Gretchen, a Microsoft recruiter, wrote the following on her jobs blog recently and it cause quite an uproar:
My latest tirade revolves around Hiring Managers (and I'm referring to Microsoft Hiring Managers … but I know this problem exists in other companies) not "getting" the talent landscape. Not only do they not seem to understand that brilliant software engineers don't grow on trees (you don't, do you?) … but they can't seem to get it through their heads that 1) Microsoft isn't the only place hiring, 2) Working at a big company isn't everyone's dream, and 3) Redmond is not the first place people say they want to move when they wake up in the morning. (Unfortunately, I don't think the slogan "Where do you want to go today? Redmond, of course!" would fly.)
I think every large tech company has serious problems of some sort or another in recruiting.
At Yahoo, for example, recruiting is a bit of a black hole. I send my fair share of resumes to recruiting (probably more than my fair share, come to think of it), but once a resume is in their hands, I have absolutely no visibility into the process unless I follow up. Only if the candidate tells me what's going on, do I have any idea. (When is the interview? How did it go? Did we offer a job?) And if they do get a job, I find a referral bonus in my paycheck a few weeks later (yeay!) but it never lists the candidate's name (boo!).
Now, I could follow up on each and every resume I send in, but that's a lot of busy work. And, more importantly, I'd feel like I'm asking our already overworked recruiting team to do even more. It's not their fault. The system is simply broken.
The last thing I want is for one of our recruiters to read this and start sending me updates on my referrals. I want the system fixed. The recruiters are not broken. They're doing great work.
At Google, on the other hand, they have a decent system in place for providing access to feedback all along the way. But their disorganized and long interview process tends to spook people. Others get pissed off or fed up part way through and just give up. People at Google know this too.
The interesting thing is that each company I find out more about seems to have a recruiting system that's broken in its own special way.
In an odd way, that's reassuring.
Is your recruiting/hiring system broken too? Please share...
Posted by jzawodn at June 11, 2005 07:35 PM
Recruiting in the interactive space is fundamentally broken because in general recruiters are extremely linear and never look at the full candidate rather than the overall picture.
Individual achievement is generally shunned unless you have a fortune 500 company on the resume, innovative thought is assumed to mean lack of team experience.
Fixing the logistics is simple, changing the mindset is rather hard.
Personally, I created my own site which is approximately 50-75x the size of your very amazing blog (compared against your given measure of pageviews in another post you made previously). If I had applied to Yahoo, I can assure you I would not have even gotten a rejection letter, even with 3 college degrees.
If you have any influence at Yahoo, see if you can influence how they hire, rather than who they are hiring. Innovative thinkers seem to be undervalued these days... I'd be curious if you had an opinion why?
Incidently, it your blog is one of 3 I read with any regularity. Yours was the first that made me open my mind to blogs.
Best wishes Jeremy.
Al
Fixing Typo's - Mental Note Don't Listen to Depeche Mode and Write at the same time :)
Recruiting in the interactive space is fundamentally broken because in general recruiters are extremely linear and never look at the full candidate.
Individual achievement is generally shunned unless you have a fortune 500 company on the resume, innovative thought is assumed to mean lack of team experience.
Fixing the logistics is simple, changing the mindset is rather hard.
Personally, I created my own site which is approximately 50-75x the size of your very amazing blog (compared against your given measure of pageviews in another post you made previously). If I had applied to Yahoo, I can assure you I would not have even gotten a rejection letter, even with 3 college degrees.
If you have any influence at Yahoo, see if you can influence how they hire, rather than who they are hiring. Innovative thinkers seem to be undervalued these days... I'd be curious if you had an opinion why?
Incidently, it your blog is one of 3 I read with any regularity. Yours was the first that made me open my mind to blogs.
Best wishes Jeremy.
Al
Yahoo seems specially weak at hiring fresh college grads. I got interviews with MS, Google (onsite) and Amazon (onsite), but yahoo didnt even care to send a thank you!
I think most tech companies handle interviews well. As for the MS recruiter comment I think they are just plain angry/confused that they are no longer the best place for techies to work for (when were they ? Maybe I was too young then :-))
At Google, on the other hand, they have a decent system in place for providing access to feedback all along the way. But their disorganized and long interview process tends to spook people. Others get pissed off or fed up part way through and just give up. People at Google know this too.
Man, those Google people are brilliant -- even their HR folks are real quality problem-solvers.
Google's interviewing process weeds out folks who are unnecessarily spooked as well as those folks who don't follow through on difficult problems. Thse are the kinds of people that Google does NOT want to be hiring in the first place.
Now, if only Google would open a Northern New Jersey office ...
Real good kool-aid. I'll tell you that I wasn't "spooked" by their process so much as offended by it. Look, smart people are in high demand. We have egos. Maybe we're not all Larry or Sergey but we'd like to feel special in some way. If Google's going to leave us dangling for weeks with no contact and other co's are going to flatter us in the meantime.. I think it's going to be a much more interesting landscape when it comes time to decide.
(side note: I like the first name authentication)
I think recruiting is a hazing process. Large companies really want people who will fit into to their process and social structure. It's sort of like fitting into a fraternity. Will you show the proper respect and not betray us?
With this mindset, innovation is of course anathema. For large companies, innovation is only interesting within the context of preserving the company's status quo, for instance, are we considered number 1 in category x?
In the interest of full disclosure, I base my comments on 8 years experience on faculty at the University of Michigan.
You think you're companies have broken recruitment processes?
What about one unnamed organisation which has no formal "recommendation"/"referal" process, I'm told because that practice is unfair/illegal and all candidates must be treated equally.
An organisation where tech jobs are usually just listed on their own jobs site and in one of the daily newspapers.
lol
With apologies to Leonid Nikolaievich: "Happy hiring systems are all alike, but every broken system is broken in its own way."
I'm leaving a very small company (~28 employees) for graduate school soon. We have no recruiting staff; my supervisor is recruiting my replacement himself (with feedback from me whenever he asks, which is often enough to give me confidence.)
An article on CNET today on Microsoft recruiting:
Microsoft's personnel puzzle
http://news.com.com/Microsofts+personnel+puzzle/2100-1022_3-5770771.html
