Google is consistently ranked by Fortune magazine as one of the best places to work. It provides employees with excellent pay and a series of perks that are unheard of at most corporations. Some of these perks are flex hours; bring your dog to work; casual dress; on-site free massage and yoga; free snacks, drinks, and meals; and a child-care centre among many others. No wonder that Google receives close to 3 million job applications a year. To find the best talent, Google uses carefully selected strategies, methods, and techniques. Google recruits at college and university campuses and through the Careers section of its website. Google is very selective, hiring only about 7000 of the 3 million applicants. Google uses different methods to select people for different jobs, but there are some common elements: preliminary screening, employment tests, interviews, and background checks. Google is looking for intelligence, creativity, leadership, and fit with the Google culture, as well as the role the person will play as part of Google. Hiring decisions are not made by managers but having a committee composed of peers make the decision, which is much like the process a university uses in hiring, promoting, and granting tenure to faculty, rather than hierarchical structures used in industry. One can say that in many ways Google operates in the knowledge industry much like a university. |