One half of one percent of Google applicants get hired – here’s how it works

Google’s Don Dodge – who himself is a somewhat recent Google hire after being let go by Microsoft – has posted a pretty extensive explanation of the hiring process at Google on his personal blog.

Saying that Google receives over 1 million resumes a year and only hires between 1,000 to 4,000 people annually (there are currently over 1,000 openings) and that each hire needs to fit into the legendary Google culture. So to get a job at Google, you’ll need to go through the following:

1. Recruiter screening to make sure there is a fit on experience
2. Phone screening (or two), during which if you are applying for a software engineering job you might have to do live coding in a Google Doc
3. On site interview with 4 or 5 people for 45 minutes each, where according to Dodge you might be asked among other things “How many golf balls can fit in a school bus?” or “There are 8 balls. Seven of them weigh the same, but one is heavier. Using a balance scale, how do you find the heavier ball with just two weighings”
4. Interview feedback from interviewers
5. Hiring committee which recommends the candidate for…
6. Executive review – basically it seems like this is where the decision to hire is made
7. Compensation committee that gets the financials of the offer together
8. Another final executive review
9. Offer

So yeah, that’s all you have to do to get a job at Google. Piece of cake, right?

Dodge also goes into why he thinks the Google hiring process “works”, and you should certainly read his entire post if you are interested in ever working for Google and/or if you’d like to adopt some of its techniques for your own business.