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Papas Fritas writes:
"Tom Friedman writes at the New York Times (NYT) that Google has determined that GPA's are worthless as a criteria for hiring, test scores are worthless, and brainteasers are a complete waste of time. " They don't predict anything," says Laszlo Bock, the senior vice president of people operations for Google. "The No. 1 thing we look for is general cognitive ability, and it's not IQ. It's learning ability. It's the ability to process on the fly. It's the ability to pull together disparate bits of information. We assess that using structured behavioral interviews that we validate to make sure they're predictive [Login required]." Many jobs at Google require math, computing and coding skills, so if your good grades truly reflect skills in those areas that you can apply, it would be an advantage. But Google has its eyes on much more and the least important attribute Google looks for is "expertise." "The expert will go: 'I've seen this 100 times before; here's what you do.' " Most of the time the non-expert will come up with the same answer "because most of the time it's not that hard, "says Bock, "but once in a while they'll also come up with an answer that is totally new. And there is huge value in that."
Finally Google looks for intellectual humility. "Without humility, you are unable to learn." It is why research shows that many graduates from hotshot business schools plateau. "Successful bright people rarely experience failure, and so they don't learn how to learn from that failure," says Bock. "What we've seen is that the people who are the most successful here, who we want to hire, will have a fierce position. They'll argue like hell. They'll be zealots about their point of view. But then you say, 'here's a new fact,' and they'll go, 'Oh, well, that changes things; you're right.' " You need a big ego and small ego in the same person at the same time.""
(Score: 0, Flamebait) by Khyber on Monday March 03 2014, @10:57PM
Hi, I actually work for google in the helpouts program.
The trick is to actually know what the fuck you're talking about and be able to demonstrate it.
Which, sadly, most of you have no fucking clue how to do.
Which is why I have a helpouts listing and you do not. I'm a proven professional reference with Google employees that have been helped as my refefence. You're what, again?
Destroying Semiconductors With Style Since 2008, and scaring you ill-educated fools since 2013.
(Score: 4, Insightful) by Anonymous Coward on Monday March 03 2014, @11:24PM
Good for you. I hope that this is a fulfilling career choice for you.
Been doing exactly that since before AOL was a thing, that's why I have taxable income.
Assuming for the sake of argument that this statement was intended as a literal expression of opinion, and not merely flamebait: many of the people here are actually engaged in remunerative employment in a competitive field. They sure as hell convinced somebody that they knew what they were talking about, enough to shake loose many doubloons. So I doubt the veracity of your position.
No, that may be why you have a helpouts listing, but it is most emphatically not why I don't have one. I don't have one because I don't want one. I did direct support, and supervised direct support, both internally and externally to organisations in various contexts. I can do it, but it is not what I like to do. Therefore I make my money in other ways.
I will add that your attitude suggests to me that I would probably not enjoy enlisting your assistance on Google Helpouts anyway, and that if that attitude is endemic, that I should avoid the service entirely. This attitudinal shift on my part is probably counter to the desires of Google in general, so you may wish to reconsider your approach to personal evangelism of the brand.
(Score: 1, Funny) by timbim on Monday March 03 2014, @11:32PM
Yeah but do you know how many ping-pong balls will fit into a jumbo jet?
(Score: 1) by EvilJim on Tuesday March 04 2014, @09:56PM
so are you the guy who tells you how to start your own fashion house? or they guy who fixes windows problems for $1.20 per hour? what would google employees be paying you for that their search engine wouldn't find for free? glad you're proud but if I were involved in that I'd probably keep it secret.