For those who think that there is a skills shortage, let me tell you about my Google job interview

[twins.fan]

A couple of years ago, I was contacted via email asking me if I would like to work for Google. I was awestruck. Of course I would like to work for Google! That would be an awesome opportunity! I exchanged a few emails and phone calls with the Google HR people. They walked me through some pretty superficial questions, instructed me to install some software onto my computer called GoogleDocs, and then set me up with a technical screen.

Before I go further in my discussion, I would like to give you the backdrop. The event occurred in February of 2010. A few months later, in about May time frame, Google had some kind of news release indicating that they had interviewed a million workers, and only 2500 of the candidates were satisfactory for employment at Google. OUT OF ONE MILLION CANDIDATES, GOOGLE FOUND THAT ONLY 2500 US STEM WORKERS WERE QUALIFIED TO WORK AT GOOGLE! US STEM workers were not qualified to be engineers, technicians, gophers, parking attendants, NOTHING! We however were qualified to pay the taxes that funded the schools that educated the workers at Google, but we were just not qualified to work with the likes of Larry Page and the rest of the Google employees with whom we commoners were blessed by God.

Let me get on with the rest of the story. As I said the Google HR person instructed me to install GoogleDocs onto my computer and set me up with the technical screen.

The person conducting my interview was ten minutes late, which was no big deal, until I realized that the reservation for the room from which he was conducting the interview expired before the interview was complete. Plus, the fellow was not fluent in English. He was apparently from Red China. He told me that he had graduated from Shanghai University and previously had worked at Netscape.

Compounding his inability to speak English, the person conducting the interview was using a speaker phone from Hell. I asked him if he was speaking on a speaker phone, and he indicated that he was. He did say that we were going to have to suffer through that because he did not want to have to hold the handset during the entire interview. I had great difficulty understanding the person interviewing me, and I know that he had trouble understanding me because, he was constantly interrupting me asking me to repeat myself, sometimes several times per word.

There were three sets of questions that I found to be trivial. Contrary to news reports that I had heard about a complex interview, the questions were trivial. I have thirty years of experience doing this stuff and he asked questions that were right in my wheel house. I probably had been doing this stuff since this guy was born.

Then he gave me a problem that required my writing an algorithm to solve a problem of his. I was given two minutes to solve the problem, but miraculously I came up with the answer! Then the person asked me to write down the answer and read it back to him, which I did. Remember, I only had two minutes, so my notes were sketched as I was compiling the answer. When I started reading it back to him, again the interviewer asked me to repeat myself constantly, completely destroying our chain of thought. It was terrible! I asked the interviewer to use the GoogleDocs software that I was instructed to install. He refused. I suggested that he allow me to email him the answers. Again, he refused. He said for me to just read the answer back over the phone. Again, he was interrupting me with his asking me to repeat myself. Again I asked him to use the GoogleDocs software that I was instructed to install or allow me to email him the answers. Again he refused.

About this time there was a knock on the door in the room that he was using to conduct this interview. The interview was over. Time had expired on his reservation for this room.

A few days later, I was informed that I was not suitable to work at Google.

A few months later, I discovered that I was one of a million people that Google had used as props for their public relations event that Google used to persuade the public that US STEM workers are not qualified to work at Google.

I filed a complaint with the EEOC. The finding of the EEOC is pending.

[tridim]

1. Yea, I've been through those weed-out interviews.

They pretty much all suck. And I've heard the actual Google interviews are pretty hellish and almost nobody has much of a chance getting selected even after multi-day interviews.

I'm pretty much resigned to the fact that I'll never work at Google, even though I know I'd be a huge asset. Their loss.

[patrice]

2. Yep. Welcome to my world: applying for jobs that aren't really there. It's all CYA. & They wonder

why people get a bad attitude.

I'm expected to just go work fast food.

Fuck it.

[Fumesucker]

3. Sorry, you're overqualified for fast food work.

They know you'll leave as soon as you find something better.

I wish I could say I'm being sarcastic.

[patrice]

10. It's particularly galling because the people I know with the strongest anti-government

attitudes all have good jobs, some of them even in government bureaucracy and that even includes some IWW types . . . so, there's NO ONE to go to bat against these corporations since a significant minority of jobs have been captured by those who support this sort of thing.

[Fumesucker]

30. I was listening to a cop and a fireman/emt have a discussion at a recent family gathering..

It was clear they both hated every part of government save for the one that wrote their checks..

[snooper2]

4. so are you in some STEM program or did they just randomly email you?

What do you have 30 years experience doing?

[twins.fan]

5. Over 30 years of experience in software development

. BS Computer Science
. seven years developing communications device drivers in various assembly languages, 8080, Z80, 68000, etc
. ten years of experience with C/C++ writing device drivers, a simulation project simulating 486 processor, writing curve fitting algorithms to do data reduction for Civil Engineers
. twelve years of experience with Java, XML/XSL/XSLT, writing a content management system that creates multiple websites for travel applications

I have worked for companies like IBM for about ten years, two entrepreneurial stints, Compaq, joint project with Intel/IBM, several small companies

[Egalitarian Thug]

36. You're name isn't Joe, is it? n/t

[twins.fan]

37. No

[uponit7771]

6. Please PM. I would be VERY VERY VERY interested in your EEOC filing and outcome...

...the unwillingness to hire US workers is overt IMHO

[twins.fan]

7. I do not have enough posts to PM; you have to send PM to me.

I filed EEOC based on age.

[TahitiNut]

31. There's no doubt in my feeble mind that AGE is the "issue".

The Silicon Valley bias against senior techies is profound. It's another "world" there ... where gender and age discrimination are the top of the "hit parade" but racial/ethnic diversity is wonderful. It's my opinion that people bring their cultures with them. Gender bias is the norm in Asia and Middle East. Age discrimination comes with the territory ... talented youngsters without the sense of personal security that would allow them to work with folks the same age as their parents. I can't even begin to count the number of phone screens and interviews where I was being asked about proprietary products based on the technical fundamentals where I was a participant in the development. I was developing relational database software before SQLPlus et. al. was a gleam n its developers' eyes ... and even before they were a gleam in their parents' eyes. I was a systems programmer before the days of object-code-only, writing and debugging OS software back when the code that still exists in the core of key OS's was being written ... some by me. Nonetheless, I wasn't "qualified" ... or I was (most often) "OVERQUALIFIED." It's a cultural CRIME to refuse to employ an "overqualified" person while importing lower-wage foreign workers, imho.

[pscot]

35. If HR is being run by foreign workers

isn't it possible there may be an additional bias against U.S. applicants? Or is that too cynical?

[TahitiNut]

40. HR serves the hiring managers. Their "job" is to PROTECT the company.

The typical HR staff is domestic. They "network" with other HR departments to get 'under the radar' feedback on hiring. That is a very small part of what they do. ALL the rest is defensive.

Afterthought: HR has changed from the "olden" days. Eve in more traditional, non-high-tech companies, HR may still resemble the days when they did all the work of finding employees when requisitioned. For manufacturing companies, the shop floor manager just didn't want to take the time to do that sjit. He needed "bodies" and HR provided the supply. Even then, however, their "top job" was to protect the company. Part of that was preventative and part was damage control. Today, especially in high-tech, they do what they're told, not vice versa ... and 90% is damage control. They have a close working relationship with their legal staff, and probably have an outside firm on perpetual retainer.

[twins.fan]

44. The SVP, People Operations at Google and Board Member/Investor ...

is named Laszlo Bock. I believe that he claims to be from some Eastern European country and has given several self-serving, tear-jerking stories about how we need more H1B visas because Google cannot find qualified US STEM workers.

http://judiciary.house.gov/hearings/June2007/Bock070606.pdf

[robinlynne]

64. Don't you think pay is the obvious issue, if the interview was conducted from China?

[flamingdem]

8. I heard from someone who applied

that they are ageist and want to see your high school transcripts!

Plus, if you're Ivy you might get in..

[twins.fan]

9. We were just props in Google's narrative designed to taunt, mock, and smear US STEM workers

[CoffeeCat]

89. Can you help me understand the back story?

Are you suggesting that Google set up these interviews--just to go through the motions of interviewing thousands of
people--knowing that they would reject most US workers? Then, upon rejection, Google could insist that US STEM workers were unqualified and use this stunt to validate their outsourcing?

Is that what you are saying?

Furthermore, from what you and others have said--they hire so many foreign workers because they will work for less. Is that true?

Why would Google have done this? I apologize for being unfamiliar with this story and I appreciate any insight you can provide. Why did the company feel the need to go to such lengths to prove that US STEM workers are unqualified? Did the US government criticize them for hiring so many non-US employees?

Do you think that it's possible that the government (or other nefarious corporate forces) could have set up this entire charade to perpetuate a negative narrative about the US workforce? I ask this because there are clearly forces in the media, government and in the corporate world who routinely demonize certain groups. State workers come to mind. Most of the country now believes that state workers are lazy, overpaid jerks who suck money dry from state budgets while reaping benefits that no one deserves.

Because the economy is worsening and the corporatist plan to destroy the middle class is progressing--I wonder if they're not spreading negative memes about workers (IT/tech people like yourself and other groups) to control the messaging about the unemployed in America. If people are critical of YOU--and believe that our STEM workforce is technically illiterate and unable to do the job--when you're out of work--people won't sympathize with you. They'll blame the victim.

Instead of blaming greedy corporations that only care about profit--they'll blame you.

I don't know if that makes sense to you, or if that seems far off in left field. I am a PR person and I can see and feel the PR plans unfolding in front of me--because that's what I do for a living. Most people see headlines and stories--and events. When I see a media story or an article, I "reverse engineer" the final media memes and can easily figure out the plan they crafted and the strategy they unfolded in the boardroom. It's easy to see how they use events, well-placed editorials and articles and also social media to inject messages into the public.

That's why I'm asking you why Google did this. You're in the tech world, so why do you think Google did this and who ultimately drove them to do it?

[HiPointDem]

99. they have to make a "good faith" attempt to find us workers before they hire h1b. maybe you

didn't see the video about the workshops available to teach you how to get around the "protections" for us workers in the h1b legislation.

[CoffeeCat]

102. Thank you so much...

...and I appreciate the information.

There are puzzle pieces here that others have. That's what I love about DU. Others are always so willing to share
information.

Thanks!!

The puzzle pieces I have, are from a PR consultant perspective. It's obvious that Google was deliberate in it's messaging. It intentionally spread via the media, the meme that it searched for qualified US tech workers, but they just were not there.

They did this for a reason. What you just mentioned -- that companies are required to make a "good faith" effort in finding US workers--may be the answer.

I may not always know WHY a company or a person communicates a specific message--but I damn sure know when there is a concerted effort to spread specific messages and use the media to do so.

Again, thanks for your insight.

[nichomachus]

11. "Red China"

as opposed to ?????

[twins.fan]

12. You know the one with the Communist government that has been stealing or given US technology.

[nichomachus]

15. But is there another China?

[shawn703]

16. Taiwan

The official name of which is the Republic of China.

[twins.fan]

19. That is what I thought

I think that it was Richard Nixon that put into motion the process that led the US government to refer to Red China as China. For clarity purposes, I will call Red China Red China.

[alcibiades_mystery]

43. Maybe the sole purpose of this round of interviews

was to determine who was a dogmatic dumbshit.

Plenty of people can program. I think you may have failed the "Want to Spend 12 Hours a Day with This Dude" portion of the contest.

Red China indeed.

[twins.fan]

52. My we are touchy ...

Dogmatic Dumbshit? Because I used the term Red China? Touchy, touchy.

BTW, we did not discuss the term Red China during the interview, just dogma like binary trees.

[alcibiades_mystery]

77. You *still* think the interview was about programming

That's what's funny about it. You still don't have the slightest clue why you failed the test so miserably. Here's a hint: the interview wasn't about programming. It was about how you operate in stressful situations and communicate with global clientele. The fact that you're STILL complaining about the interviewer's English tells us all we need to know about why you can't cut it in a global company. You said yourself that the programming was trivial. The test was to determine how successfully you can communicate under pressure. You failed. You're *still* failing, in fact.

[twins.fan]

78. Oh, OK O' Wise One

You left some stuff out. I was there; you weren't.

I have said over and over, that maybe I was not right for the job, but the person conducting the interview was not equipped to make that assessment.

Here is the contradiction. Google claims that technical qualifications are in short supply. If the ability to communicate with people who are fluent in a foreign language was in short supply, don't you think that that would have been in the job requirement? Maybe across the job title, you would see something like, "Software Engineer who can speak Mandarin" would have been the job title?

Or maybe Google is real sneaky! Instead of having us study all the stuff that we are supposed to study, like hash tables and Java and C++, maybe they could tell us to go take a course in Mandarin so we can pass the job interview with their workers from Red China.

[alcibiades_mystery]

79. ...," says the angry guy nobody at Google wants to work with

, super coder!

[CoffeeCat]

91. Wow, you're being mean

I've always enjoyed your posts, from what I can remember--but you're being incredibly mean
and presuming the worst about a person--and his job-interview situation--when you were not there.

That's not DU. It's not nice. You don't know. You weren't there.

Yet you continue to dig into him about failing the interview.

[lunasun]

168. Try this company they are full of old John Birchers and would enjoy your Mandarin rant

http://www.citadelgroup.com/

private company but just so you know but they would love your slants on why you didn't get a job with liberal Google and agree no doubt.
They hire all the time in IT

Founder donations:
n 2010, he donated $500,000 to American Crossroads, $500,000 to Stand for Children Illinois (pro-education reform),
In 2012, Griffin, and his wife Anne, has given $150,000 to Restore Our Future (Romney Super PAC), $560,000 to the Republican Governors Association, $300,000 to American Crossroads, and $1.5 million to Americans for Prosperity.[32] Overall, Griffin has donated more than $2 million dollars to date to the Super PACs American Crossroads and Restore Our Future. [33]

Believe me all" American" and no Mandarin around there ( unless of course you are in their Hong Kong location) and the people who hire IT are too old for speaker phones so no worries.

The big payoff besides no Mandarin or other 'reds'??? = Very good pay$$$

[blackspade]

162. Ridiculous statement

Having been a job interviewer, your assessment of this is wrong.
This was a ham-handed attempt at an interview if I ever heard one.
10 minutes late? Fail
Refusing to pick up the phone for better reception? Fail
Failing to have an interviewer who communicates well? Fail
Refusing to pay attention to the interviewees responses? Fail
Refusing an alternate form of communication? Fail
Cutting short an interview? Fail.

This was not a test to see how he would react, this was a crappy attempt at an interview.

[lunasun]

161. if you didn't make it move on and don't blame communism for your loss

a lot of companies want to see how you act under stress and if everything doesn't go as was planned
if you cant adapt think fast move on with the flow and make do maybe you could not do the work regardless of skills /certs you have acquired

and if you have a problem with foreign accents or speaker phones maybe the STEM fields are not for you at this point in history

'Red China' as a term sorta dates you big time as does the 30+yrs.exp
both items esp. in this millennium too,( unless you are trying to be a Bircher )

It would also shock some to know that many immigrants become naturalized citizens and do not need a work visa and are aware of the going rate in their career field!
He had graduated from Shanghai University and previously had worked at Netscape tells you he has been around here for awhile and worked himself up to be the one who interviews you for Google IT but accents are harder to lose than visas.
I was born and raised in USA as a side note

[CreekDog]

123. yeah, we don't call it that anymore

and most of us never called it that ever.

it's China.

oh if it's not China, then it could be Hong Kong or Taiwan.

just not red.

[Poll_Blind]

13. I also hit a bump when reading that but they really deserve the title.

They're a giant slave empire. It's difficult to get around that and, after a few seconds of thinking about it, I continued reading the OP.

PB

[GObamaGO]

165. That one jumped out at me too

I smell something.

[nichomachus]

171. Bingo

This isn't the first site that this has been posted to verbatim. Someone is shopping it around. The story has more holes than a Swiss cheese. Starting with the fact that no one has used the term "Red China" since about 1970. I'm amazed that DUers bought it.

[GObamaGO]

193. Yep

The last time I remember ever hearing the term "Red China" was when I was a kid in the 1970s.

[grantcart]

14. There are major factual problems in your post.

First I find it impossible to believe that Google had interviewed a million candidates.

Google had some kind of news release indicating that they had interviewed a million workers, and only 2500 of the candidates were satisfactory for employment at Google

I also find it impossible that there would have been a news item about this and it didn't get a lot of attention at DU, my major source of news.

Interviewing a million people would cost millions and require tens of thousands of manpower days.

Why would they not look at a million CVs and interview the top 5,000?

So I googled million interview google, etc, and surprise, there is nothing.

There are pages and pages about how Google receives a million resumes a year.

There is also a small cottage industry including books and magazines that explain the google interview process. Google has pages and pages of them.

http://www.wired.co.uk/magazine/archive/2012/05/start/want-to-work-at-google?page=all

I don't know about your algorithm and I was suprised by your "red China" reference but if you don't know the difference between a million resumes being sent in and a million interviews I would wonder how equipped you were to handle languge specific code writing, but that's just me, I am sure that Google has different standards.

[twins.fan]

17. Do they have books on ...

I did not prepare for the interview at all. I was unaware of preparation materials. Actually, I did not need any preparation materials for the topics in the interview; I knew that material better than the person conducting the interview. It was trivial! If I could have just answered the questions in Chinese, maybe that would have been the solution.

One of the stunning facts was that I was REQUIRED to install GoogleDocs software to participate in the interview, and the interviewer refused to use it. Maybe he did not even bring a computer to the interview. Who knows?

But I thought that my experience might help some open minded people debunk this self serving fraud that Google has been spreading to smear US STEM workers.

[grantcart]

18. Can you supply a link to the article you referred to that indicates that Google "interviewed" a

million people?

After that point we can continue.

[twins.fan]

20. I stand by my position

[grantcart]

22. Fine now show us a link that stands by your position that shows where google interviewed a milllion

people

I have interviewed thousands of people for jobs and based on the performance so far in this OP I would not be calling you back.

[twins.fan]

27. I actually responded to the story when it occurred, back in 2010

As I said, Google ran a public relation piece claiming that they interviewed a million people and could only find 2500 acceptable people back around May or June time frame in 2010. I responded to the story.

Sometimes web pages that do not suit Google's needs are later unable to be found on Google. Yeah, I know Google's results are not biased. Yeah, right!

The whole narrative began around January 2010, maybe December 2009, with an announcement that Google was going to hire 6000 or 7000 people. When I received the email asking if I would be interested in working for Google, I was elated. As I said, it was awesome.

When the guy from Red China started speaking using horrible English, I became concerned. As I said, I knew this material cold, off the cuff. It is something that I have been doing for thirty years. What is the order of complexity of a binary sort lookup? Well assuming that you are using a balanced tree, the order of complexity is n log(n). The questions were along those lines. I had to address using a hash table, which is actually trivial too. I was asked to calculate the amount of storage needed for an array of a million 10 digit decimal integers. I did the math in my head, again, trivial.

The algorithm was a gotcha though. My solution required a recursive routine, which I composed in two minutes. For about a minute and a half, I was stumped. But I came up with the answer. Then came the hard part, translating the answer into English that could be understood by someone who was unable to speak English.

Any open minded person who hears this story knows that this whole interview process staged by Google is a farce, a fraud! This whole narrative was staged by Google to mock, taunt, and smear US STEM workers.

[grantcart]

29. lol any story about any company INTERVIEWING A MILLION CANDIDATES would generate thousands

and thousands of pages on the internet.

I knew when I read it that Google had never interviewed a million people, so its not just the remembering that was a problem it was that he would remember something that was so fantastically absurd that you knew immediately that he got it wrong.

It would take a thousand people about 4 months to interview that many people, is that logical?

Moreover why would google interview a million people? They use algorithims to establish high probability patterns. They take those million resumes, score them according to known patterns and presto they have a few thousand people to interview. You would think that someone in the IT field would see how ridiculous the claim is.

I have interviewed about a thousand people in my life and you would have raised 10 flags in in the first minute.

"Red China" that is a rather archaic term to use.

You state that you can right algorithims but you don't seem to have enough common sense to understand how far out a claim of a million people being interviewed is. If you don't have that level of common sense then how effective a problem solver can you be when you write code?

[twins.fan]

33. You are breaking my heart ...

I thought that people would look over the complete story, and not focus on trivialities that they could not understand. But I have been proven wrong.

Oh yeah, one other thing pal, I don't think that I ever claimed to "right" anything.

[grantcart]

45. The problem is that is it wasn't a triviality it provided the set up for your whole story.

The secone problem is that when it was pointed out to you, you didn't google for 5 seconds and find that there are pages and pages of articles about Google getting a million resumes and no articles about a million interviewees and go back and admit that you got a basic fact wrong and edit it, you "stood by your story".

I have interviewed and hired over a thousand people. I also have gotten every job I interviewed for. Here is the reason;

The interviewer doesn't care about your problems. They are interested in finding out how you are going to solve their problems. So when I have interviewed for a job after the first few questions I took over the interview by asking the interviewer what their main challenges were and what they were looking for in getting answers for their problems and once I found out what they thought their problems were I pointed out where I had solved a similar problem in the past and how my experience would be an asset for them to fix their problems.

I have taught my daughters this interview technique and they both, so far, have gotten every job they have interviewed for.

Put your self in the interviewers shoes and try and understand what problem they are thinking about and you will have much more success.

DU is a warm supportive place, but it also has the best BS meter on the internet. Get your facts wrong and you will get roasted here.
If you think that you can learn from this and express it in a more carefully worded and persuasive way then self delete, rework it and post a new thread in a few days.

I wrote the earlier response while riding in a car and can't see it very well so the wrong spelling will slip by, however that really is trivial to the argument.

[twins.fan]

47. Pardon me, apparently I am in the shadow of greatness

Being the president of your own fan club must indeed be an honor.

I may very well not be qualified for the job at Google, but the Google interview was conducted in a manner that did not enable Google to discover that.

Nothing was discussed about my accomplishments, my work history, etc during the interview, just trivial minutia, that I happened to have mastered. It was conducted by someone who prerejected me. The interview was a fraud.

The purpose of my posting my personal experience is to challenge the notion being spread by the tech giants, especially Google, claiming that there are no qualified US STEM workers.

As I said here earlier, it is not enough to deny employment to US STEM workers, the tech giants have to smear us too.

If I was not able to bring that message across to you, I attempted to deliver my message describing my experience, a unique experience, to those who had not had it themselves.

Perhaps my delivery was not perfect, but I am not gifted with the same greatness in which God blessed you. I noticed that the word humility showed up in your signature. Perhaps, you should break out a dictionary and review its meaning, Sir.

[grantcart]

69. Personal attacks will not change the fact that the basic facts in your arguments are not true

You may, actually have a valid policy point, but because you dress it up with facts that you now agree are not true you undermine your entire credibility.

The irony is that you could have gone back and corrected your misstatements but refuse to do so.

So what should the reader of this thread consider when your basic facts are not only not factual but are fanciful beyond reason, and that you are so stubborn that you cannot spend a minute to go back and clean up information that you now accept is not true?

[twins.fan]

76. Oh no, that is not what I said

I did NOT agree that they are not true. I merely acknowledged that my explanation was not satisfactory for your understanding. Maybe you were "driving" when you were reading it, and I did not account for that.

I am not going to clean up a factual error that does not exist for someone like you no matter how much humility that they were blessed with.

You need to get off of your self important high horse. Yes you are right about my being imperfect. I never made the claim of being perfect. You did make that claim of perfection for yourself. God did not bless the rest of us with the perfection that he gave you. So be a little understanding for us imperfect souls.

Anyway, the story rang pretty true for about 100 other souls, and we are still counting.

[CoffeeCat]

92. grantcart, with all due respect...

...I have always enjoyed your posts and I consider you one of the great DU stalwarts, but I also remember Google saying that they conducted an enormous amount of interviews and found only a few thousand qualified applicants.

I am sorry, I don't remember if they said that they interviewed a million people, but I know the number was very high. I remember talking about this briefly with my husband who has worked in the tech field for the past 30 years.

I do find the OP credible, and I am interested in what he has to say. I am only vaguely familiar with the Google hiring story--and this OP jumped out at me. I'm interested from a PR perspective. It appears that Google may have been attempting to demonize the US workforce, in an attempt to justify their outsourcing. They could blame the American worker, when really it was their greedy profit motives that were the problem.

Again, I'm new to this story--but I think the OP's story is fascinating and a window into the experience of one person who was part of the "Google Can't Find Enough Qualified US Workers" meme.

This guy's story fits exactly with the negative messaging that I remember being out there about American STEM workers in general. The negative PR job they did on STEM workers is similar to the demonizing that union members and state workers have been receiving. We all know that corporate forces are backed by big money and they systematically take down people and causes with very sophisticated planning. They busted the unions by making them unpopular. They've made sure that everyone is envious and bitter toward state workers--for receiving generous benefits. They do this because major corporations are cutting benefits and state workers with decent benefits demonstrates that corporations could do the same--they just refuse due to greed.

It makes sense that corporate forces would want to disparage the American worker. The economy is going to hell in a hand basket and real unemployment is in the low 20's. They need America divided. They need us to hate the poor (another meme they've successfully spread) and they need America to view the unemployed with disdain--not sympathy. If they can position the American IT worker as unintelligent or unqualified--no one cares when they are unemployed, or when their benefits are not extended. See how that works?

I will try to find more info on the numbers that Google interviewed and I'll also ask my husband. He's a VP at a major tech firm and loves this kind of stuff.

Again, I respect you grantcart and always appreciate your insights and posts. I think this guy is the real deal. Untold numbers were interviewed at Google and did not get a job. I don't think the point is this person's interviewing skills. I am wondering if the Google situation was an operation--intending to spread the meme that out-of-work IT people have no one to blame but themselves--because they're just not qualified or smart enough.

Think about it. You can always reject what I'm saying, but just think about it.

[grantcart]

101. Making outrageous and unsubstantiated claims undermines your argument.

You say that the poster is credible.

There are two sets of facts he submits, facts that are in the public domain and facts that are known only to him.

If a person makes a number of claims and it turns out that the facts that can be checked are all unsubstantiated then it undermines his credibility on all of the facts that he wants us to assume that we cannot check on.

You seem to have a dog in the STEM debate and Google, etc.

I don't because I don't really have any knowledge of the subject.

Let's assume that the policy points that you share are 100% correct then posts like this are counter productive in the most aggregious way because they undermine the argument.

Making sloppy arguments using facts that are known not to be true is counter productive.

There is a lot of literature out there about the Google interview process. Nothing in the literature that I have breezed thru suggests that they interview an unusual number of candidates per position. If you assume that they interview 25 candidates (which would be very high for an effective selective process and they hire 3,000 people that means that they would interview 75,000 people a year ( which I doubt) and he alleges that it was 10 times that number. But his argument isn't that they interviewed alot of people but that they interviewed hundreds of thousands of people for the some nefarious purpose.

If you want to make a case against Google and STEM workers then it should be based on the best facts available, and not on facts that are laughable.

[twins.fan]

121. You know my position; I know yours. Moving forward, view Google's outrageous claims ...

with the same scrutiny.

As I said, the US STEM worker are the greatest scientists, engineers, and mathematicians that the world has ever seen. During the past fifty years, we created this technology.

No! Google didn't create the search engine; Google reverse engineered the search engine. No! Google did not create GoogleMaps; Google reverse engineered Google Maps. Google doesn't innovate; Google reverse engineers. Google's achievements have not been technical achievements; they have been marketing achievements.

Now, Google wants to mock, taunt, and smear US STEM workers with outrageous claims that there are no US STEM workers qualified to work at Google after we created this miraculous technology over the past fifty years. While we paying taxes that sent the two Google squirts to college, now they are that we are not qualified! They are lying! They are bold faced liars.

If Google cannot find qualified US STEM workers, where in the hell did they go???!!!! The US STEM workers are the greatest scientists, engineers, and mathematicians that the world has ever seen!

PS. I stand by my story!

[WilmywoodNCparalegal]

159. A few points that stand out to me...

First of all, the ability to speak English fluently does not correlate with the ability to excel in STEM fields. My father is an engineer. His English is not perfect and his accent is thick, but he's a damn good engineer and his ability to speak or not speak English in no way affects his ability to do his job. I know plenty of people in NC who speak unintelligible English, however, and they are not from China.

Secondly, 'Red China' ... really? That's a bit archaic.

Thirdly, you say that US STEM workers are the greatest scientists, engineers and mathematicians. I disagree that's the case. A lot of the technological advances were and are made by naturalized U.S. citizens of foreign birth or even full-fledged foreigners. Sergey Brin, one of the founders of Google, was born in Moscow, for instance.

[lunasun]

174. Sergey Brin, one of the founders of Google, was born in Moscow, for instance.

Another 'red' !!!
maybe Russian will be the standard not Mandarin @ Google eh??
Hey = lets face it a lot of people wanted the job= just asking the guy to get off the speakerphone woud have axed a person out!

[FlaGranny]

132. I also remember this story

very well. I remember thinking at the time that it could not be true that they couldn't find enough American workers.

[indie9197]

182. I don't think I would brag about getting every job I interviewed for

That means you have never turned down a job. In my opinion an interview is a two-way street. I am interviewing the company the same time they are interviewing me. Sometimes I fail the interview and sometimes they fail.

[CreekDog]

125. Lots of people on DU get lied to, details actually do ferret that stuff out

mind you, you aren't being questioned about the pattern or color of the tie your interviewer was wearing and called a liar because you don't know it.

but when a fundamental part of your story is problematic, people are skeptical. mainly, because we've heard it all.

that said, the tech industry here in the Bay Area does seem to have its biases and they do use H1B more than my liking.

the issue here is the truth of your story, but not only that, it has to be *verifiably* true in some respects to have an impact.

if you can verify some things you've said, then that would make this pretty compelling. perhaps there is the issue that the other poster mentioned about the real purpose of the interview.

come to think of it, I know a guy that works for Google. American, white, young. not a hyper programmer, total free spirit.

i have to think about this.

[twins.fan]

127. Please think about it.

And please view Google's future claims of unqualified US STEM workers with the same scrutiny.

PS, I stand by my story!

[CreekDog]

128. I appreciate personal stories, though I admit I'm a little skeptical

the thing about DU is that no matter how good or convincing what you say is...10% might say it's BS. i don't lose a lot of sleep over that.

but when a third of the people posting or half are saying it, then the post is just not communicating what you want it to.

so sometimes you have to work with the feedback and learn how to communicate with this audience here, so sometimes the way you would want to tell things isn't the way that they'll buy into them.

just advice ok?

[twins.fan]

131. I am not a public relations guy; I am a propellor head!

I have not received training to build public relations projects. I have been trained to make software products. I did my best to describe my personal experience of participating in this faux Google job interview. I admit it is not a perfect description. I wish that I had accumulated links back in 2010, but I did not anticipate the objections. In fact I did not anticipate telling this story here.

I will say it again. I may indeed not be equipped to be employed by Google. I have been turned down for employment elsewhere by companies much smaller than Google. But the fraud interview at Google was not equipped to make that assessment.

Google, and the rest of the tech giants, are conducting a massive public relations narrative to smear US STEM workers, and the poor souls that walked through Google's gauntlet were just props in Google's narrative to mock, taunt, and smear US STEM workers.

Going forward, view Google's and Larry Page's and Laszlo Bock's fraudulent claims mocking, taunting, and smearing US STEM workers with the same skepticism, please.

[mathematic]

140. You got a technical question WRONG...

The lookup complexity is O(log n), not O(n log n). Think about it... would the lookup time on a binary sorted data be GREATER than the lookup time on completely unsorted data, which is O(n)?

You got this basic fact wrong and appear to think that the question was trivial. Perhaps that's why you weren't offered more difficult questions. It's like those computer adaptive tests. They start you off with the easy questions and only give you the hard ones if you get the easy ones right.

Your answer to the second question is also suspect. There is no correct answer to the storage question. How much storage you need depends on the design tradeoffs you make with your hash table implementation. If you just gave him a number then you got the question wrong. The way to answer the question is to describe the different tradeoffs and the storage requirements entailed.

The third question is just the icing on the cake. You demonstrated an unwillingness to communicate your code verbally, an important skill for software developers, for obvious reasons.

Other people have suggested your temperament or other personality reasons for the lack of call back but it's clear that you didn't get the call back because you are simply not technically qualified to work at google.

[twins.fan]

142. Lookup is log(n)

Building is n log(n)

[mathematic]

147. That's what I just said, you got the lookup wrong.

Here's a general rule of thumb at a technical interview. If you're answering all the questions fast and you think they're trivial, it's not because you're super-smart. It's because you're getting them wrong.

[twins.fan]

150. It is miscommunication, Sir

The essence of our profession is discussion. I understand the concept and I know the answer as I demonstrated. The order of complexity of building a binary tree for a sort (assuming a balanced tree) is n log(n). The trouble with the dialogue is miscommunication, not lack of answer/understanding.

BTW, the interview concluded when the reservation on the room expired, not because of the end of the questions.

[spooky3]

23. this article supports your contention -- it refers to applications/resumes rather than interviews

and says, during the week before Feb. 4, 2011, Google hit a new high of 75,000 job applications. If it kept up that pace for a year, of course, the total would be many more than 1,000,000.

http://www.sfgate.com/business/article/Google-gets-75-000-job-applications-2530780.php

[Igel]

24. Can't comment on the interview.

But I think the "news release" was mangled in the re-remembering. (Memories are like that: Every time you retrieve one you also store it again. They're fairly malleable.)

In 2010 they said they receive a million resumes a year, and hire from 1000 to 4000. No idea how many they interview.

http://dondodge.typepad.com/the_next_big_thing/2010/09/how-to-get-a-job-at-google-interview-questions-hiring-process.html

[grantcart]

26. Well if you were interviewing somebody for a job that required absolutely precise language ability

what would you think about that kind of response?

I knew when I read it that Google had never interviewed a million people, so its not just the remembering that was a problem it was that he would remember something that was so fantastically absurd that you knew immediately that he got it wrong.

It would take a thousand people about 4 months to interview that many people, is that logical?

Moreover why would google interview a million people? They use algorithims to establish high probability patterns. They take those million resumes, score them according to known patterns and presto they have a few thousand people to interview. You would think that someone in the IT field would see how ridiculous the claim is.

I have interviewed about a thousand people in my life and this guy would have raised 10 flags in in the first minute.

"Red China" that is a rather archaic term for a young person to have.

[kwassa]

55. What red flags did he raise?

as you are banging on the million interview thing, and the use of Red China?

What did he say in the interview that would raise red flags?

(though it would seem that red Chinese would like red flags ....)

[wickerwoman]

93. I know people that work at Google and half a dozen other people who have been interviewed by them.

The OP doesn't sound remotely like any of their experiences or the way they described their interviews.

None of them were solicited by e-mail.

The fact that the OP describes "some program called Google.docs" in 2010 when this was a very familiar product where I worked in 2007. How can you work in software and not be familiar with Google docs in 2010? Also, it's not something you "install" on your computer. You just sign up for a google account. How could you be applying at Google and be so completely ignorant of their products?

[UnrepentantLiberal]

115. That part sounded very odd.

[CreekDog]

126. These big tech companies are very American companies, at least the Bay Area ones

I've known (or know) plenty of people in the tech industry.

These companies, Google included, are part of the Bay Area culture --annoyingly competitive, even being mellow is kind of an annoying competition...but I digress...

Anyway, the thing about Google or Apple or any of the biggies, people want to work at those places not merely because of the names but because the reputation is that they are awesome places to work (hard work, to be sure, but rewarding and with opportunity).

What the OP is describing probably does exist, at other companies nobody has heard of. There are tech firms, small ones that hire visiting workers to do all kinds of short term programming projects for big companies --but they are subcontracted. These are not the people Google is interviewing for.

But the company that has subcontracted to a small firm to program one of its manufacturing operations, yes that's where this story would not surprise me.

But Google, no. Google is here they want a certain mind, they want the kind of minds that Apple is hiring in Cupertino. They aren't weeding out white people, or Americans, etc.

I don't buy it, not only that, I don't see it.

[CreekDog]

124. and living in the Bay Area, there are plenty of Americans working there

at Youtube in San Bruno and Google in Mountain View.

and what's described is nothing like I've heard here.

[twins.fan]

129. Around 2008, the San Jose Mercury News did a story ...

The claim being made by the tech giants and the politicians is that the H1B visa creates jobs.

In 2008 time frame the SJMN did a Freedom of Information Act (FOIA) request to the Department of Labor (DOL), requesting the EEOC numbers on Silicon Valley employers.

They found that there were fewer African American engineers in 2008 than in 1998, fewer female engineers in 2008 than in 1998, and fewer white engineers in 2008 than in 1998. Then the SJMN did a request of the same numbers for the tech giants in the valley, five tech giants, including Google, blocked the request.

Google justified their request to block the information because the EEOC numbers, the ethnic makeup of their workforce, was a "trade secret."

[CreekDog]

130. Just one problem with your #'s --there should be less whites now

this is the Bay Area.

the white segment of the population is smaller.

also, I know plenty of white people working for the major tech firms.

i think there's a point to be made about the hiring of women and older workers, but having worked in Silicon Valley myself, most people I worked with were white and so too at our neighboring companies.

where the H1B visas are used most heavily is I think in the subcontracting and some of that is pretty miserable and low paying. it should be better paying and employ workers from here. i agree with that --but that's not Google Mountain View.

[grantcart]

137. The other problem is that he keeps quoting articles that he can't llink to.

[twins.fan]

143. Mr Humility speaks again.

Your self professed humility reminds me of Google's self professed genius. I wonder if there is any relationship.

Actually I cannot find the 2008 article on Google any more.

I got it, your self professed humility reminds me of Donald Trump's humility. Again, any relationship?

[REP]

202. I live in Mountain View

I know a few Google employees.

Let's just say there's a lot of this Cool Story that probably didn't happen.

[twins.fan]

206. I am certain that my story contradicts the crap being sold by Google ...

both in terms of their inability to find competent workers and most importantly their malicious SMEAR job that they are consciously perpetrating against the US STEM worker.

They have a huge budget and professional PR people pushing their malicious story. US STEM workers, many of which have been pushed the ends of their rope, are telling the contradictory story.

It is up to you to decide who to believe.

[REP]

211. Your story contradicts a lot of things

I'll be sure to tell all the engineers from exotic Kansas, New York, Michigan, etc your fabulous tale.

[twins.fan]

212. Time will tell that my story is true.

[MNBrewer]

21. If I don't find suitable employment soon, I'm going to start leaving my PhD

and related post-doctoral work off my resume.

[gkhouston]

25. I've been tempted to do that, as well.

Then again, "overqualified" may be code for "we don't want to provide health insurance for anyone over 25".

[TahitiNut]

38. Bingo.

[gkhouston]

41. 'Course, if I were 25, they'd probably tell me I didn't have enough experience.

Same shit, different excuses.

[KansDem]

32. That has crossed my mind.

A couple years ago I omitted my graduation years and my middle name from my resume. The grad dates provide an indication of my age and my middle name IDs me as a male (I have a first name shared by both men and women). I thought I'd lessen the chances for age and gender discrimination.

Now I'm thinking of leaving my PhD off my resume for positions that don't require one. I thought it would be a "plus" for employment but don't think so now.

Hopefully, my strategies will pay off in the next year or so...

[lunasun]

175. Know folks who have done that with success

esp if you are not applying 4 related position

[MNBrewer]

183. Maybe even for related positions.

I have a M.S. (that is next on the chopping block if leaving the Ph.D. off doesn't work) that is also in a related field. Most positions i've applied for either want very specific, applied certifications that I don't have, or I never hear back.

[DaveJ]

28. So, are you guys looking for super jobs, or just regular jobs?

I'm just a regular schmuck with a regular job that does not pay anywhere close to 6 figures or have huge bonuses, but I still think I'm a pretty decent software developer. I'd like to get a better job, but I feel the great jobs are a relic of the 90s and unlikely to come back. I hear people in my field are making $80-150k but I really really doubt I'll ever make anywhere near that. All I ever think about is how in the world will I ever retire, but I'm not going to be able to retire unless there is some dramatic change that either I instigate, or some social change like service robots making work unnecessary, or something.

I once told someone else in my field how much I make and he asked if I was an ex-con. He thought only an ex-con would get paid so little in my field.

So, is it fair to say that "regular" jobs might be there. Just not great jobs?

[jeff47]

68. Depends where you live and how willing you are to relocate

There's lots of cities with crappy software jobs. Mostly because you're doing in-house software development, say making an application for an insurance company to use internally. That's just viewed as a cost by management, and the goal is to make it as cheaply as possible. So management is going to do it's best to make the job suck. These jobs are especially vulnerable to H1B-style abuse.

If you happen to be in a city where people are making software to sell, then there's better jobs available - you're making the product instead of being a cost center. So that's your best bet for a "regular" job.

If you are willing to relocate, you can find someone truly desperate and make a lot of money. But your career will not be stable, you will not live in the same city for long, and you will end up living in some really crappy cities.

[DaveJ]

191. Relocating seems ludicrous in this profession

Obviously they have their reasons for wanting people on the premises. But in reality, it is a smarter business decision to pay for the work being done, rather than paying for someone to show up every day. It's incredible, to me, that I travel to work every day just to sit in front of a computer screen which I could easily do from anywhere. Well, to be honest, we have 2 people and 1 might be necessary to help people every now and then plug their mouse into the PC, but normally we're just in front of the computer programming, so 1 of us 2 could be onsite while the other is at home.

I would not say that my company sees us as a cost center. They just are paying as much as they can afford, and if they paid me any more I'd be paid more than management who are about 15 years older and worked there longer. Most people there get paid half what I do and that is very very low. I've actually tried to quit a couple times, and once they gave me a raise and the other time they blew it off. It's actually a very cushy job, which is why I'm on the DU half the day and nobody really cares.

I've also seen a lot of startups that are trying to make money with some new .com who cannot afford to pay much either. They are not making any money, so all they have to offer is promises.

Here I know who signs my checks and that is nice, it is owned by a really cool family, better than a corporation who will give you a pink slip with no explanation. They actually laid off half the workers at my company since i've been there and surprisingly most still stop by, it's weird. I'd be better off if I got laid off.

But the pay sucks. My company sucks ass when it comes to making money. Nobody there speaks the r-word (retirement!). I'm not sure what people think they are going to do when the time comes.

[jeff47]

213. Managing remote workers takes more skill than in-person workers.

Eventually, remote work will become more common.

But for now, most management hasn't figured out how to manage remote workers without feeling like the workers are just goofing off at home.

[DaveJ]

214. I just showed an online agile site to by boss

He just went on vacation for two weeks, and yesterday I showed him this agile tool that will show him exactly what I've been doing, and it keeps track of my points, velocity, and all that. It's points based, and points=work, instead of being there.

If people got paid based on their performance we'd be living in a totally different world.

[Egalitarian Thug]

34. If only tech companies would be as innovative in their products as they are inventing ways to avoid

hiring American workers.

30 years? You're a better an than I twins.fan, I took it for half that and was literally dying to get out.

[Stuart G]

39. k and r nt

[Ruby the Liberal]

42. Allow room for the fact that your temperament may not be a fit

for their environment. If you were a fraction as rude on the phone as this post indicates, I wouldn't have hired you either.

[twins.fan]

46. OUCH!!

I just have a story about unemployed US STEM workers, a personal experience. As you can probably tell, given your ultra-sensitive manners, there are people here that are hurting BAD, REAL BAD! That is a drop in the bucket. US STEM workers are getting clobbered now, all across America. It is not enough to deny employment to US STEM workers, corporate heavyweights like Google, Microsoft, Apple, Intel etc have to smear us too. US STEM workers are the greatest scientists, engineers, and mathematicians that the world has ever seen.

We created this technology that Google and Microsoft has reverse engineered. Google didn't invent the search engine, they reverse engineered someone else's innovation.

Now, my transgression has been to call Google out on a personal experience of mine. Someone here has challenged my story in a very insulting way. You challenged my being polite, by calling me rude.

Google has conducted a multimillion dollar campaign discrediting US STEM workers all across America, claiming that US STEM workers are not qualified to work there, but I am supposedly rude. If that is the case, more rude people are needed. More rude people are needed to stand up to the fraud that is being perpetrated by the tech giants against the US STEM worker and the rest of the working people all across America.

[Ruby the Liberal]

48. I don't discount that there is an issue with that,

but you also have to take into account that a job is not automatic just because of skills or training. Companies hire people that they know will be able to function in their environment and on their teams - especially companies like Apple and Google.

Interview skills are a lost art - don't discount the importance that a first impression gives. If you go into a job interview with a prepositioned chip on your shoulder over how the world is screwing you (and those like you in the same circumstances), it is going to shine through and overtake your presence.

Take this or reject it, but creating a list of potential questions and having a friend or family member role play an interview with you prior to the actual meeting can really help you focus and put your best foot forward - and make the greatest impression on the potential employer as to what an asset you will be to their organization. Go in with a mindset about how you are about to be screwed because of H1Bs and it will become a self-fulfilling prophecy.

In other words - be pissed about it, but mentally compartmentalize and keep your activism and your interview lives separate.

[twins.fan]

49. You missed the point ...

Unlike, Mr. Grantcart, I have been turned down before, by employers, by pretty girls, by baseball coaches, etc. Being turned down is not the problem.

The fraud is the problem. The fraud claiming that US STEM workers are not qualified is the problem. These work visas are here to reduce labor costs, not because of a shortage of qualified US STEM workers.

Most employers don't use their victims as props in their narrative of smearing them like Google has. When a pretty girl shoots me down, she generally does not announce it to the world. Google has marched candidates through this sham interview for their own self-serving publicity purposes.

All I ask of the tech giants and the politicians is to be honest. Don't ask young people to spend their formative years, borrow tens of thousands of dollars and make other sacrifices for jobs that they will never get. Plus, for those who have already made the sacrifice of borrowing enormous amounts of money and spent their formative years learning this technology, don't smear those people with claims that they are unqualified. ADMIT IT!! US STEM workers requiring a living wage are being excluded from employment because they are US STEM workers requiring a living wage.

[DaveJ]

50. Twins.fan, the system sucks but it's not just STEM workers

The system expects people to :

1) graduate at 21,
2) spend up to 5 years finding oneself,
3) get a corporate job,
4) get 3% raises every year, putting 6% into 401k,
5) retire at a reasonable age.

If you do the math you'll find that retirement can happen that way. Anyone deviating from that plan is tossed aside.

It's a major flaw in the system. Life is not that perfect. Shit happens to a lot of people, like me, for instance, but there are no safety nets other than meager SS that only financial geniuses could live on.

Please just don't think it's only STEM workers, or blame it on Google or MS. I like MS personally. I love what I can create and how the applications I make benefit the company I work for. Sorry they stole your technology. They really ought to be more grateful, maybe send you some cookies, but I know that wouldn't be adequate. But I certainly do not want them to fail. Then we'd be relying on crappy open source applications, and man, that would suck... like OpenOffice.org.

I fervently believe it is corporate culture that is the problem. We make a fuss over who to elect, but what really effects our lives is how companies operate. I wish we could elect company CEO's and have a say in how corporations operate.

[twins.fan]

51. Microsoft did not steal my technology ...

However, Microsoft has reverse engineered most of their innovation. I guess that you already know that. I guess that you know that Bill Gates killed Netscape, and the DOJ made Microsoft pony up $750 million for doing so.

You sir, even though we disagree about Microsoft, are someone who I respect. You are soft spoken and extremely courteous and humble. I believe that you understate your skills. You have a nice future in front of you.

[leveymg]

56. twins.fan - I'll tell you what they were looking for, and why you weren't hired:

Last edited Tue Aug 14, 2012, 02:10 AM - Edit history (1)

It wasn't the solution to the algorithm: it was the inability to make the guy who graduated from Shanghai U feel secure in the fact that you knew it was absurd that he was interviewing you, but not enough to make him feel secure that that's No Big Deal, and just the way it is.

It's called "cultural sensitivity", a lot of Americans don't have it, and it counts in hiring for AT LEAST as much as ability and experience. It's what others in the world previously had to display to survive when most multinationals were American-owned, and the US ruled the world. We don't, anymore. You didn't pass. The person actually making that decision -- probably a longer-term US HR manager -- listening in picked up on your evident, growing frustration and cut it off. I understand your frustration, but if you really want a job in a global organization, you won't be mad at me for telling you this.

[twins.fan]

60. That is an excellent point ...

You may be right. I believe the Google guy interviewing was the hiring manager though.

A couple of months ago, I was interviewed for a job and totally flunked the interview. I didn't want the job. The job was not really right for me. So it did not matter. But I got the strong impression that there was someone listening in on the interview and did what you just described. It was not insensitivity with foreign workers though. It was that I flagged the interview. I did a lousy interview. My heart was not really in it.

In any case whether or not you are right, your position does not contradict my claim that my technical abilities were insufficient, and does not contradict my claim of Google fraud interviews. As I understand it, you believe it was my insensitivity to working with foreign workers. Ok, maybe. NAH! That wasn't it, I don't think.

But in the future, I need to be more aware of that. Thanks!

[leveymg]

63. It was the perception of insensitivity, not the reality.

And, yes, it's pretty common to have the interview decisionmaker on the outside looking in. As you know, GOOGLE is in the business of analytics, and I'm sure they have a raft of proprietary profiling software and methodologies that they ran you through before they took the time to have someone talk to you. They probably did a full psychological and vocational screen of your knowable Open Source history. Do you expect their interview process to be any less methodical, trip-wired, and gamed against you?

BTW: I applied to the same company a few years ago (non-STEM compliance position), and didn't make it to the interview stage. So, congrats - you've learned something about the globalized corporate world. May it serve you well. We're all stuck in the same hell.

[twins.fan]

66. I said you have a point ...

But I don't buy it. But I like your suggestion. I need to consider that in the future.

[CoffeeCat]

100. I think you have a point...

...and I get what you are saying. However, I think people are getting too bogged down in giving
twins.fan interviewing advice. People are looking at one tree (twins.fan) and they're not seeing the forest (the big picture story that Google released to the public about US STEM workers being unqualified and unskilled.

This is why I find twins.fan's OP and this entire thread so fascinating. Google did publicly state that they were having problems filling jobs with qualified US workers. This was a huge "campaign" in my opinion and it was intentional on the part of Google. Maybe they were attempting to rationalize their hiring of cheap, foreign labor. Maybe Google was co-opted as part of some Koch Brothers plan to demonize the unemployed in this country. I don't know the WHY, but I do know that Google did this.

We all have to ask ourselves---how often does a company release public information about its internal hiring processes and how they are going? This is highly unusual. Google intentionally released this information that painted the US STEM worker in a very disparaging light. This story was an international story. It was covered by broadcast and print media and was the topic of many editorials and op-eds.

This is not an accident, people. If information is out there--it is because someone wanted it out there. I've mentioned before. I am a PR consultant. Seventy percent of what you read in newspapers and magazines--is the result of a PR person pitching a story (on behalf of a company) to a particular media member. If Google released information about interviewing untold numbers of people and experiencing a shortage of qualified US applicants--then Google and others wanted that info and that meme out there.

This was a concerted, intentional campaign. Make no mistake about it.

We need to ask WHY. WHY would corporate America want to disparage the American worker--or IT workers in general?

I say, follow the money.

[phylny]

53. For the record, I know nothing about US STEM workers, but I haven't found your posts (original and

subsequent) to be rude at all.

[twins.fan]

54. Thank you for your kind words

[sofa king]

184. It sounds like a Kobayashi Maru test.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Kobayashi_Maru

A test in which the subject is presented with an unworkable situation, to see how one responds to stress and failure.

[Honeycombe8]

57. Ahhhhh. I see. It's a setup to use American interviews as excuse to outsource. nt

[femrap]

58. d

Last edited Tue Aug 21, 2012, 07:07 PM - Edit history (1)

[twins.fan]

59. It has been more than two years since I filed the EEOC complaint

I have no expectation of winning. In fact we have gone back and forth on that so far.

Another purpose here is to point out to people here is that we have recourse. If Google had not been so flamboyant about their self-serving absurd claims of greatness, coupled with their insults of US STEM workers, I would have not thought about it at all. If a bunch of other people would file complaints with Google, something would probably happen. You have between 180-300 days to file a complaint, depending on the state in which you are located. So if you have a two year old problem, it is too late to file.

Microsoft has called me several times for interviews, but I am not going to walk their stupid gauntlet when I know there is not a chance for employment.

[Lex]

61. Maybe I'm just a suspicious person

but that whole deal sounded like something illegitimate to begin with.

[twins.fan]

65. Oh well,

I am suspicious too! I look for confirmation from independent sources. If only one person makes the claim, maybe they are lying. Maybe it is statistically insignificant, an aberration. But if I notice a pattern of behavior, then I lose my suspiousness. I realize that there may be something to the claim.

I cannot prove it to you. All I can do is report my experience. If there is confirming evidence, so be it. If not ...

If someone makes a claim that is absurd, that defies logic, like the claims of the tech giants that there are no qualified US STEM workers, I would look for reasons to support or refute. Well look at what the US STEM worker has created. We created this technology, US STEM workers all across America created this technology. This EXPLOSION OF TECHNOLOGY was created by the US STEM worker. And now they are gone? Do you believe that? The US STEM worker made Google great. They made Microsoft great, not the reverse. Technology was exploding before Google ever existed. In fact those two Google squirts acquired their education at the expense of US working people. And now they say we are not qualified!?

Look around you. Banking institutions are corrupt. Oil companies are corrupt. Wall Street is corrupt. US workers across America are getting screwed.

Is it too much of a stretch to believe that Google, Microsoft, Apple, Intel, Oracle, etc are feeding you a line of crap?!

[Lex]

67. No. You misunderstand. I'm not questioning that it happened the way you described.

I was saying that their offer through email "would you like to work for Google?" didn't seem legit to begin with.

[twins.fan]

73. Oh OK, here is how it went.

I received an email, probably because my resume is online, saying, "Hey, do you want to work for Google?" I responded by saying something along the lines that I would love to work for Google by email. We went back and forth a couple of times via email, and then we started talking by phone for a couple of iterations. They had me install GoogleDocs, like I said, it was REQUIRED, and they set me up with the "technical" screen.

[progress2k12nbynd]

62. "Red China." How perfectly racist.

Sorry that non-native English speakers are such a burden to you.

[twins.fan]

70. What?!

Racist?! Sheesh! Here we go ...

I was being interviewed for a job in the US by someone who is not fluent in the native language of this country. That makes me a racist? Wow, I am in need of some sensitivity training. Maybe, instead of taking 18 semester hours of Calculus in college, I should have taken 18 semester hours of sensitivity training.

[lunasun]

176. was there sensitivity training when you were in college? You seem to old for that

[ProudToBeBlueInRhody]

194. Ignore them, and keep us up to date

There are people here who are perfectly fine with, and practically applaud when Americans lose jobs to other countries.

[twins.fan]

200. There are people who are buying into the fable being spread by the likes of Google.

US STEM workers created this technology. If you want to fix the economy, re-harness the creative energy of the US STEM worker.

[Ron Obvious]

71. What's racist about that?

Sorry, not seeing the racism here. "Red China" was how we distinguished Maoist mainland China from Taiwan. It's no more racist than referring to "red counties" or "blue counties" in a US state.

I speak a few languages and I'm pretty well versed in multiple cultures, but if I were interviewed by someone whose accent I had a hard time understanding, I'd be pretty vexed as well.

[jeff47]

72. You do realize there are two Chinas, right?

While "Red China" is a touch antiquated, it does accurately describe one of the two Chinas.

The other's informally called "Taiwan". Just don't use that name when talking to officials from that nation.

[TheKentuckian]

82. What is racist in the statement? A bit dated with a touch of McCarthy flavor? Ok

Racist? I don't get that.

The speakerphone part of it is a tough row to hoe and you know it. How hard is it to understand someone speaking your native language from your local region on a speakerphone? Might be okay sometimes but it usually blows then you exacerbate that by the expected barriers that very different dialects, emphasis, inflections, and if there is limited fluency as well, it will be hard to communicate such complex information, hastily jotted down on the spot of the top of the head, under such conditions.

Maybe that was part of the "test" and fair enough if the "test" has real world application to the job and I'm going to lean it doesn't but even IF it was even to the point of being job critical, it wasn't racist and it would be challenging to most people, especially if they only speak their native language.

I'm pretty comfortable guessing someone from the interviewer's home town with the prerequisite skills might have similar problems, that the interviewer might well (and seemingly did) have significant difficulty communicating in such a fashion in such a subject, that the interviewee may well have similar problems with someone from his home town under the same circumstances, and I'll even go so far to propose that you might also have similar difficulty in an area of expertise under similar conditions. Your ear might be fine with Asian accents but probably is thrown by some kind some where. Put that shit on speakerphone when you are trying to get a job and you'll be singing a different tune.

[twins.fan]

83. If there was REALLY a severe shortage as they claim...

Would they really be playing a bunch of superficial mind games? If so, maybe that is the reason that Google cannot find "qualified" candidates.

[HiPointDem]

103. wtf?

[Zalatix]

112. Well said.

Hint: "Red China" is racist like "Red, White & Blue America" is racist.

[uponit7771]

116. Please explain how this can be racist, I admit that I don't know everything about every...

...culture

[FlaGranny]

170. I wonder.

I grew up hearing the phrase "Red China." It was always used that way on the TV news, in newspapers, magazines. It was always used to distinguish it from Taiwan, I guess. Never thought it was racist. I always thought it was a political description. I guess a better phrase would be mainland China. Communists, though, have nearly always been referred to as "Reds," whether they were from Russia, China, Korea, or anywhere else. The reason. I understand, is that the communist flag is red. I can see where it is probably not politically correct, but the word is not a description of nationality or skin color, but a description of the flag of a political party.

[jeff47]

74. My fraudulent interview story

Went and did an interview. Interviewers 1-3 were technical and loved me.

Interviewer #4 decided to have his friend conduct the interview while he just sat there. His friend happened to be the rep for a different staffing company, and was trying to fill the same positions.

Shockingly enough, they decided to not offer me the job.

And then they discovered what interviewer #4 did when I complained. A couple weeks later they called back, offering me the job after they fired interviewer #4. But I really wasn't interested in working for them anymore.

[twins.fan]

75. HAH!!!! Good for you

LOL

[bhikkhu]

80. Sorry, but the whole story sounds pretty sketchy, and nothing verifies

I don't find any record of any press release like you described, trying both google and bing for the searches. I don't find any record of a million interviews. I don't find any record that they were hiring or looking for 2500 people back in 2010, anywhere - that would have been huge news at the time.

I also don't find any record that they have made the argument that US workers aren't qualified for their work. They do have offices in several countries, here and India being the main ones. While I know it has been a persistent problem in the industry, it looks more like google hires Indians in its offices in India, and US citizens in its offices here, and has made a good attempt to keep things balanced and not be a part of the problem.

I know memory can be a sketchy thing, but maybe you could point out some support for the various parts of the story?

[leveymg]

84. Bet the OP doesn't respond to your questions.

He's making a point, and perhaps some of the details. Perhaps.

[twins.fan]

118. OP already responded to similar questions earlier.

[cherokeeprogressive]

81. Seems like I'm 3 for 3 today.

First post I opened up was a guy wondering if ALL hostesses/servers in the South were white, and ALL the cooks/busboys were black because that was his experience over the weekend, as if he'd visited tens or dozens of restaurantes in SC over the course of the four days he was there during the golf tournament this weekend.

Second post was some dufus talking about his recent Walmart experience where he encountered a church-goer at Walmart and heard him blame high gas prices on people with higher education degrees as if he had some special way of identifying people who go to church.

Now this. Strange thing is all three posters were under 75 posts...

Is there a pattern here?

[freshwest]

85. Yeah.

[joshcryer]

90. Yeah, that post has everything.

[lunasun]

177. He started posting on friday

but I enjoy reading all the long posting people here who never will get it (and/or have speakerphone problems)
fictional or not

[xmas74]

86. What's interesting is that I live in a college town

with a growing international student population. I know these kids-good kids overall. What I don't like is that a decent number of the international students will have interviews waiting for them and will often get decent job offers long before graduation while their American counterparts working on the same degree will still be looking long after graduation for any kind of job.

I know one student with a masters in CIS. She maintained a 3.9 while working full time with both degrees and raising three children on her own. She is the assistant manager of a fast food restaurant-they were the only place that was interested in her. I know another student who just completed his bachelors in the same field and had three job offers, all here in the US. His gpa was a 3.5. His parents back in India are encouraging him to take a job here, saying that it would be a nice start.

I adore the international students but I don't understand how some of the same kids are getting decent job offers here stateside while citizens with similar degrees and a similar gpa can hardly get a job offer at the Dollar General.

[Ron Obvious]

87. Possibly...

Quite possibly, it's because the 3.9 GPA girl was working full time at a dead-end job to make ends meet, while 3.5 GPA Indian kid was doing internships in his field during the summer, thereby gaining important experience and contacts, because his parents or government paid for his education. Internships are huge in IT. I know, 'cause I missed out on them too and I know how much that hurt me upon graduation, and the economy was doing pretty well back then.

I know it's not right -- it's just one of the ways we screw young people around in this country; that and the extortionate student loans. We, as a society, really don't value education; we just say we do.

[xmas74]

88. Most of our international students come from a wealthy background

and have connections. Not fair but that's the way it goes, while many of our in-state students attend school here because it's a pretty inexpensive school. Most of our Indian students study in the IT or business field and are from wealthy families. Most of our Middle Eastern students study in either of those fields or aviation and are from extremely wealthy families. Most have the resources and the connections to obtain the jobs that our in-state students never are offered.


It's still not right and it still penalizes the student who worked twice as hard and has an advanced degree.

[lunasun]

178. why not start a petition to have the university not accept them so all your friends can get jobs??

btw not all international students are wealthy and not all US college kids are poor with 3 kids to feed

[xmas74]

192. But many of the international students at our local university are wealthy.

Statistics have been released over time on the populations that attend the school and the amounts of financial aid/scholarships given to the students.

The handful of scholarships given to the international students are all in sports-a few in soccer but the clear majority in track/cross country. The rest come from families that are able to pay the large sums for their tuition-double that of an in-state student. Very few actually hold down jobs on campus, which is the only place they can work without having to apply for a work visa. Many also take regular vacations, not just across the US but overseas during the school year. (I know someone who works on campus where international students are employed. She has stated that it's not uncommon to have a student inform her that they will be traveling overseas for a couple of weeks in the middle of the semester and to also have near constant requests for three day weekends for travel to New York or Chicago.) Very few actually live on campus, instead choosing to live in some of the nicer apartments in town. More than a few also receive new cars as soon as they pass their drivers test.

Many of the same students also major in the fields that are the most expensive majors-actuarial science, CIS and aviation. Aviation is especially popular with our Middle Eastern students on campus and is an expensive major. Not only does it cost more for the classes, the books,and the labs but also flight hours must be paid. None of it is cheap. Our students from India and Pakistan tend to major in CIS and business. Both groups tend to have jobs waiting for them, often here stateside, long before graduation. It's usually because their families are well-to-do and have connections. This is a well-publicized fact around here-no one is keeping this a secret.

[gkhouston]

98. More likely, it's the kids. n/t

[HiPointDem]

104. as the poster said, a high percentage of foreign students come from wealthy backgrounds & have

connections. i worked with foreign students myself & found that to be the case.

[xmas74]

186. They attend this school because they can afford it, at least the

Indian and Middle Eastern students come here for that reason. We also have a growing population of Chinese students attending school here.

The school knows where they can find students whose parents can afford the high tuition and that's where they recruit. The students are very polite and well-mannered and I love seeing them here in our town. I just don't like all the additional competition that comes from the students with connections compared to those without. A number of our international students have connections-very good connections. I have a friend who was originally an international student here but now is a citizen and she's told me exactly how it works.

[Ron Obvious]

106. Yeah, could be...

Yeah, that could be it too, although they're not supposed to ask, are they?

And maybe she didn't interview well. I got exhausted just reading about what she had to go through with raising 3 kids, working full-time, and studying hard enough to get a GPA that high. An amazing accomplishment, and I for one, wouldn't have been at my best in a typical high-pressure IT interview, coming up with algorythms on the white board while the interviewer watches. It can be tough field to get into at the best of times.

[gkhouston]

107. They're not supposed to ask, but many do, under the cover of "small talk".

And if you're female, even if you don't have kids, people tend to assume you will, and that your "dedication to your work" will suffer. Men usually don't get dinged with that, or at least nowhere near as badly.

[xmas74]

185. I've been asked in interviews about children,

even though it's illegal. They usually approach it as a time management deal while asking about "hobbies".

Example from an interview a few years ago:

"Just so you know, you need to have permission before you can do any type of fundraising for your children here on the premise. That includes Saver cards, Boy Scout popcorn, and Girl Scout cookies. Do you have any school age children that might be involved in any type of fundraising activities?"

Honest to goodness example. And it's not that uncommon, since many places do limit the amount of fundraising on that level.

My friend had an even harder time of it. She's made comments about why did she even go to college since she didn't need an education to work as an assistant manager.

[zaj]

94. Who "installs" Google Docs?

[jeff47]

110. They had a client. It's now Google Drive. (nt)

[HiPointDem]

97. kr. i hope your complaint is successful.

[MADem]

105. I wish there were a real alternative to google.

I think they're a bit more evil than they pretend.

[limpyhobbler]

108. sounds like a weird ass interview.On top of not wanting US workersthere is also a shitload of age

age discrimination in IT.

30 years of experience, jeez they might have a 25 year old in mind.

[dsteve01]

109. This article

made me a little cynical OP.
Thanks.

I mean it.

[crim son]

111. I suppose I was aware this happened, but not as a publicity stunt.

Glad you filed your complaint and I wish you luck. I think the reality is not so much that there aren't enough skilled workers in the U.S., but that there aren't enough skilled workers willing to accept seven bucks an hour, plus benefits.

[Zalatix]

113. Plus benefits?

[sharklazers]

114. You "installed" google docs?

Riiiiight. This story is pure 100% undiluted horseshit. Anyone can PM me for more reasons as I'm very familiar with Google interview process.

[uponit7771]

117. There's a google docs client

[sharklazers]

187. You wouldn't need it.

They just send you a google docs link, all you need is a Google account with any email to access it. Very simple.

[twins.fan]

119. I installed GoogleDocs because I was REQUIRED to install GoogleDocs

GoogleDocs is an application that enables two people to have a chat session over the internet. It took about ten minutes to install.

[sharklazers]

188. You are certainly not a google caliber technologist if you think that:

a. having to access a Google doc is some huge problem to do a GOOGLE INTERVIEW
b. it took you 10 mins to install gdocs when you could have logged in with any Google account.

Do you have a yahoo! mail account? Lol.

[twins.fan]

207. I installed GoogleDocs, or should I say that I installed the GoogleDocs client?

Anyway I installed the GoogleDocs client. Apparently I misspoke when I said that I had installed GoogleDocs. I was REQUIRED to install it. As you said it was trivial. It took about ten minutes. The person conducting the interview refused to use GoogleDocs even though I was required to install it, making the interview very, very difficult for him and me. But what did he care? The interview was a sham anyway.

Maybe you did not read my story, because I clearly said several times that I had installed it.

As far as using Yahoo. I believe that I do have a Yahoo account. I also have a GMail account, neither of which I use. I have my own server on which I have a bunch of websites and my main email account.

[masmdu]

133. Could you just share the reasons without the need for PM. I'm sure others would like to hear what

you have to offer on the subject. Thanks.

[twins.fan]

134. I don't understand the acronym PM

[masmdu]

136. PM=Personal/private Message

[twins.fan]

144. OK, I don't understand your request

[SQUEE]

148. Really?

Okay you are saying you are pretty much an uber tech, and don't know what a PM is? That strains credibility just a bit.

[twins.fan]

149. I am new here. The PM acronym has plenty of meanings in my world.

[twins.fan]

151. BTW, do you really think that one who would ask the question ...

about the meaning of an acronym demonstrates a lack of aptitude? Are your technical credentials that shallow?

FYI: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/PM

[sharklazers]

189. pretty much.

this guy is pathetic.

[sharklazers]

190. First of all, Google doesn't call its recruiting branch HR

None of this is secret knowledge, as far as I know, and comes from my experience interviewing there.

It's called PeopleOps. Secondly, he was contacted by a sourcer, not a recruiter. Again, the Google sourcers seem to have uniform signature tags (I've been contacted about 5 times over the years). You don't get a recruiter until your onsites.

You're not asked to install Google docs, you're emailed a google docs link. If you don't have a gmail account, then you just get a generic google account and log in. Not sure what's so difficult about that for such an AWESOME technologist such as the OP.

I'm highly suspicious he doesn't mention the nature of any of these "trivial" questions. He doesn't mention what he was coding, it sounds 100% made up. "He said for me to just read the answer back over the phone". Just absolutely NO IDEA what he's talking about.

You apply for a certain role, you interview for that. Back in 2010 it was still software engineer generalist and you'd be allocated after interviews. These days, you're funneled into a team or three based on your background and interest because of the feedback they received with people getting allocated onto teams they don't want. Not sure why he's butthurt that he app'd for a technical role and wasn't run for a parking attendant role. Duh.

If he was a superstar coder, it's going to show, communication issue or not. Sounds like Google dodged a bullet by not hiring this racist loser.

And two years later his EEOC complaint is pending? Google gets sued all the time, they receive millions of resumes so someone is going to get pissed. But exactly WHAT is the basis for his complaint? How was he discriminated against?

And yes, the bar is extremely high. There are only 6k employees at the Mountain View office, all staff included. 2500 added in one year across the org is a massive add.

OP also seems to have a skewed understanding of how property tax works.

[twins.fan]

209. As I said in a previous post to you, you apparently did not read my complaint ...

I said very clearly that I installed GoogleDocs, apparently misspeaking when I should have said that I installed the GoogleDocs client. In fact, I also said that it was trivial. Next time you should save some keystrokes and read the story that you are challenging, before making your nasty insults.

As far as saying that the questions were trivial. I said that they are trivial, because they were trivial. The concepts are NOT complex concepts for those who have studied the concepts, and they are not that difficult to understand. Algorithmic order of complexity is a simple concept. So are hash tables. If you think that they are complex concepts, I would recommend that you hang around the industry for a few decades where you can examine the technology from a few different angles instead of the simplistic angle that you can achieve in only a couple of years.

As a matter of fact, maybe someone should have set Larry Page down an explain the concept of Order of Complexity to him before he made a big deal out of his PageRank (PR) hoax. Anyone who actually understands PageRank and is familiar with the concept of Order of Complexity would have been able to explain that the Order of Complexity of calculating PR is O(n!), a STAGGERING number, especially when n is the number of pages in the Google index, somewhere between 4 billion and 20 billion. The computational requirements is so staggering that if all of the grains of sand on earth were a computer, you still would not have enough computing power to calculate PR on Google's index on a regular basis. If Larry Page was unable to understand that, then Larry Page does not understand the concept of Order of Complexity. If Larry Page DOES understand that, PageRank is just another one of his frauds that he has been spreading from his Mountain View perch.

PageRank is a hoax. The complexity of Google interview is a hoax. Google's inability to find competent workers is a hoax. And most importantly Google's malicious SMEAR against US STEM workers is a hoax.

[HipChick]

120. Have you considered that maybe you were just not the 'right fit'?

As a highly experienced but aged worker..

[twins.fan]

122. As I have said, I may not be a right fit, but the interview was not equipped to make that assessment

I was one of a million people being used by Google as props in their narrative to mock, taunt, and smear US STEM workers.

[FlaGranny]

135. I don't know you and

I don't know if your story is true or not. I DO remember this overall story about Google not being able to find enough qualified people in the US. I remember it well so I give you the benefit of the doubt, something I almost always do. That said, I think only a handful of people are really understanding your point, that the interview was not set up to be a serious interview. I totally understand anyone's frustration communicating with someone who does not speak our language. This is something I have to do frequently. Sometimes I have to use - wait for it - Google translate. Right now I am dealing with a French-speaking person by phone setting up a program in my office who doesn't understand my requests and I do not understand his explanations.

[twins.fan]

208. Thanks for the benefit of the doubt ...

It is up to the reader to decide who to believe. But apparently as of right now, 193 DUers recommended this thread. So some people here do believe me.

Fighting the fraud being spread by the tech giants is very difficult though. They have their own professional PR people spreading the fraud. They have politicians to whom they have contributed tons of money. And they have the so-called "think tanks" concocting studies to reach any predetermined conclusion that they want.

[onehandle]

138. Google thinks they are God. I have a friend interviewing right now.

He has similar observations.

Google needs to be investigated on a federal level, not just for their spying on us, but for their shady business practices.

I would never use any of their services. Log in, and they have you.

[ArchTeryx]

139. It's not just IT.

I'm in what used to be a very high-skill, high-demand profession: Molecular Virology (an offshoot of molecular biology with a fair bit of immunology). But in 2010-2011, when I was furiously trying to job hunt in Maryland, one of the most concentrated biotech areas of the country, I received zero interviews for almost 100 applications to private companies - supposedly the "second stop" for academic scientists.

I received word that for one particular company, there were over 1000 well-qualified Ph.Ds for one Scientist I position. 1000 applicants. ONE position. I'd take the 4-unemployed-workers-for-ever-job odds in a heartbeat!

It gets worse, as well. One of my early ideas was to take a lower-paying but very satisfying alternate career as a museum exhibit developer. Museums used to salivate at the idea of getting actual scientists with postdoctoral experience designing their science exhibit. I even did a stint at the Koshland Science Museum in D.C. as a volunteer. They loved me.

Then I was told by people in the know that after the crash of 2008, the ladders had all been pulled up. So many ExDevs got cut loose in the crash that now, if you don't have 10-15 years previous experience, they won't even look at you. I was told the only way to break in would be to work several years as an unpaid volunteer...and that the job situation probably wouldn't resolve itself for a generation.

Lack of skills? Bull-fucking-shit. The ladders all got pulled up in my field in 2008, and they won't be lowered until the Baby Boomers are all gone...if then.

And that's MY little corner of the STEM world, supposedly one of the ones greatest affected by the "scientific shortage" in the U.S.

[twins.fan]

141. Touché

U.S. pushes for more scientists, but the jobs aren’t there

[twins.fan]

146. U.S. pushes for more scientists, but the jobs aren’t there

http://www.washingtonpost.com/national/health-science/us-pushes-for-more-scientists-but-the-jobs-arent-there/2012/07/07/gJQAZJpQUW_story.html

[twins.fan]

145. Your experience demonstrates the terrible tragedy in this fraud!

Hundreds of thousands of young people share your experience of having dreams, investing your life force into fulfilling that dream and having it crushed by the fraud being sold to us by the corporations and their sock-puppet politicians.

Imagine going to school for eight years or so, spending tons of money, studying countless hours, attaining your dream of getting a PHD, and bang, no job!

Should anyone be surprised that young people are choosing not to go to grad school and studying STEM technologies? That only foreign students are working on PHDs? Any surprise?

All I ask, is to be honest. Fess up corporate America! Fess up politicians! There are not enough jobs to employ all of the gifted kids that want to become scientists. And there are not enough jobs to employ the greatest scientists, engineers, and mathematicians that the world has ever seen, US STEM workers.

[YOHABLO]

152. Hmm so you want to work for Google?

I guess the people who do land a job with Google think they're pretty hot shit. No? Bet they don't hire anyone over 30 years old. Like I care. Just a bunch of techno snot heads that have no sense of reality.

[twins.fan]

153. Nobel Prizes

How many Nobel Prizes for Chemistry have been awarded to someone under 30? How many Nobel Prizes for anything are awarded to anyone under thirty?

If there was a Nobel Prize for Bogus IPOs, I suppose that I could find someone to receive the award who is younger than 30.

[DAngelo136]

154. I cant help but to see irony in this

Bear with me: African-Americans were kidnapped and brought to these shores in inhumane conditions for the purpose of being sold into slavery. Laboring in a degrading system, in conditions of deprivation and brutality over generations, these slaves became the backbone of Southern agricultural and industrial wealth and political power, such that when threatened with restriction of expansion and abolition of the "peculiar institution", these same states fomented a treasonous revolt against the United States in pursuit of separation, which even today they express no regret or remorse.
After the suppression of the unsuccessful treasonous revolt, the former victims of the slavery system are abandoned by the Republican party through an unholy compromise in the election of 1876 with Democratic southern segregationists, remove Federal troops from the south which results in the return to power of these same treasonous agents with restored rights and privileges to rewrite every southern state constitution denying rights to the former slaves and their decedents for generations to come. Adding salt to the wound, if you will, these former slave masters, with the objective of maintaining a social and economic caste system based upon white supremacy, with the blessings of the United States government, advance the notion that these former slaves are: "lazy", "shiftless", "untrustworthy", "infantile", "unintelligent", "brutish", "promiscuous" and so on. These notions, are echoed even today in the modern media and the "dog whistle" words of political speeches. (http://www.ferris.edu/jimcrow/)All under the banner of "capitalism". Where even today Black people suffer detrimental, debilitating effects.

Now today, white Americans, descendants of immigrant workers from Europe and other countries in this hemisphere, whose contributions and hard work resulted in the greatest period of productivity and invention ever seen in history. Whose grandmothers and grandfathers endured harsh and brutal working conditions, low pay, inhumane and unsafe living conditions, fought and died for reasonable reforms that were resisted by the same people who fomented treasonous rebellion earlier. The descendants of the immigrants who now look down upon those descendants of slaves because of their perceived status are now being called "lazy" and "overpaid" even though they are more productive and take fewer vacations than their European counterparts. What would be considered "basic" things in any industrialized society like health care, retirement benefits, Social Security, are considered "luxury" and "entitlements" by the ideological descendants of the former slave holders. Instead of fomenting treason by secession, this time they're doing it by just shipping the jobs to other countries; "outsourcing" they call it. If weren't so serious, I, a Black American male, would find this situation deliciously ironic; that white Americans now find themselves in the same boat as Black Americans.

[twins.fan]

155. Irony

That situation may have existed for longer than you think.

[DAngelo136]

196. In re:"That situation may have existed for longer than you think."

Which makes it all the more appalling.

[JoeyT]

164. Yeah, Native Americans are in that boat too.

I don't find it ironic, I find it shitty. I don't wish ill on anyone. I'd rather see all of us doing well.

Even if I did wish ill on people that I don't know, the problem with delighting in the irony of a bad economy is that it's disproportionately going to hurt us (Blacks/NAs/etc) more than anyone else.

[DAngelo136]

195. I don't wish this on anyone

nor do I take delight in anyone's misery, let me be clear. These policies were not handed down from Mount Olympus, nor were they imposed by a maniacal dictator. They were implemented by people who were put in place by an electorate that chose these people in order to protect their interests. Richard Nixon won re-election in a landslide, yet I find it difficult, if not impossible to find anyone who will admit to voting for him. Say what you will about Scott Walker, not only was he elected to office,he survived a recall election despite the universal dislike for his policies and actions.
The bottom line is that, we the electorate, have to take responsibility for who we vote for and what we vote for. People like Walker are elected because there is a majority of people who agreed with his platform; anti union, anti poor and anti government. Then these same people act shocked when those policies not only affect the "others" but them as well.
Blacks, other ethnic and economic minorities were easy to ignore when the crap came down. We all screamed from our rooftops about the effect and unfairness of these policies and we were marginalized and taken for granted come election time; where else would we go.
Now indeed the chickens have come home to roost and now there is wailing in the land and a gnashing of teeth. To take a line from "Mrs. Landingham" from "The West Wing": Are you in a bad situation, yes you are; Do I feel sorry for you? I do not. But if you're not willing to put your shoulder to the wheel because you're afraid of me or the job is too hard, then. I'd rather not know you.
Dr. Martin Luther King died helping poor people, Robert Kennedy, died working for the good of all Americans and wanted to do more. Now, if you believe what they believed, you'll take this country back from these impostors and poseurs instead of paying lip service to their memories and feeling sorry for yourself. Stop worrying about Obama changing things, it's our mess, we have to clean it up.

[truedelphi]

198. I have read both of your posts on this topic, and find

Them very decent explanations of how we are in the particular mess we are in.

I know of a business man in the mid nineties who would tell his sales force that "the more things change, the more they become the same," and he too would mention such facts as that now that people of color are not to be discriminated against job-wise, what has happened rather than those minorities heading up to the same middle of the ladder rungs that the white population held back in the sixties - instead, these days almost everyone is being relegated to the bottom rung as the jobs move away from the nation.

[twins.fan]

199. Now, if you believe what they believed, you'll take this country back from these impostors ...

To those who are trying to mock, taunt, and smear US STEM workers, that is what we are trying to do.

[DAngelo136]

215. Well, twins.fan...

Firstly you have my sympathies on your team's dismal season. I rather admired the pluck of the Twins.
To your statement, we in Labor and Organized Labor are wasting our time, money and effort in order to elect politicians whose support is being bought off by billionaires, multinational corporations and acting through groups like ALEC in order to weaken if not destroy the middle class as the result of the success of labor unions.
We are faced with the Hobson's choice between a party who is hostile to labor and another party who is indifferent to labor. In the 65 years since the enactment of the Taft-Hartley Act, have you met or heard from any Democratic Party candidate who calls for the repeal of that law? Both parties managed to repeal Glass-Stegall and enact NAFTA signed by President Clinton and CAFTA which was signed by President G.W.Bush. Now why is it so easy to fulfill the demand of business but so, so difficult to do the same for labor?

I am of the opinion that Labor should form it's own political party both national and state. Only by forming our own party can we solve the problems of labor and protect the middle class. The Republicans and Democrats have seen fit to throw their lot with corporations, it is logical and rational for labor to organize in opposition to them. For too long, we have been bamboozled into relying on the two party duopoly that has long since abandoned the working man and woman for "forty pieces of silver". We have seen the degeneration of standards of pay, working conditions and pensions while the CEOs and corporate boards reward themselves with the fruits of our labor and sweat while their corporate lobbyists strut around the capitols of the State and Federal governments gaining more influence within the halls of government.

Every industrialized nation has an organized and potent Labor party; why can't it be done here?
There will be those who will cry "communist", "Marxist" and "Bolshevik". These are the same people who denounce "class warfare" on one hand while carrying it out on the other. I no longer care about what they call me; these same people who defend a system whose ultimate calculus is to reduce the 99% to abject poverty and virtual slavery. To that, I say "NO!"

So, twins.fan, THAT is my answer.

[On the Road]

156. I Appreciate What You're Saying About the Simplicity of the Questions,

but asking ridiculously basic questions does not automatically mean the interview was a sham. I have had interviews which I know were not fake but which included absurdly easy questions. I have had other interviews, like one with IBM, which I completely blew as a result of not realizing what qualities they were looking for until chatting with other interviewees afterwards.

It may indeed true be that the interview was a sham and that there was never a chance you would get the job. The EEOC complaint was good in that regard -- if the entire campaign is being conducted that way, there should be a lot of those complaints.

There is also a chance that the interviewer was looking for something else. It might have been some concealed interviewing strategy as some other posters have suggested. Or it could simply be that everyone on the list was assumed to be competent, and the interviewer was simply trying to find the person he was most comfortable working with.

[NEDem]

157. you lost me at "Red China"

[a2liberal]

158. This whole "skills shortage" thing

is BS to try to justify more H1B's to keep wages suppressed. Because companies don't like playing under the same "free market" rules that they advocate. There is no shortage of skilled workers; there's a shortage of skilled workers willing to work at the low wages they want to pay.

[Yavin4]

169. If There Really Was A Skills Shortage, Google Would Be Importing ITers from No. Europe

and paying a premium price for them, which they aint.

[Yavin4]

160. Google Is A Mature Fortune 500 Company Under Intense Pressure by Wall Street To Return A Profit

The simplest way to guarantee a profit is to cut costs. The biggest cost for most businesses is labor. So, cutting labor costs = meeting profit targets.

I don't get why people think that working for Google is so great. Is it because you can play foosball at work? Pffft.

[JoeyT]

166. But shooting a nerf gun is a perk

that's easily worth at least an additional $5 an hour!

[rock]

163. There is a skills shortage

and it's all in the management side. I have never seen such an appalling lack of skill, possible brought on by the rise of the MBA as king (MBAs totally lack any skills).

[SmittynMo]

167. You are more proof the Google is crap

I have always refused to use any Google product, (search engine, email, browser,etc). They are all crap , and they love to track people. Obviously they are also missing out on some well qualified people too.

[mother earth]

172. You are qualified, you simply won't work for slave wages. A living wage is needed in the USA, third

worlders...not so much.

[truedelphi]

173. I wanted to add my two cents. Although I have tremendous

Sympathy for anyone in the iT crowd who cannot find work in this time of "Globalization," how did people in this crowd feel when the textile workers lost their jobs back in the mid-eighties as those jobs went overseas?

Or when Flint Michigan shut down in the late eighties and the well- paying auto jobs were sent south of the border? If the subject of the auto workers losing their jobs was broached, I heard lots of derisive comments, about what did the unwashed, unschooled, illiterate, non-skilled workers expect - a lifetime doing nothing for huge Union Pay? (Never mind that some of the people on the auto line had more common sense, mechanical expertise and ability than some couch-potatoey computer person ever would have. )

I lived in Silicon Valley in the Eighties, and it was a constant litany of: "I've done the right thing and gone to school and gotten my degree in math/computer science, and gotten certified by Apple. And/
Or IBM or MicroSoft, and I know my programming languages.

"Anyone else in the world that didn't do this is pretty much an idiot, and who can cry for them when their job goes away? If the textile workers really wanted a job, they'd have gone to the schools I attended and taken the classes I took, and then they'd still have jobs."

Anyway that was the mantra I heard again and again. Some of my friends from, SV didn't even want to watch "Roger and Me" when it was released, as after all the car industry workers were lazy assed sluggards who should have, you guessed it, gone to computer school.

I was at some point in my life afflicted with Multiple Chemical Sensitivities, which meant I couldn't be around fragrances and other substances prevalent in offices. I went into the home health field, in part because I was suited for it, and in part because I was therefore away from the constant perfume, the toner and fax machine chems (Those weren't digital operations, back in the day) etc. present in offices everywhere.

And when for a year or two in the early nineties, my job opportunities dropped significantly because of the open border policy, I got little sympathy from the Silicon Valley crowd.

If someone from south of the border wanted to do my job for a lot less, well more power to my employer. The IT crowd members were clueless about considering whether is it really fair to have granma around someone from Shanghai who doesn't speak English and doesn't know the slightest thing about how medicines can be mis-prescribed, nor would they understand that the therapy routines printed out on the refrigerator actually need to be be done, and what not.

Now the tight and painful shoes of job competition from open borders and globalization are being laced up on the IT crowd's darling feet. And suddenly it is the end of the world. But you know something - if you IT crowd folks hadn't been so clueless about how workers in America needed protection - right from the get go - thirty five years ago -and had united with other workers, now we wouldn't be in this damn situation now!

[font color=red]
United We Stand - Divided We Fall. Well we are falling now and it may be too damn late as the PTB understood to take us down one industry at a time!
[/font color=red]

[lunasun]

179. people can hire IT to do some of the jobs remote now from places like Vietnam etc.

so the jobs will keep going the way of manufacturing
for short term/small projects at least imo contracting here has dried up a lot
http://www.qsoftvietnam.com/

[SnohoDem]

197. Good post

They came for the textile workers, but I didn't stand up for them because I wasn't a textile worker.

They came for the autoworkers...

[truedelphi]

204. You nailed it...

And there are also the "invisible" losses of jobs here in the USA. Like what farmers are facing right now.

Farmers in Florida are abandoning their orange groves, as they cannot compete with So American farmers in terms of the price of oranges. Even with tariffs.

Same with apricot farmers in California, and Turkish apricot growers. And those are just two crops on a list of many crops, where the American farmer is left in the lurch.

[twins.fan]

201. Perhaps I should fight every injustice ...

Being a population of one, with limited resources, my reach is limited. I do fight injustice with which I am familiar. The injustice at Flint Michigan and with the textile jobs, my familiarity was limited. There were other injustices more familiar to me at the time.

The injustice of the self appointed geniuses at Google and the other tech giants devoting millions of dollars to a public relations effort to mock and taunt US STEM workers, I am familiar with that, and I will object to that injustice until I find a more immediate injustice to fight.

[truedelphi]

203. Right now, dealing with all the issues that come with un and under-

Employment, I don't expect you to even deal with the political issues closest to you. Survival is a difficult task to pull off when you are not working. If you have the energy to take on the injustices of Google, more power to you.


And good luck in finding employment that fits you. If you are a social person, and have teaching skills, you might consider tutoring. The richest of the rich need tutors, and some people tutoring math and science are making close to 100K a year.

You do have to be in a large metro area to have this happen, of course. Although tutoring part time in rural areas will still help bring home the bacon (and veggies.)

[twins.fan]

205. Thanks truedelphi,

Let me say that survival is indeed difficult to accomplish, and I have not had as bad as some. But I have had trouble recently. When you do an entrepreneurial gig, and things suddenly turn south, finding another job can be very difficult if not impossible. When you have been working in a technology where demand has gone away, you are going to find it difficult to find a new gig. Finding an employer that is going to let you come up to speed on something new is very unlikely to happen.

My skills are current and have been current throughout my entire career, but I have had patches where there were no jobs, and a severe financial crisis left me in dire straits.

Most of my contemporaries have had to leave the profession, one of which has been a tutor. I was wondering how he could make it financially, but maybe he is doing OK.

I am telling you that this fraud being sold to us by the likes of Google is BULL. Don't believe a word that those self serving bastards are telling you.

[truedelphi]

210. Again, my sympathy is for your situation. As far as google,

They are on my shit list. I am well aware of how they feel entitled to have a "youth culture." Also, after they bought up YouTube, my YouTube account got "disappeared."

This is of real concern. It is the big computer firms like google that tell us all to "go into the cloud. Really, truly, trust us, you can go into the cloud." And computers are not even made with storage devices any more.

So what happens if I go into the cloud and the company that owns that cloud disappears my cloud account? As a writer, this would be disastrous. (On my Youtube account, all I lost was the ability to know which videos I had "favorited" in a three year period. I liked knowing that list, but it was not a life and death matter as my writing can be.)

Strangely, mysteriously 22 months into my YouTube account "not existing" it came back!! And I think the best explanation is that the old owners of YouTube let you have hyphens in your email accounts or your passwords, and then google didn't.

There was not a single person I could even get a hold of for some help, either. Back in the period before 2005, I was able to connect to various executives at Google about things I needed to know to write articles. And I didn't use a channel through the company - just a directory that was open to the public. It never took me more than three to eight hours to get a hold of anyone I needed at Google. (The executives called me back, sometimes on a Friday night.) And that is a distant memory, probably never to be re-implimented.

[indie9197]

180. I knew a guy that worked for Google in their data center in Oregon

He quit. He told me the pay sucked and so did the corporate culture. They have a lot of trivial perks but in the end it is the pay that counts for most people and that is where they come up short.

[interested11]

181. To everyone interested in this. You should watch this, if you haven't already..

Cohen & Grigsby caught in the act.