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24 Feb, 2014

The five attributes Google seeks in its job applicants – Sydney Morning Herald

Last June, in an interview with Adam Bryant of The New York Times, Laszlo Bock, the senior vice president of people operations for Google – ie, the guy in charge of hiring for one of the world’s most successful companies – noted that Google had determined that academic results weren’t very important.

‘‘[Grade point averages] are worthless as a criteria for hiring, and test scores are worthless …We found that they don’t predict anything.’’ He also noted that the ‘‘proportion of people without any college education at Google has increased over time’’ – now as high as 14 per cent on some teams. At a time when many people are asking, ‘‘How’s my kid gonna get a job?’’ I thought it would be useful to visit Google and hear how Bock would answer.

Don’t get him wrong, Bock begins, ‘‘Good grades certainly don’t hurt.’’ Many jobs at Google require maths, computing and coding skills, so if your good grades truly reflect skills in those areas that you can apply, it would be an advantage. But Google has its eyes on much more.

Read the rest: How to get a job at Google.