

Ask HN: Google is always hiring talent?  How? -  citizenkeys

I'm finishing "The Google Resume" ebook I bought on Kindle for iPad.   I'm determined to have several job offers by summer's end.   I keep reading "Google is always hiring raw talent".   That's all fine and good, but having applied for about 15 jobs, 5 at a time, through the online job shopping cart, damned if I can find a way to add "raw talent" to my basket.<p>I have a bachelor's degree in business management and taken several HR classes.   I've concluded that "hiring raw talent" is only what the stakeholders are after.   Human Resources, however, is after hiring people with good resumes.   The reason is that if the candidate doesn't work out, the HR people can at least cover their own asses by saying "we gave this person a job because they had a good resume. "<p>My resume was directly forwarded to Google HR by a Stanford PhD already employed by Google Research that personally referred me to Google.   I also personally run two websites that track over 300 high-tech start-ups.   That said, I got a form email a week later basically indicating "don't call us, we'll call you."   That's ridiculous.<p>So WTF does raw talent gotta do to get in the 'Plex? 
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presidentender
A koan:

Once a young man loved a woman very much.  He made sure to grow strong, to
impress her parents and her friends, and to collect a great fortune.  He
proposed marriage to her and she said 'no.' 

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nowarninglabel
You seem to be allowing emotion to influence your judgment here.  I'm pretty
sure raw talent still means you have a set of demonstrable skills which fill a
need.  Either they were not in need of what your resume shown you to be
proficient in or your resume didn't indicate enough talent/experience to meet
their needs. 

~~~
citizenkeys
If Google wants to win the so-called "talent war" going on right now in
Silicon Valley, then it would seem Google would rather hire the talent
immediately simply to prevent the talent from taking a job elsewhere.  This
seems to be Facebook's strategy with it's so-called "manquisitions". 

If you're Google, waiting until you absolutely know you need a specific talent
seems like an approach that would definately keep fresh innovative ideas and
creativity out of your company. 

Imagine a young Mark Zuckerberg going to Google for a job.  Zuck says "I got
this great idea for social networking for college students."  Google HR says
"We don't have a position open for that right now.  Plus you don't have a good
resume and you're not a fancy-pants PhD. Don't call us.  We'll get back to
you."  Zuck goes down the street, continues to work on Facebook, and then
promptly hires away all of Google's employees.  The rest is history. 

What I want to hear from Google right now is "Patrick, we don't have a
specific job for you yet, but we would rather hire you now anyway to prevent
you from accepting an offer elsewhere."  But that'd just be too damn easy, I
guess. 

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nowarninglabel
Do you have an offer from elsewhere?  If the answer is no, then your logic is
falling flat. 

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citizenkeys
No, your logic falls flat.  Because what you're suggesting is that a competitor
needs to notice and recruit talent before you'll even consider making an
offer.  In which case, you've already fallen behind by letting a competitor get
to the talent first. 

~~~
Toddward
Can you qualify yourself as a talent?  Does your resume and/or cover letter
show that? 

It's easy for any of us to say we're a talent - it's how you show that you're
a talent that will make you attractive to an employer (not only just Google). 

At least you know they're looking at your application - I graduated with a
political science degree in December and have been sending steady streams of
applications for months with nary a peep from Google recruiting. 

~~~
citizenkeys
Person with great "resume and/or cover letter" only has proven talent in
writing great "resume and/or cover letter". 

"The Google Resume" is a great book.  It's written by a former hiring manager
that's worked at Google, Apple, and Microsoft.  Gayle Laakman also wrote
"Cracking the Coding Interview" and runs www.careercup.com . 

Nobody gets hired by sending "steady streams of applications for months".  You
gotta stand out somehow.  In my case, I run two websites that track over 300
start-ups.  I was also personally referred to Google by a Stanford PhD already
employeed by Google Research.  Google has no excuse for not inviting me in the
'Plex. 

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dstein
I wouldn't take it personally.  I was in the exact same situation.  I applied to
a Google position that my qualifications absolutely crushed, I was sure I'd be
contacted almost immediately.  Nope.  6 or 7 weeks later I finally got a
response for a quick phone screening with their HR guy.  I thought it was
insulting. 

I don't think Google's hiring is really any different than headhunters.  They
drop a lot of hooks, get a lot of resumes into a database, and when they
really need to fill a position they just do a search and drill down the list
of matches. 

Maybe go apply to Facebook instead. 

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aristus
Interviews have a high but unknown false-negative rate.  Don't take it
personally, and don't treat this like a video game or college admissions
process.  If you take a few years working somewhere else, that's perfectly
fine.  Maybe you'll discover something or somewhere else that's even better
than what you imagine Google to be like. 

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rdouble
Your problem is that you applied for "15 jobs, 5 at a time."  That is an HR red
flag. 

~~~
citizenkeys
No, you're also wrong.  That's called "I'm smart enough to be flexible and
willing to take whatever job will get my foot in the door." 

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uvTwitch
'Raw Talent' isn't the kind of distinction one can simply bestow upon oneself. 

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ifyouhavetoask
If you have to ask...

