Google HR Boss Explains Why GPA And Most Interviews Are Useless

[FarCenter]

Google doesn't even ask for GPA or test scores from candidates anymore, unless someone's a year or two out of school, because they don't correlate at all with success at the company. Even for new grads, the correlation is slight, the company has found.

Bock has an excellent explanation about why those metrics don't mean much.

"Academic environments are artificial environments. People who succeed there are sort of finely trained, they’re conditioned to succeed in that environment," he says.

While in school, people are trained to give specific answers, "it's much more interesting to solve problems where there isn’t an obvious answer," Bock says. "You want people who like figuring out stuff where there is no obvious answer."

...

The only thing that works are behavioral interviews, Bock says, where there's a consistent set of questions that ask people what they did in specific situations.

http://www.businessinsider.com/how-google-hires-people-2013-6

[Democracyinkind]

1. Well....

As someone who has worked in both the private and public sector, I find the following....

"Academic environments are artificial environments. People who succeed there are sort of finely trained, they’re conditioned to succeed in that environment," he says.

While in school, people are trained to give specific answers, "it's much more interesting to solve problems where there isn’t an obvious answer," Bock says. "You want people who like figuring out stuff where there is no obvious answer."

... to be a portrayal of the difference between public and private employment that is so ironic that it borders on ridiculousness. This kind of comedy can only be from the onion or businessinsider.

The private sector ridiculing the public sector as an "artificial environment" is, on a conceptual level, just too much to even comment on.
How stupid and full of yourself do you have to get in order to be able to spout such nonsense without realizing that all you're achieving is revealing your personal biases?

[Recursion]

2. This isn't about public/private, but about school/work

The private sector ridiculing the public sector as an "artificial environment" is, on a conceptual level, just too much to even comment on.

Academic environments (at least before grad school or so) present you a problem where the answer is known in advance and see how well you solve it. That's artificial.

Businesses present their employees with problems where the answer isn't known in advance, nor is it even known if there is an answer to be found. So do public sector employers, for that matter.

This isn't about public vs. private, but about school vs. work.

[Democracyinkind]

6. Isn't the university a part of the public sector?

But yes, I get it, it was just more convenient for me to write "public sector" instead of designating my exact position.

And I couldn't disagree with the second section your answer more strongly if I tried. My educational experience was quite different.

I get that you have a point though. I first read the piece as a comparison between work environments. I now get that it's more about comparing the differences between the challenges faced by either environment.

But I would maintain that the article deals with the subject in a manner so general that it's almost devoid of content. Personally, I can't stand people simply proclaiming fundamental dichotomies such as in this article. Google may disagree but I do believe that my years at the university as a student and employee challenged me in much the same way as those purgatorial years working in finance.

[Recursion]

8. Some of them. Others aren't (nt)

[gcomeau]

3. I think you're missing the meaning here.

He isn't saying the private sector *isn't* an artificial environment necessarily. And he is not obviously criticizing schools for being artificial environments. He is saying that the specific artificial environment of a classroom is different than the one in the workplace, and operating well in one doesn't mean you're going to operate well in the other.

And that's just plain true. I've known plenty of people who cruised through school who just flounder in a workplace environment and vice-versa.

[Democracyinkind]

7. Thanks. See my reply above...

I didn't read it quite the way it was meant, I guess. Obviously, I must have subconsciously waited for an opportunity to let out that rant.... It is said that such things happen even to the best among us, which would make it entirely excusable to such a humble mind as mine, n'est-ce pas?

[gcomeau]

9. I've done it several times...

...and that's just this month.

[galileoreloaded]

4. ABSOLUTELY..human behavior is predictable 95% of the time

"The only thing that works are behavioral interviews, Bock says, where there's a consistent set of questions that ask people what they did in specific situations."

who are you now, and is your range of behavior narrow enough to provide predictable results to the task. basic human building blocks.

if the soviet union existed with modern behavioral conditioning tools, they would dominate Borg style.

[AngryAmish]

5. You are walking in a desert and all of a sudden you see a tortoise...

Those are the only interview questions that work.