When it comes to the technology game, Google is a bit like the New York Yankees. People either love ‘em or hate ‘em, they are an industry institution, young pros want to be on the team, and other teams try to emulate their successful strategies.
There is no denying that Google has become a recruiting and hiring powerhouse over the years. They are notorious for cultivating a workplace where employees report genuine happiness. Tech pros don’t just want to work there because of the sprawling campus, the nap pods or the volleyball courts. They are drawn to Google for a variety of reasons, and in order to field the millions of applications they get each year, the company had to come up with a way to connect with the people who embody, as they put it, “Googliness.”
Hiring By The Numbers? Not So Fast!
Given the high caliber of technology work that goes on at Google, you might think that their hiring teams rely heavily on things like GPAs and test scores to connect with top candidates. In fact, Google never looks at GPAs in the hiring process. Lazlo
Bock, head of talent at Google recently told an LA Times reporter that GPAs and test scores are “worthless as criteria for hiring.”
If you’re not focusing on GPAs and test scores to connect with South Florida tech talent, what should you be using? The truth of the matter is that emulating Google’s exact hiring process won’t work for every South Florida company. A hiring process should be unique to the individual organization and it should contain a combination of:
- Skills testing
- Personality assessments
- Emotional intelligence evaluations
- Behavioral interviews
Cognitive abilities are important for success on the job, but skills can always be learned. Emotional and social intelligence cannot be taught, and personality compatibility is critical for teams who have to work closely together on complex IT problems.
Google Practices You Should and Should Not Emulate
In order to emulate the best of Google’s IT hiring process, it’s important to know what they get right. Google always focuses on the quality of a hire, not the cost of a hire. Making strong hiring decisions doesn’t come cheap. When you invest in locating people who are going to stay and grow with the company, the cost of a search more than pays for itself over time. Traditionally, companies focus on cost above all else, which always impacts the quality of a hire. Google also makes hiring and retention part of their hiring team’s performance reviews and constantly revisits its process based on changing conditions and recorded metrics.
However, Google doesn’t get everything right. They are notorious for dragging out the hiring process and overwhelming candidates, in some cases exposing interviewees to 20 or more interviewers. This is a tactic they can likely get away with because they are Google. The average candidate in South Florida would probably be turned off by a local firm that exposed them to those conditions.
If you want to improve your IT hiring practices to attract top talent, reduce turnover and improve retention, the recruiters at CERS can help. As a fixture in the South Florida Tech market, we have developed a strong pool of talent at all professional levels across many areas of expertise. We know how to seek out and recruit talent, and we help our clients develop hiring strategies that will instantly improve the quality of new hires. If you are ready to talk about an IT hiring strategy for your South Florida business, reach out to the team at CERS today.
