Hi all - sorry it was unclear. Our trial runs are not necessarily one week. In most cases candidates have full time jobs and can't commit that much time. It's usually 2 days (over weekend) or late afternoon for a couple hours.
Post has been updated to reflect this. Most our candidates actually appreciate the personal experience and we don't just bring anybody into a trial run unless we're already mostly sure we're ready to make an offer. I think that everyone who has gone through the process thus far can speak positively on it. It isn't just a one sided street, candidates can get a sense for whether THEY will like the job, team, and culture at the company as well.
How do you handle IP issues with candidates that already have full-time jobs? If it were me, for example, I don't mind hacking on something for a weekend (it's frequently what I do anyway), but Google owns any code I write. If you try to incorporate that into a real project you are in for a hell of a legal mess.
Because the entire input to my brain is owned by me, once it's recombined with all the stuff that's already there. And that input is significantly higher than it would be if I were contracting or working for a small startup. There is value in working in a really big pond, with some of the best in the world, on a variety of projects that are all pushing the cutting edge of what's possible in their fields. If I ever leave Google, I'll have this toolbox of techniques that'll make me much more effective than the other folks in the startup melting pot. Think of it as a very practical grad school education where they pay me a bunch of money and I get hands-on experience instead of boring classwork.
I do have a "own time/own materials/not along the lines of business" exception, but the problem is that Google is in so many lines of business that that could be construed to apply to everything.
Post has been updated to reflect this. Most our candidates actually appreciate the personal experience and we don't just bring anybody into a trial run unless we're already mostly sure we're ready to make an offer. I think that everyone who has gone through the process thus far can speak positively on it. It isn't just a one sided street, candidates can get a sense for whether THEY will like the job, team, and culture at the company as well.
Other people have done similar things (longer timeframes even) with good success. See David w/Weebly: http://www.sequoiacap.com/grove/posts/akzj/trial-week-our-hi...