobs.
Right now, Google hires good people, but the very best people I know all work elsewhere (and many are former Googlers).
Nonsense like this won't discourage B or C players, who fight tooth-and-nail to get there, but it does discourage the people were Google is fighting for individuals with other employers.
I haven't heard any elite university faculty leave for Google in close to a decade, for example. It used to be common. Google would poach from Stanford and MIT.
I've seen companies go this way, and this kind of slide only tends to accelerate. Folks like Sebastian Thrun bring in the cream of Stanford, and the cream of Stanford brings in everyone else. Once you lose those top two tiers....
Their hiring process could use some serious streamlining. When I've applied in the past, it seems like recruiters have a good half hour to an hour of mandatory spheal about how their "unique" interview process works... and even if you try to tell them that you've done these kinds of interviews before, and even interviewed with Google successfully but turned an offer down before, they'll still helpfully offer you their "insider tips" to... read cracking the coding interview and brush up on data structures.
God forbid you have an unusual niche in industry -- last time I applied, the recruiter took at least two weeks with regular calls to update me on their attempt to get me an interview for the niche I work in. Google's software output definitely reflects just how bureaucratic and convoluted their hiring process has become.
It’s worse than that: the only people who hang around are the ones they probably wouldn’t want.
Their hiring model is theoretically a bell curve but when you cut off the top percentiles it severely affects the resulting performance (ie you failed to hire the 20% of ppl who were going to do 80% of the good work)
Google is one of the few companies that can get away with this due to the overwhelming backlog of talent they have lining up for jobs. I doubt they lose much from this process, but at a lesser company it would certainly have a far more damaging impact.
As was said prior. It used to be so. It is not anymore, Google is now cold messaging people on Linkedin, they were not doing that. I do not think you look for best of the best people this way.
