Google's Recruitment and Selection System: An In-depth Analysis

This report provides a detailed analysis of Google's recruitment and selection system, focusing on the changes implemented, key issues identified, and the system's effectiveness in achieving its goals. The analysis highlights challenges such as a lengthy interview process, difficulties in attracting top talent, and instances of candidate 'ghosting.' It evaluates the criteria and information needed to assess the system, including tracking measurement data and ensuring legal compliance. Effective elements of the new system, such as finding candidates independently and setting high standards, are discussed alongside areas needing refinement, like providing compelling reasons for candidates to join and balancing hiring speed with quality. The report also addresses ethical, human rights, and privacy concerns related to AI and automation in recruitment, offering recommendations for improvement. The document is available on Desklib, a platform offering a range of study tools and resources for students.

Running head: RECRUITMEN AND SELECTION
RECRUITMEN AND SELECTION
Name of Student
Name of University
Author’s Note

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Memo
To: Google Management
From:
Cc: All Head of Departments
Date:
Re: Recruitment and Selection
Keys issues attempting to change
Dear Management team of Google,
Thank you for choosing me for evaluation of your newly implemented selection
system. I have been through the changes that have been undertaken for the recruitment process of
candidates, after evaluating the process entirely, I have analyzed some issues that have appeared
in the new system. Usually the recruitment process of Google meets a specific critical term; it
generally aligns with the line functions of the organization like marketing and finance (Bandiera,
Maniate & Hanson, 2015). The recruitment process should be the one that must be able to
promote the achievement of objectives of the organization which has been incorporated in the
strategy of Google. The recruitment process needs to be updated based on the changes in its
external and internal environment of the organization. Google had undergone few changes in its
recruitment process; this process had effects on their present employees and the working
environment of the organization. The issues are mentioned below

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1. Long and hard interview process: most of the applicants who receive the
invitation for the interview needs to spend 4-6 weeks long intense as well as
multi-meeting interview process. The hiring manager and the team do not take
decisions regarding the selection of an employee (Bermúdez & Cordero, 2017).
According to various experiences, candidates have claimed that the information
related to the interview is sent to the hiring committee for deciding if the person is
fit for the organization. Employees might be asked to carry out a project.
Some applicants have claimed to work more than 70 hours for fulfilling
the project just to get rejected without any proper feedback on the project that had
been submitted. This process might be continued for several times until the
candidate is hired. This creates huge problem for the candidates, they are tortured
to a great extent before they are hired and it is continued for a long time (Finch,
Peacock & Levallet, 2016). This brings about dissatisfaction among aspiring
employees; they have a fear in themselves that if they are worn out before getting
hired, they might face huge pressure after they get hired. They are provided to
perform a project even before they are hired and before they are provided with
any training.
2. Failure to attract talented employees: in the market that is candidate-driven in
nature, candidates get approached by numerous recruiters, hence it is very
difficult for the recruiters to attract the talented candidates for their organization
especially the ones which need highly qualified employees like Google (Flynn &
Bauder, 2015). The top candidates who have been pitched by the organization
might not be present around when the organization plans to extend the recruitment

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process for some more days. Delay faced in the recruitment process of Google,
kills the entire recruitment process which makes them lose candidates who are
talented (Forrest, Lachowsky & Lal, 2016). Reducing the time consumed in hiring
also becomes a tough task for the organization because Google requires highly
talented candidates and the organization is juggling with numerous candidates in
parallel manner and the interviews take a lot of time for setting up.
3. Ghosting: in the phenomena of ghosting candidates appear for few rounds of
selection process and in case they are selected for the next rounds, they do not
appear on them because they have been pressurized too much in the previous
interviews (Gibbs, MacDonald & MacKay, 2015). Sometimes candidates get
selected but do not join the job because of the fear of nit maintaining the level of
intelligence throughout, because working in Google is all about working with
highly intelligent minds and they also need to maintain the level. This becomes
difficult for fresher candidates who have just completed their graduation.
The goals of implementing the change in recruitment process are as follows
 They aim in selecting people who have the ability to learn from their mistakes and
take challenges seriously, they aim in selecting people that are knowledgeable and
smarter than most of the people.
 They aim in recruiting people who would be able to add value to the company as
well as its culture.
 To recruit people to who have the ability to complete their job effectively.
 Selecting people who are enthusiastic, proactive and self- staring.

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 Selecting people who are interested in working with people belonging from
different backgrounds as well as be motivation for other employees.
 They aimed in recruiting people who help in growing their business along with
boosting their revenue.
Criteria and information required to evaluate the system
Development of capable and strong employee roster needs a selection and
recruitment process which identifies the strong employees inside as well as outside the
organization (Greiner, 2015). A routine evaluation of methods, strategies and procedures
that are used in selecting and retaining employees for the purpose of advancement might
improve the retention of employees. The evaluation methods that are most effective in
nature identify various successful processes which can be enhanced as well as ineffective
processes which require numerous modifications. Criteria as well as information required
for evaluating the new recruitment system are as follows
 Tracking of measurement data: measurement standards must be tracked from time
to time in the form of indicator of failure or success of selection and recruitment
process undertaken by Google (Larochelle, Hunyadkürti & Bachand, 2017).
These measures must be tracked on the basis of yearly, quarterly or monthly
according to the requirements of the organization. The measurement depends on
the rate of turnover of employees in the company, if the turnover is high, the
measurement has to be done frequently and in case the turnover is low, the
measurement can be carried out less frequently. In case the data received is
positive, it reflects effective processes. Negative data reflects underlying

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problems which require to be addressed as soon as possible in order to avoid
impacts on the business of Google.
 Enhancement of business image: issues in selection and recruitment process might
result in negative effect on the way the particular business is perceived by various
potential employees, customers and business partners (Lau, Zamani & Lee, 2015).
The company must not show their value to the employees who have not yet
cleared the recruitment process and become employees of Google. This might
create a stage for a mutual rewarding relationship in the workplace.
 Guarantee that the processes used confirm to legal and business requirements. The
business might have chances to face legal as well as financial hurdles in case of
any anti-discrimination, labor law and employee eligibility standards are not
upheld in any way (McCarthy, Bauer & Truxillo, 2017). Conduction of informal
interviews and spot-checks documents with the hires that have been selected
recently for ensuring legal compliance.
Elements of the new system that would be effective in enabling Google in achieving
its selection goals
Google usually receives more than 2 million applications for job from all over the
world, it also hires around thousands of employees. Google generally takes a time span of
6 weeks for completing the recruitment process. In this process, each and every candidate
is screened with the help of their potential colleagues, potential boss as well as their
hiring committee (Mügge, 2016). Previously hiring took around 4-10 hours of the
manager every week, it also included professionals of top management to spend an entire
day. Hence the new hiring system has been introduced which helps the company to carry

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out their hiring process without wasting much of their time along with meeting their
recruitment goals. Few elements of the new system that would be effective in meeting the
selection goals of the company are mentioned below, these factors are chosen because it
helps the company to meet its goals in the field of recruitment of the candidates.
 Finding candidates on their own: Google do usually have tie up with more
number of recruitment institutes, they organize their own recruitment process and
look for the perfect employee who would be able to contribute in their business.
 Putting checks in the place for accessing candidates objectively: Google might
apply the process of checking in the place for the purpose of accessing objectively
(Ng & Sears, 2015). The entire recruitment process must be monitored in order to
ensure that the appropriate and talented candidates are recruited.
 Setting an uncompromisable high standard: the organization is very easily able to
determine if a candidate is worth a single interview, this is done because the
organization has set the bar very high and they do not budge it as well. Before the
organization starts recruiting, it decides regarding the attributes that they want
along with defining as a group of what actually great is all about like “a good rule
of thumb is to hire only people who are better than few” (Nowrouzi, Lightfoot &
Larivière, 2015). In case the recruitment system consumes more time than
planned, they wait patiently and concentrate on their effort on their task.
Elements that need some more refinement
In the new recruitment system implemented by Google has numerous factors that
require more refinement, these factors are mentioned below, and they need refinement

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because they hamper the recruitment process to some extent, hence various points that
should be provided with more refinement are as follows
 Provide candidates for a reason to join: in the working environment of Google,
employees are not selected very easily, the need to undergo a very long process of
recruitment system which is very tough for the aspiring employees to compete
with the rest of the candidates and get a job (Poba-Nzaou, Lemieux, & Beaupré,.
2016) Along with this, the long recruitment process of Google reduces the
competition among candidates this is because people who actually need job in
urgent basis would not be waiting for the next round of interviews; rather they
would appear for other companies and join there if they are selected.
 Lack of understanding among hiring managers and recruiters: there has been a
huge gap of communication between the hiring managers and recruiters of
Google, this had made the company face numerous problems in their recruiting
process, like inability to analyze the appropriate skills in the aspiring candidates
or problems faced in deciding the appropriate channels for right talent and
sourcing.
 Difficulty in maintaining a balance between the quality and speed of hire: this was
one of the biggest problems faced by the recruiters of Google, the recruitment
process have been very lengthy and time consuming along with being difficult,
this made the recruiters to concentrate in making the entire process a little less
time consuming, this had resulted in decreasing the quality of the recruitment
process.

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Ethical, human rights or privacy concerns with the changes that have been
implemented, recommendations for addressing the concerns
Some ethical, privacy and human rights concerns that have been faced after the
implementation of the new recruitment system along with their solutions are as follows
 Problem 1: artificial intelligence and automation have greatly undermined the
human element in the procedures of recruitment (Pruysers & Cross, 2016). The
prediction that artificial intelligence would be replacing the human power has
decreased the privacy of job among people.
 Solution 1: the company must resist its urge to respond to all the calls for the
speed of process at all costs. They should be skeptical of various inflated claims
of a specific rate of efficiency instead of finding a way of combining the best
characteristics of automation at the time of keeping various advantages related to
human relations that were irreplaceable.
 Problem 2: the process of slow decision making is one of the most self-inflicted
issues faced by the recruitment and selection process of Google. Job seekers
hardly show any patience for various employees who have the expectation that the
company would endure multiple rounds of the interviews at a course of few
weeks (Smith & Tsutsumi, 2016). In very tight labor market, an employer who
prolongs the recruitment process faces the risks of missing out on the best talents
for the company.
 Solution 2: the company can take enough time for recruiting good employees but
the decision making process must not be elongated more than required. Multiple
interviews must be conducted in a single day and the recruiters must consult with

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their colleagues regarding the qualifications of candidates just after the candidate
finishes the interview, this would reduce the overall time consumed by the entire
system.
Other methods that would be proposed for enhancing the new system
Some more methods that can be used in order to enhance the new recruitment
system of Google are as follows
 Adding more details to job postings: the posting related to jobs is the beginning of
recruiting system because it needs to explain the position of vacancy properly for
attracting the most appropriate candidates in order to retain them (Wicker, 2017).
Instead of posting regarding the education required, training and experience, day
to day activities of that particular position must also be included. It can also
mention regarding the expectations that the organization has from the new
candidate.
 Including others: the CEO or the opinion of the hiring manager is very important
in case of recruiting employees, they would be able to decide if the candidate is
valuable for organization (Wong, Chau & Hogg, 2015). While including others it
is to include the ones who have a strong knowledge regarding what is required in
carrying out the job and what sort of people would be needed to do the job.

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