Skip menu!

2006-11-03 Breadcrumb trail: Home page Opinions


Lost in translation?

Slavoglotta Sprogformidling

News in various languages

Новости

Новине

2009-11-26
Deutsche Kompetenz real bewertet

Silkeborg Seminarium (VIA UC) am Studienanfang. Foto: Erik Thau-Knudsen, 2009-08-17.

Gestern war ein großer Tag für mich. Ich wurde für ein Deutschstudium empfohlen.

2009-01-19
Balkane moj

Наше школство: Предавање математике

Тај Балкан, који сам проучио, може такоѓе побудити смијех својих емиграната. Ево Вам збирка догаѓаја. Осим знања српског и македонског језика биќе Ви корисно такоѓе знање енглеског и њемачког.

2008-12-03
Christmas is cancelled!

Apparently, YOU told Santa that you have been GOOD this year. 
He died laughing!

Comment the joke

2008-11-30
Code your images correctly — for future's sake!

This article explains some coding tricks to deal with images on web pages. It analyses every detail in writing the HTML and CSS code to display pictures on your web pages. The analysis will tell you all you need to have in mind if you want to know how to make your site future proof, but only if the future is no more than 5 years away!

2008-10-03
Future proof imaging

Last week, a friend of mine, who is the web master of a minor professional association in Denmark, asked me about how to make a web site future proof, i.e., forwards compatible. At first, I thought it was a question of structuring the web pages, i.e., applying SGML coding like HTML or XHTML in a correct manner. After all, it has for long been agreed in the World Wide Web Consortium that XML in one or another realisation, notably XHTML, is the format of the future, especially due to its strict keeping data structure apart from appearance, usually written in the Cascading Style Sheets format (CSS).

2008-08-27
Where the h... is Struga?

Bitola

This and other questions got an answer while I was covering Copenhagen Chalgija's tour in Macedonia through July 2008. Here are some photos I made of them.

Dias show

2008-05-23

Leto 2008 v Sloveniji

Na leto gremo v Slovenijo s porodicom. Danes sem kupil vozovne karte za Ljubljano in nazaj v Silkeborg. Moji dekleci rado pričakajo potovanje v julij v to neznano za njih deželo.

2008-05-22
Laugh a bit with me!

Crashed lorry

My sister-in-law just sent us these images. Some are reviews to those of you who once upon a time enlisted on my mail list the Gigglers.

My contact to Google's recruitment coordination chronologically

Nervous applicants from countries all over the European continent have been asking me details about the recruitment at Google ever since I started writing about my own experiences with the staff behind the search machine. Here is my attempt to satisfy Miquel's curiosity.

Erik Thau-Knudsen
2007-11-11

Late September, 2006
I submitted my on-line application to Google European Headquarters.
2006-09-28 16:32 (Thursday)
Letter of confirmation from the Recruitment Coordinator of Google Ireland with attached AdSense worksheet in Microsoft Word .doc format.
2006-10-02 4:14 (Monday)
I submitted the completed AdSense Worksheet to the Recruitment Coordinator of Google.
2006-10-02 10:47
The Recruitment Coordinator send me a letter of confirmation of the AdSense worksheet.
2006-10-04 ca. 11:00
The coordinator phones me directly to appoint a job interview by telephone six says later.
2006-10-04 12:23
The coordinator sends me a letter confirming the job interview and attaches a job description to prepare myself for the interview.
2006-10-04 23:35
I send the Recruitment Coordinator en e-mail asking me more about the details in the procedure, as I got a proposal to go to Tadjikistan as an OSCE elections observer.
2006-10-05 17:30
The Coordinator sends me an e-mail about the details of the recruitment. She asks me if I am still interested in proceeding.
2006-10-06 1:04
I e-mail the Coordinator that I am still interested in the job.
2006-10-10 12:30
I had a telephonic interview with another Google Recruitment Officer. She told me that the results of the interviews with the AdSense coordinator applicants would be e-mailed on Friday October 13 or Monday October 16, 2006.
2006-10-17 14:45
I ask my first recruitment officer by e-mail about what happened to the response from the crew.
2006-10-17 16:46
The Recruitment Coordinator sends me an e-mail titled Thank you from Google stating that there is not currently a position on the AdSense team that aligns with my experience and skills.
2006-10-19 15:03
I respond to the Recruitment Coordinator that I would like to know what exactly triggered the refusal from Google. I never got any reply from them.
Self-portrait of Erik Thau-Knudsen from 2006-03-15 at home

Google's recruitment procedure

My earlier writing about my attempt to get employed by Google's EU division in Dublin has triggered responses from California (USA), Turkey, Belgrade (Serbia), and two from Hungary. So here is my impression of the way Google employs new people.

Do keep in mind that I did not come far in the procedure — in fact I only had one interview with Google Recruitment Team in Dublin before they filtered me off.

  1. On-line application
  2. Language test
  3. First interview
    1. My case:
    2. Other question :
  4. Later interview
  5. The applicant's personality
  6. Links

Google

Google is one of the world's fastest growing com­panies of 2006. It cur­rently hires 100 new people globally every week. The recruitment is, thus, highly sys­tematised and seems quite pro­fes­sional. The number of positions as ad­vertising agents, such as AdSense Co­ordinators, appears to be one of the fastest growing within the Google cor­poration, judging from the feed-back I have had from my articles. I shall deal with this below, based on my rather short-lasting con­tact with them. The job-seeker's contact with Google has at least these phases:

  1. On-line application.
  2. Language test
  3. First interview
  4. Later interviews

On-line application

You include your virtual CV with the application. Based on the real data — basically whether you have the formal back­ground, chiefly u­niversity degree, as re­quired — the Google Recruit­ment staff will select you for later phases.

Language test

The job applicant will get an e-mail from Google that requires you to fill in a form in Microsoft Word, in my case it was the Google Online Sales and Ope­r­ations Co­ordinator Work­sheet. I got the e-mail at least a week after the on-line ap­pl­ic­ation. The questions deal with non-linguistic issues, such as cal­cu­lation, defi­nition/re­search, website na­vi­gation, hypothe­tical in­ter­ac­tion with Google cus­tomers. Fi­nally, there will be op­tional questions testing the ap­pli­cant's writ­ing or tech­nical skills. Des­pite the non-lin­g­uistic cha­racter of the work­sheet, it is a lang­uage test a­bove all. It fil­ters off any­body who does not pos­sess the re­quired lan­guage skills (or friends with lan­guage skills!). Take your time with it, and don't panic!

First interview

Google's recruitment co­ordinator told me that there are five inter­views. I was called for this interview two days after submitting the Worksheet. We ap­poin­ted an in­terview that took place six days later. The re­cruit­ment officer, who — in my case — was a na­tive from Ire­land, where Google's EU Head­quar­ter is lo­cated, told that the purpose of the first interview was to clarify de­tails in the submitted CV as well as questions about the applicant's knowledge of Google products. It would last half an hour. In reality, I was speak­ing to the lady from the re­cruit­ment team for about 18 mi­nutes.

My case:

The questions dealt mainly with de­tails in my CV. Google picked my last 3-4 work places and asked me to de­scribe the company type and my functions. I gra­du­ated in 1989; had I graduated re­cently, their questions might have been dif­ferent. I had the im­pression that they wanted to see a line in my career that would lead to an em­ploy­ment with Google. I don't have that line, so I presume that this was their rea­son for re­fusal.
I advise all applicants to prepare themselves profoundly for that question. Look over your CV once again, take notes for the last 3-4 employments, and write down your lines in advance. Plans are no­thing, plan­ning is everything.

And make sure that your phone line is working optimally, be in a silent room. Telephone interviews are hard because you miss the mimicks of the collocutor, so you cannot moderate certain statements as you would during a normal job interview. Also, it takes place in a foreign language, so you might be unfamiliar with the particular accent of the Google representative.

Other question :

How will you describe AdSense, in lay terms, e.g., for somebody who doesn't know any­thing about it? My answer was a com­pa­ri­son with a news­paper ad: A de­di­cated area on each page con­tain­ing text-only ad­ver­tising. The actual content of the ad­ver­tis­ing would de­pend on what was writ­ten on the page by the jour­nalists.

Later interview

Interview number 2 will also take place on phone (at least if you live far away from the recruitment office). At least one of the later interviews will be on the location of your future work-place, where you will meet your colleagues. I did not make it that far my-self, but good luck to all of you applicants.

Compared to other em­ployers I have dealt with, Google's re­cruitment procedure is rather in tune with modern employ­ment the­o­ries. Phase #1 proves your in­terest in the job, as well as whe­ther you satisfy the basic requirements. Ma­ny employers, I have experienced, filter off people even here, if you have studied some­thing odd that they had never heard of, i.e., pre­judice rules. Then you take the test. Testing is time-con­sum­ing to the ap­plicant, but it gives a chance to ap­plicants who have acquired their skills in an alter­native manner. The first interview will show whether you real­ly understand the job, and whether your ca­reer prior to that mo­ment is in line with the future position at Google.

The applicant's personality

Personality is a big issue, too, but I gather it will be tested more profoundly at a later stage, which I did not reach. Some com­pa­nies, e.g. Danish multi­national cor­po­ra­tion A. P. Møller / Mærsk, test your per­sonality much ear­lier. In this case, they will know whether you think like every­body else in the or­ga­ni­sation. Google does not use this cri­terion as an ear­ly filter, pro­bably be­cause they rea­lise that a di­ver­si­ty of per­so­na­li­ties is an as­set to the com­pany. To com­ply team work, the team mem­bers need to play dif­ferent roles in their per­so­nal in­ter­action, and sub­se­quently, to have dif­ferent per­so­na­li­ties to do the job the best and most creative way. A more uniform per­so­nality set-up of a team will make it more vul­nerable to change.

Erik Thau-Knudsen, 2006-11-03

Links

  1. Google phoned me! (local link)
  2. Google was a rivet (local link)
  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


| About this site | Copyright | Contact Bookmark and Share
Erik Thau-Knudsen • Skolegade 2A, 2. sal • DK-8600 Silkeborg • Denmark • Tel.: (+45) 8680 1882  • Mob. (+45) 4013 4133