The Company Will Find You
All companies
want to hire the best talent. But how does a company even know if you are
looking for a job? What, if like most, you didn’t even apply to a particular
company because you felt you weren’t good enough? Even worse, for both you and
that company, what if you were wrong in assuming you weren’t good enough?
Max Rosett
described Google’s solution to this problem. He
stumbled upon it as he was learning computer science via an online program
and still lacking the confidence to apply for a full-time software job:
“One morning, while working on a project,
I Googled “python lambda function list comprehension.” The familiar blue links
appeared, and I started to look for the most relevant one. But then something
unusual happened.
The search results split and folded back
to reveal a box that said “You’re speaking our language. Up for a challenge?”
Rosett
took the challenge and went on to get the job. Google had identified and hired
someone based on his queries!
John
Gruber commented
that:
“Like much of what Google does, this is
both incredibly clever and incredibly creepy.”
Incredibly
clever? Absolutely. But creepy? Then I remembered that Gruber is an Apple
fanboy (In case you’re wondering, Urban Dictionary
defines “fanboy” as:
“A
passionate fan of various elements of geek culture (e.g. sci-fi, comics, Star
Wars, video games, anime, hobbits, Magic: the Gathering, etc.), but who lets
his passion override social graces.”)
A couple of
lines later, Gruber proved just that when he wondered:
“It makes me wonder how much Google knows
and tracks about queries from programmers at competing companies. Do companies
like Apple have policies or recommended practices regarding what employees do
with Google services?”
Good luck
creating (or enforcing) such policies anywhere. The only way any company can
enforce such a policy is by moving to China (where Google is banned)!
Ironically, while the iPhone is manufactured in China, Apple goes out of its
way to declare that it is “Designed in California”!
Comments
Post a Comment