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Google Gets 1,000,000 Applicants a Year, Denies 99.5%

leedodd.com — In 2006 they hired approximately 5,000 new employees, a small percentage out of a total 1,000,000 applicants. Here is a portion from the CNN Alina Cho story. Must be nice to be able to pick the best and brightest from 1,000,000 applicants each year.

Who dugg this? Made popular Jan 24, 2007

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  • brstilson, on 10/12/2007, -2/+56I'm guessing part of the reason for your rejection was the several spelling and grammatical errors undoubtedly on your resume.
  • xtrememotion, on 10/12/2007, -1/+32I was one of the 6,524,170,264 that never applied
  • hijinks, on 10/12/2007, -3/+32one of the main reasons I didn't want to work there was one of the last interviews where I was getting slammed with hardcore tech questions and if I didn't get one just the way they wanted to hear it they tried to make me seem like I was 5 and explain why they thought I was wrong and almost act smarter then I was. I didn't want to work in a group where people seemed like they were trying to prove how smart they were
  • brstilson, on 10/12/2007, -1/+28That is like turning down a free Wii
  • Loonacy, on 10/12/2007, -1/+27What or you talking a bout? Eye didn't see a knee spelling errors in his post. Spell cheque works four me!
  • beaumont911, on 10/12/2007, -2/+19Wouldn't we all.
  • Sphonix, on 10/12/2007, -0/+14That's still 5000 people employed per year (nearly 17 people per day). If you are pro in your league, I'm sure you could be part of that 5,000.
  • notcarsondaly, on 10/12/2007, -2/+15Ah you experienced THE Google Arrogance too, eh?
  • inactive, on 10/12/2007, -1/+12blogspam link to article here http://news.search.yahoo.com/news/search?p=life+at+google&c=av
  • cbbspike, on 10/12/2007, -4/+15@marnaq I believe he/she is the definition of a person with an objective in life, and someone who is willing to work very hard to reach that objective.

    In my humble opinion one of the best moves you can do (in your career) is work for a company that you are the least intelligent person around, because you might learn something from your coworkers. You can also get fired for been the least intelligent, but getting fired would be a true way to know that you tried something on the edge of you comfort zone, which means you are progressing, it could also mean you are a lazy bastard that needs to work harder.

    Please disregard this comment if it does not apply to you.
  • unruled, on 10/12/2007, -4/+14my dream is still to eventually work at google. Il work my ass off, and make sure I get there :)
  • hijinks, on 10/12/2007, -2/+12wow.. almost a year ago I went through the 12 stage interview process and they offered me a job and I turned them down. It was for a Sr Linux Sys Admin and they just filled the spot in NYC so they wanted me in Mountain View but I didn't want to move out west.
  • marnaq, on 10/12/2007, -10/+20you're the definition of fanboy.
  • geekchic, on 10/12/2007, -1/+9Exactly one million applications?

    Being Google, I would have expected the total to be at least some mathematical derivative of Pi.
  • mwosh, on 10/12/2007, -0/+7Wasn't it the article Forbes put out that said Google gets 1,300 applicants a day?

    1,300 * 365 = 474,500

    So which is it?

    (http://www.forbes.com/businesswire/feeds/businesswire/2007/01/08/businesswire20070108005839r1.html)
  • tweak50, on 10/12/2007, -0/+6Proper English maybe.
  • LaTechTech, on 10/12/2007, -0/+5ROFL

    Google the sweepstakes! Good luck with that!

    Don't forget that, purchase is not necessary!
  • G-RaZoR, on 10/12/2007, -0/+5Yeah, exactly. The people who got denied were most likely not qualified for the job anyway.
  • Ichibanit, on 10/12/2007, -0/+5@hijinks
    Good for you :o)
  • geekchic, on 10/12/2007, -0/+5For a geek, working for a sucessfull IT firm is "exactly" what they want.

    Not everyone grows up wanting to drive steam trains.
  • ozziegt, on 10/12/2007, -0/+4Google does have a lot of great perks but a lot of them are designed to keep you at work or thinking about work.
  • onehrcleaner, on 10/12/2007, -0/+4You all are just looking for the wrong jobs at Google, I'm sure every one of you would qualify to be fantastic custodial engineers...
  • smojo12, on 10/12/2007, -1/+5No I don't think so...I just think that there are a lot of people who love Google. Me being one of those people.
  • bbqplate, on 10/12/2007, -0/+4nothing is free. google just deducts it from what your real salary of what it 'could' be. heck, id rather bring pb and j and bananas for en extra 15k tagged onto my salary.
  • gus2074, on 10/12/2007, -0/+3I don't want to work for Google or anyone like them. I never applied and never will. I'd rather choose among the other billion or so companies out there that consider it a privilege to have an employee spend his/her time working for them rather than the other way around.

  • marnaq, on 10/12/2007, -3/+6What I'm saying is, the good things of Google aren't unique for Google. I'm sure there are many, many companies that offer equal or better work experience.
  • Grimdotdotdot, on 10/12/2007, -2/+5You *nutter*.
  • ozziegt, on 10/12/2007, -1/+4Sounds like someone likes to *brag*.
  • Luuvitonen, on 10/12/2007, -1/+4We don't like those who brag. Consider your offer canceled. Besides we found a better candidate for the position. Have a good one.
  • Elranzer, on 10/12/2007, -0/+2Audacity isn't hard to get...

    http://audacity.sf.net
  • pickypg, on 10/12/2007, -0/+2I used to read these articles and be mystified and impressed by Google's hiring standards.

    That is, until I met a real Google employee and realized that these articles are all buzz pieces made to impress those not in the know, and hopefully get some generated interest from truly skilled people.
  • VintageMud, on 10/12/2007, -2/+4you mean, you'd 'like' to co-op there... the reason they give you 3 meals a day free is because that is all you will do. there is no life outside of work, you might as well just set up a cot in your cube...



    although it would be nice to be making >$100k a year...
  • marnaq, on 10/12/2007, -0/+2I wanted to be a construction worker (operating large cranes and stuff), but I changed my mind when my parents bought a computer.
  • jeylux, on 10/12/2007, -0/+2I wonder how many other people in the united states have this problem...

    i agree with kirstyjanye... maybe some other companys could learn from this. Give employees what they want, get the best people in the world, and be super profitable... huh.
  • mhummel, on 10/12/2007, -0/+2Kinda takes the fun out of it then, doesn't it Lazlo?
  • Bean945, on 10/12/2007, -0/+2You know google isn't just in the USA?
  • ozziegt, on 10/12/2007, -1/+3I doubt many of the 5000 apply through their website. Most people probably get interviews through connections.
  • Ichibanit, on 10/12/2007, -0/+2@TonyCubed

    I don't think so. If you want to be number one you have to try new things. If you try new things you make mistakes. So holding on to one absolute truth such as "We do things this way" is a often a very bad sign. Take digg they tryed a fresh idea, that slashdot rejected, and look at them now.
  • halik, on 10/12/2007, -0/+2Never applied, I heard horror stories about their review process and the type of people they hire. There are plenty of employers (IT and otherwise) with similar benefits and pay. Plus all advertising firms are heavily affected by the business cycle, so it's not the safest field to be in to begin with.
  • phlux, on 10/12/2007, -0/+1ya except less employee turn over can be a bad thing when you have mediocre employees.

    Google has paired employee retention with great employees (or so one is to believe)

  • phlux, on 10/12/2007, -0/+1@ozzieget

    As I understand it Google has a system specifically designed to prevent people from getting jobs simply through connections. Their interview process consists of several rounds of face-to-face meetings but also they have the collected data from those meetings reviewed by several committees.

    While one might be able to get a face-to-face through a connection - they certainly cannot get the actual job just through a connection.

    *edit* I see you said "interview" Thanks.
  • inactive, on 10/12/2007, -0/+1And moreover, I don't think their numbers are correct at all. Google doesn't have THAT many employees -

    http://www.google.com/corporate/facts.html
  • inactive, on 10/12/2007, -1/+2"I doubt many of the 5000 apply through their website. Most people probably get interviews through connections."

    Actually, I applied through their website, and I got a face-to-face interview. So the recruiters actually DO pull resumes from online submissions.
  • quux, on 10/12/2007, -0/+1@hijinks et al.:

    That attitude of proving you're smarter than others and asking irrelevant academic questions is probably because they hire a bunch of academic types, like PhDs.

    I've heard similar stories about their interview process for a while now. It's kept me from bothering to apply there. It kept me from applying at Microsoft, too.

    Give me a small entrepreneurial company any day of the week.
  • inactive, on 10/12/2007, -0/+1Not to mention the exhorbitant cost of living out in Mountainview.
  • inactive, on 10/12/2007, -0/+1Hm, not you apparently.
  • codethis, on 10/12/2007, -0/+1i just applied for an internship yesterday - this article gives me more hope than i thought!
  • smojo12, on 10/12/2007, -0/+1I'll apply for that job next...Do you think they would believe me if I put on my resume that I have a degree from MIT in custodial engineering?
  • semifamous, on 10/12/2007, -0/+1"I'll probably send my resume twice a day to increase my chance of getting a job there."

    And there you see the reason for 1,000,000 resumes. There are a lot of people who don't apply for a specific open position. They just send their resume on principle, and send it often.

    If what I know of large corporate HR departments obtains at Google, those resumes are scanned into an applicant database, indexed on keywords, and searched when open positions come up. Basically for each open position, HR composes a query based on the job description. The query is run on the resumes, and those that have a certain score or higher are then pulled for further review.

    After that review, the best handful of those are actually passed on to the manager in charge of hiring for the position, and he/she decides which of those people to call.

    Most of the resumes never get read, just indexed and scored by automated processes.

    AFAIK, there are a few sites that tell you how to pack your resume with the right buzzwords for specific positions so you rise to the top of the query pools and actually get your resume read.
  • kirstyjayne, on 10/12/2007, -0/+1What I don't get is why other businesses aren't jumping on these benefits that Google has "thought of". It doesn't take a genius to see that better benefits = less employee turnover. Wouldn't businesses actually save some money if they just offered perks to employees?? I'm not suggesting going to whole way like Google apparently does, but it really doesn't take much to improve morale.
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