The job jungle

Google was a rivet

Today, Google told me that there is not currently a position on the AdSense team that aligns with my experience and skills. Well, I pulled another rivet in my job lottery.

What was supposed to be the first in five interviews ended up as the only one. The talk I had with one of their recruitment officers one week ago did not result in the next phase that was going to be an interview in my native language, Danish.

When I hung up the phone on October 10, I did not feel too well about the conversation. There was one question that took me by surprise. Its contents (I forgot the wording) was : How will you describe your carreer hitherto as leading to the job as an AdSense Coordinator? I had to come up with an explanation that my general international activities (international elections observer, consultant for a development aid company), multi-lingual studies, activities with web site development, and work with texts of any sorts as translator contributed to the profile for the job. The vacancy is within advertising, though, and the very fact that I was ready to make that good in my carreer was not enough, I felt.

Google

Contrasting my not-too-big-satisfaction immediately after the interview, a feeling of contempt grew in my heart as the day grew longer. Google may have had many applicants (the interviewer did not know how many) to the position for which multi-lingualism and technological skills were an advantage, but I know that fluency in more than six languages at an academic level is very rare. People with this linguistic capacity usually have the same computer skills as everybody else. Language freaks of that sort number, probably, less than 200 people in Denmark, i.e., less than 0.05 ‰ of the population (or of any population in the EU countries).

I even began to pick up signs from God that things were going the right way. Next day, the school next door had a concert, and they commenced by playing Irish folk music (that school usually never plays Irish music). On presenting the products in my cheese shop on Thursday, the servant described the Irish cheddar first before the rather numerous Dutch goudas. The best thing was when my friend Istvan Karolyffy from Budapest (alias Steven Carlson from Los Angeles) send me a good-luck post card. That really triggered a euphoria that brought me right into the Danish potato holidays. The euphoria evaporated when, on Monday October 16 (the deadline for the Google recruitment office to give its feed-back of the interview), I began to get phone calls from potential clients that wanted me for translations. God was showing me that Google and Ireland were no longer a way for me.

In its e-mail response (a standard refusal, judging by its style), the Google Staffing politely asks me Please keep us in mind as your career progresses, and we look forward to discussing future opportunities at Google with you. Kind of them, but considering that Google worldwide is one of the fastest growing companies on the Earth with 100 new people hired per week (Danish A. P. Møller, who got my application in 2005, hires 100 people annually. A. P. Møller is considered one of the biggest enterprises of Denmark), and I cannot be one of them, I doubt Google will ever come up with a position that aligns with my experience and skills.

Despite the outcome, I have the deepest respect for the Google recruitment practice. They, contrary most other employers I have contacted, take people serious despite good marks from universities.

Erik Thau-Knudsen

2006-10-17

Links

1. Google phoned me! (local link)
2. Google 's recruitment procedure (2006-11-03)
3. Specifications for job title: AdSense Coordinator — EU Headquarters Dublin (local link)
4. AdSense Worksheet My language test for the vacancy (local link)
5. The CV Google was looking at (local link; may be updated)
6. Google Ireland
7. Google-Special Digital FOCUS Online in Kooperation mit MSN