Yesterday Google announced that they are laying off a quarter of their recruiting staff and also closing down several offices and less popular services. This of course made all the major news outlets because Google is supposed to be recession proof. Here are my thoughts and experiences on the matter.
First of all, it sucks to be one of those people losing his or her job, but seriously, Google’s whole recruiting department has a bad reputation in the Silicon Valley. Google recruiters are known to be very unprofessional and haughty. I have heard tons of stories where Google recruiters wasted people’s time by rescheduling interviews or doing a switch and bait on the job. Their recruiting process is intentionally vague to hold up the exclusiveness of Google, but that is also unprofessional because job seekers need to know what they are going to do. I think they treat people like crap during the whole recruiting process because they assume that everyone wants to work at Google, and that turns a lot of people off. Funnily enough my friend who works at Google actually hated the recruiting experience he went through, and when he heard that these recruiters were laid off he cheered a little.
Another thing that many people have said about Google is that they do not need more than 20000 people to run its business. Our CEO said this week that “Google just hires a bunch of PhDs that do not know how the real world works.” That is why they have so many weird projects that start up and then shut down. Also, they have a lot of redundancy in the various services they offer and that is just wasteful. The way Google operates is extremely inefficient, and pretty much everyone knows it. Seriously I don’t know why their shareholders haven’t protested the way Google operates because if they trimmed all the useless stuff and focused on their core business then I wouldn’t be surprised if their earning per share were $20 instead of $4 to $5.
Anyway, I am hoping that Google becomes more serious about its business and announce more layoffs. It would be painful for those laid off, but maybe they will start something new and make the Valley more interesting. Google is so last century.
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4 comments ↓
Just as long as they don’t take away my GOOG-411. Oh, GOOG-411. I love you.
I hope they are. It’d be a real powerhouse if they could trim down their overhead and improve their operating efficiency without hurting creativity.
Fabulously Broke in the City
“Just a girl trying to find a balance between being a Shopaholic and a Saver.“
Google may have their flaws, but they continue to absolutely dominate, so they must be doing something right. So many internet companies have faded into the past, but Google has stood the test of time in a web-connected world.
The number of Google apps that I use, and how dependent I’ve become on them, is crazy. Having plenty of flops is OK if you hit it big once in a while.
I can definitely see how their recruiting department would act in that manner though, knowing that the recruitee would most likely do anything to land a job there.
Google has not grown up to me at ALL! They just want someone to blame for the bad reputation they have been cooking for themselves for the past year or so. Google are just using those poor people as a scapegoat. To claim that the people they hire are unprofessional and shady does not explain the company’s behavior. Why would these people (recruits) behave in this way unless they were working for a shady business? I still think Google has not changed at all.
Sara, (check out my employment blog)
http://www.employmentmoney.blogspot.com
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