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Comment by rdtsc | Hacker News Reader

Just had a recruiter from Google contact me. They do pretty often, once a year. I usually tell them I am not interested. This time the guy mentioned they have some interesting work. So I said ok, I'll talk to him. Set up a time. Waiting for the call. Get an email that he can't make it. Ok, reschedule. Set a new time. Get confirmation he would call. No call, no email not anything.

I am thinking WTF. I wasn't even the one interested in the position, is this level of unprofessionalism common with Google?

Sorry don't mean to derail the comments, but it just kind of left me with a bad taste in my mouth. And then seeing Google as first comment on HN hiring, kind of brought that back to my mind.

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Similar experience. Took 4-6 weeks to get a reply to my application email (I'd actually forgotten about it). 4-6 weeks after that (and a few emails from me chasing it up) Google were able to schedule a phone interview. Interviewer was really friendly, and I was pretty excited. Got an email shortly after saying "great that went well, can we fly you to (nearest Google office)". Replied sure - I'm free anytime. 4 weeks later (and a few emails from me chasing it up) and I find out the recruiter has gone on holiday. Another 4 or so weeks later (and more emails from me chasing it up) and I'm told they are having trouble finding someone to interview me for the in-person. Another 2 weeks later I'm finally told the position was filled, but as a promising candidate I should consider applying for other positions.

The idea of working at Google is interesting, but I don't really have the months to invest in the interview process.

A good strategy for getting hired at a big company is to find an internal advocate. It is easy for the Google HR/recruiter to ignore individual candidates, but it is harder for them to ignore you if they get an email from another Google employee asking about the status of your application.

How do you find an internal advocate? Start networking. Find people at Google with common interests or backgrounds as you. Then send me a cold email introducing yourself. It will take a few months to develop a relationship where somebody will happily send that email to HR for you, so start a few months before you are planning to submit job applications.

And at least you were the one who made the first contact. I wasn't even interested to start with, they came to me trying to impress me with new and interesting working going on in that group. I was kind of surprised. For some reason, (and I don't even know why) I expected more from them. Oh well, no need to waste time on them in the future.

Also similar to mine. Someone called me first time but the phone call was bad and he scheduled a new meeting, but he didn't call me back in the scheduled day. 2 days later he sent me a mail trying to reschedule it. As I was travelling i gave him a new number to call. He called in the first one and sent me a message saying that i wasn't there. I think i sent something like 5 emails later to explain that he called in the wrong number, but he never response me back.

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