Now, some will read it this way: We hope those of you that may have passed us over – perhaps when we were a bit arrogant and full of ourselves – will take a look again. Or – we hope those of you that we passed over – perhaps when we weren’t so well organized, and all had our hair on fire, and basically were only hiring our friends – well we hope you’ll take a look at us again too. At least, that’s how it will read to the scores of folks I have spoken to in the past 18 months who had an interview there, but didn’t end up at the company.
But there’s an elephant in this post which is not discussed. The IPO is over, the first thousand or so have gotten rich. Why come and work at Google when the stock’s at 200? That’d be like taking a package at Yahoo in early 2000, right? I wonder if this reality has slowed the torrent of resumes that has flooded Google from the get go. Or, more likely, I wonder if it’s slowed the flood of resumes that they want to get.
In the course of my conversations with folks at Google, hiring has been the one constant obsession – both in how its done, and what might be done about it. Everyone talks about how hard it is to hire the right people, and how the company’s main constraint is talent. And those I’ve spoken with have admitted that hiring was not always done fairly – especially in the middle years of the company’s life. It’s oddly refreshing to see Google reaching out like this. While it still feels pinched, this is quite possibly the most revealing post I’ve yet to see on Google’s often uninspiring blog.