Google Answer to Filling Jobs Is an Algorithm - New York Times

[David Farber <dave () farber net>]

http://www.nytimes.com/2007/01/03/technology/03google.html? 
ei=5094&en=4d3171ddca1dab7d&hp=&ex=1167886800&partner=homepage&pagewante 
d=all




Google Answer to Filling Jobs Is an Algorithm

By SAUL HANSELL
MOUNTAIN VIEW, Calif. — Have you ever made a profit from a catering  
business or dog walking? Do you prefer to work alone or in groups?  
Have you ever set a world record in anything?

The right answers could help get you a job at Google.

Google has always wanted to hire people with straight-A report cards  
and double 800s on their SATs. Now, like an Ivy League school, it is  
starting to look for more well-rounded candidates, like those who  
have published books or started their own clubs.

Desperate to hire more engineers and sales representatives to staff  
its rapidly growing search and advertising business, Google — in  
typical eccentric fashion — has created an automated way to search  
for talent among the more than 100,000 job applications it receives  
each month. It is starting to ask job applicants to fill out an  
elaborate online survey that explores their attitudes, behavior,  
personality and biographical details going back to high school.

The questions range from the age when applicants first got excited  
about computers to whether they have ever tutored or ever established  
a nonprofit organization.

The answers are fed into a series of formulas created by Google’s  
mathematicians that calculate a score — from zero to 100 — meant to  
predict how well a person will fit into its chaotic and competitive  
culture.

“As we get bigger, we find it harder and harder to find enough  
people,” said Laszlo Bock, Google’s vice president for people  
operations. “With traditional hiring methods, we were worried we will  
overlook some of the best candidates.”

Google is certainly not alone in the search for quantitative ways to  
find good employees. Employers use a wide range of tests meant to  
assess skills, intelligence, personality and honesty. And the use of  
biographical surveys similar to Google’s new system is on the rise.

Such tools, however, have mainly been the trademark of large  
corporations recruiting armies of similar workers, like telephone  
service representatives or insurance sales agents. They are rarely  
used in Silicon Valley, which is built on a belief in idiosyncratic  
talent.

“ Yahoo does not use tests, puzzles or tricks, etc., when  
interviewing candidates,” Jessie Wixon, a spokeswoman for Yahoo,  
said. (Google is known for hazing prospects in interviews with  
intractable brain teasers. And it once tried to attract candidates by  
placing some particularly difficult problems on billboards.)



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