Sprogformidling
Google phoned me!
— and they will be back for a real job interview
My hands are still shaking while I announce that I just got a phone call from Google Ireland Ltd. The lady, a Recruitment Coordinator of Google Ireland, told me that I had passed a test that I had submitted two days ago. I had expected an e-mail as response, so I was shocked to get a phone call, and so swiftly.
There will be a real job interview with another recruitment officer on Tuesday October 10, 2006. Cross your fingers for me between 12:30 and 13:00 Central European Time! This will be my 5th job interview since I reported myself to the dole in 1999, and the third such interview since summer 2005.
Apparently, this will be the third phase of application for the job as Google Online Sales and Operations Coordinator at the EU Headquarters. Phase one was the letter of application which I filled in on-line in September 2006. Second one was the worksheet test submitted in the early morning hours of Monday October 2.
Looking back at the worksheet, I keep noticing all kinds of mistyping, but I presume that I did prove my knowledge about the matters — advertising, dealing with customers according to company internal policy, writing skills, and technical questions.
*ie.
If I have luck, I will be employed in Google Ireland to deal with European operations as Online Sales and Operations Coordinator. Google in Ireland has 700 employees. I am looking forwards to twist my tongue into the Irish variety of English. And to add Irish as the first member of the Celtic group to my fond of languages. The very internet extension of Ireland is .ie and is a clear reminder to any linguist of the importance of Irish to Indo-European linguistics. We all know the abbreviation *ie. for the reconstructed ancient Indo-European proto-language.
Google was founded in 1998 by Larry Page and Sergey Brin. It has over 5,000 employees worldwide. Its chief product is its free on-line search machine that can carry out queries on the Internet in an instant. The searches are famous for their relevance, speed, and reliability. There are even courses offered in Denmark for corporate advertisers on how to optimise Google search results.
Like most other search providers, Google also offers advertising — AdWords and AdSense — which usually appears as discrete textual highlights on the web pages.
The name Google is derived from googol, is the mathematical term for a 1 followed by 100 zeros (i.e., 10100). The term was coined by Milton Sirotta, nephew of American mathematician Edward Kasner, and was popularized in the book, Mathematics and the Imagination by Kasner and James Newman. Google's play on the term reflects the company's mission to organize the immense amount of information available on the web (q.f. 1 followed by 100 zeros.)
Erik Thau-Knudsen
2006-10-04
