We love watching what Google does next – and the search engine mogul has not disappointed with its latest news story as reported in HR Grapevine!
Secret Searches
Unassuming individual Max Rosett was working on his Masters for Computer Science in Georgia. He came across a coding problem and in his mission to solve it, turned to Google, innocently plugging in: “python lambda function list comprehension”. It turns out this was a code of sorts, and a good one at that.
Moments after glancing down the screen at the typical array of bright blue hyperlinks, the search results split, folding back and revealing a box that said:
‘You’re speaking our language. Up for a challenge?’
A Long Process
Unfortunately, the intrigue didn’t end there and Max had to show perseverance, motivation and determination as he was taken to an external site called Foo.bar where he completed a series of different challenges over the next fortnight.
And it didn’t even end there! Then he was asked for his contact information, then a Google recruiter got in contact with him, THEN he had the entire usual Google hiring process to go through after that!
One reprieve was that he didn’t need a technical screening seeing as he – understandably – had that one in the bag already. But all’s well that ends well as he got the job.
Praise for Google
Max has only praise for Google’s innovative recruitment method. He felt important yet respected at all times throughout the process. And of course, intrigue was in high supply – what an exciting way to be found.
With Google making regular press regarding its use of personal information and supposed lack of user privacy, this is a welcome light-hearted story to hear – we’re only gutted we don’t have the same access Google has to do something similar ourselves!
Interestingly, a previous incident of something similar happening was reported in 2014 too. And when asked about it, Google replied in cryptic code with:
“u0050u0075u007au007au006cu0065u0073u0020 u0061u0072u0065u0020u0066u0075u006eu002e u0020u0053u0065u0061 u0072u0063u0068u0020u006fu006eu002e”.
This means: “Puzzles are fun. Search on.” Not only that, when we tried to log on to foo.bar ourselves… the page didn’t seem to exist – ah, the plot thickens!
Personally, we LOVE this – we live, eat and breathe all things online recruitment – so this to us is nothing short of genius…though we do feel slightly put out that none of our searches have ever yielded such an exciting result. Nice one Google!
Castle Hill House