Hi Adam,

A lot of wise advice to HR-people all over the world! I doubt that the average HR-peson will agree with any of it, though. They generally seem to reach point-of-no-return in marketing jargon etc at a very early stage of their career!

I’ve been through some incredibly frustrating job-inteviews lately. One where the interviewer repeatedly stated how incredibly busy she was and how difficult it was for her to find time to deal with the interviewees. Sure enough, it took her ages to inform the interviewees that they had been selected for an interview and even longer to tell those who didn’t get the job (me, for instance) that we were not among the chosen ones (no reason given, of course). I wrote and urged her - in a very polite way - to give a few reasons which I could use to improve myself. This was four months ago - no reply.

In another interview the HR-person began the interview by telling me how incredibly well-qualified I was for the job - only to proceed by trying to force me to admit the I was hiding something in my resume. He ended up by askimg me to give him a detailed history of what I had been doing since I was 15!!! Just to show him that I had nothing to hide I complied. When I told him about my 18 months with the early Danish house-squatter movement, he jumped up and shouted: “I knew it - no wonder you didn’t put that into your resume” - to which I replied: “I didn’t put it into my resume because it was completely irreleveant for the job!”. He didn’t buy that - and I didn’ get the job…

At present I am in a not very stimulating job - but the girl who hired me - and who is also my boss - is incredibly sweet and I have wonderful, relaxed and caring collegaues. Humanity is what matters.

All the best,
Jannik

- Posted on Tuesday, July 4, 2006 at 1:03 [ Permalink to this comment ]

- Posted on Tuesday, July 4, 2006 at 7:47 [ Permalink to this comment ]

Jannik and Mladen, there are no good excuses for the treatments you’ve received, and I’m especially sorry to hear that you’ve had a bad experience with Google HR, Mladen.

Jannik… I do agree with you that people MAKE the job.  You can shine even with less-than-stimulating responsibilities (especially by taking on additional challenges) when you have good people that trust you and back you up and make it worth coming in to work in the morning.

And Mladen, definitely don’t be shy.  If you haven’t done so already, leave a short, polite voicemail with your recruiter letting him or her know you’re looking forward to hearing from them and still very excited about working at Google… and keep me posted on how it goes!

- Posted on Tuesday, July 4, 2006 at 19:51 [ Permalink to this comment ]

2 weeks and no reply? Hah! It’s been almost 3 months since I sent in the worksheet to Google, and not even so much as an acknowledgement of “we got it”.

- Posted on Wednesday, July 5, 2006 at 6:17 [ Permalink to this comment ]

- Posted on Wednesday, July 5, 2006 at 7:10 [ Permalink to this comment ]

.

I’ve send Google HR an email and I’ve got the response from the recruiter :

Sorry for not getting back to you sooner. You did well on your worksheet and I know starting next week one of the recruiters should be giving you a call. Please bear with me we have a lot going on at Google.

Unfortunatly, for such big companies as Google, one cannot hope anything from the interview.

Although, the interview with Google, it is still something .

- Posted on Wednesday, July 5, 2006 at 12:06 [ Permalink to this comment ]

I’ve got new email from Google HR.

I noticed you are outside the US Unfortunately, as you may know, the cap for sponsoring VISAs has been reached in the USA. Most companies cannot currently provide sponsorship at this time. If you don’t need any form of sponsorship we will be happy to proceed with your application. This what has stood up the process.

OK, now I know that I shouldn’t apply any more for jobs in Google in USA or in USA in general. .

It seems that I don’t need call any longer.

But, at least it is nice and friendly response and I have better opinion about Google HR now .

- Posted on Wednesday, July 5, 2006 at 12:17 [ Permalink to this comment ]

Mladen,

I know that we do our best at Google to get great people from around the world, and it’s frustating (for us and for you, obviously) when we run up against governmental VISA limits and such.

Sorry this didn’t work out for you, and I wish you the best in your job search!

- Posted on Wednesday, July 5, 2006 at 13:34 [ Permalink to this comment ]

Back when I was looking for jobs, the thing I detested the _most_ was PDF applications that you couldn’t fill in. Handwriting ones entire work history takes up hours of free time. Here’s hoping some company reads this and is motivated to make their applications fillable.

- Posted on Wednesday, July 5, 2006 at 22:06 [ Permalink to this comment ]

Another big one for me - follow up, even if you’re not interested. If someone has bothered to take a day off work, fly across country and spend time to talk with you, you owe it to them to let it know that they were not selected. This applies even if they just came in locally.

In many cases the issue is a bad fit for a particular job and both sides know it. I interviewed for three different jobs at AOL before we found the best fit. If the recruiter had stopped talking to me after the first disastrous interview (it was a horrible job), she would have missed out.

- Posted on Tuesday, August 1, 2006 at 6:59 [ Permalink to this comment ]

The most easy and sweet word from HR.
“We’ll call you back"…
I hate this sentence.

- Posted on Sunday, March 23, 2008 at 22:50 [ Permalink to this comment ]