The author of this article is Shi Bei, personal WeChat: digitalmeme, public number: give you a key
If you go to Google to apply for a job, you can spend half a year or more from starting a resume to being hired. You will have to attend about 20 interviews before getting an offer.
In China's technology companies, the phenomenon I have seen is that some people have changed two jobs in half a year.
Talent is the most valuable resource for every company. Everything is done by people, and the business that has a great impact is often created by a very small number of particularly good people. For example, Jonathan Ivey, who just left Apple a while ago, as the chief designer of Apple, his leading design products lead the glory of Apple in the past ten years. When Jonathan’s departure from Apple was announced, Apple’s share price fell by $9 billion. —— This doesn't really reflect Jonathan's true value. If there is no such good product as in the past, Apple will gradually lose its competitiveness in the future development. This is far from being measurable by $9 billion.
Google’s investment in talented people is extremely impressive. In addition to the “terrible” recruitment process mentioned at the beginning, every time a talent is hired, every Google person involved (Googler) will invest 150-500. hour. They also counted that in order to recruit 1,000 people, they invested a full time of 125 people. In order to recruit 5,000 employees, they start with 1 to 3 million applicants each year. In other words, only about 0.25% of candidates can get jobs, Harvard's enrollment is 6.1%, and it is 25 times more difficult to enter Google than to enter Harvard.
Redefining the Team
In the book Redefining the Team, Google Chief Talent Officer Laszlo Bock counts these numbers. Since I have created my own entrepreneurial ideas, I am extra sensitive to talents. Every time I meet new friends, I will pay special attention to the experience and background of the other person. If I encounter someone who is particularly good, I will start to ponder whether it is possible to be with this person. Some cooperation has occurred, and it is even possible to pull it into my team. If it is not possible at the moment, then keep in touch and try to make contact with each other first. You can know the progress of the other party from time to time. At the same time, you can feel the smooth communication with the other party, whether the underlying values are consistent, and whether you are doing things. Spectrum.
After I started my business, my views on talents have changed a lot. Before starting a business, I highly value talents in terms of professional competence; after starting a business, professional ability is placed in a very low position, not even a key factor in judging a person. In Redefining the Team, I also saw that Google has some similar practices for talent. For example, Google would like to hire smart and curious people who don’t necessarily know what they are doing. With curiosity, getting familiar with your work will be especially simple.
After starting a business, I and many founders of the startups discussed the idea of recruiting talents, whether it is a high-funded, fast-growing Internet company, a company with heavy assets in the traditional field, a low-margin company, or a company like Ali. The middle managers of the giants are surprisingly consistent in their views on recruiting talent: if it is not appropriate, don't make do with it. No matter how difficult it is to recruit talents, don't be reluctant to do so. The author of "Redefined Teams", Laszlo, said that they would rather miss out on a few great employees and try to avoid recruiting a poorly performing employee. Small companies (who was a small company in the past) couldn’t afford a person who would end up badly. Poorly performing employees and savvy people would bring a viral reaction to the entire team. Guide or persuade.
At this point, I am very touched. At the beginning of the business, our company (a key) once had an employee with a very good background and strong ability. However, at work, I found that I deliberately deceived me on very small things. Later I learned deeply that she was different from the focus of each colleague on the same thing, deliberately guiding every colleague to this. One thing produced a one-sided judgment. After deep understanding of many things, she asked her to leave the company. Later, I found out that before she joined our company, she had negotiated with the boss of a company because she had the secret of the previous company. She took hundreds of thousands of "confidential materials fees" when she left the company.
Fortunately, when I found signs of problems, the treatment was very firm and decisive, and did not bring too much negative consequences to our company. At the time, when I learned everything in depth, the picture that came to my mind was that our company was infected with a virus that was spreading to other organs.
In February 2011, Ali experienced a personnel shock that affected the industry. Wei Zhe, who made a great contribution to Alibaba, was dismissed because Alibaba found that about a thousand (0.8%) Chinese suppliers were suspected of fraud. The report said:
In order to pursue high performance, some sales personnel deliberately condone or neglect, allowing some external elements to enter the Alibaba membership system and organize fraudulently. A total of 100 sales personnel are involved. All this, when Wei Bing, the CEO of Alibaba, is blamed. In order to maintain Alibaba's "customer first" values, Ma Yun had to shed tears "斩" Wei Zhe.
Wei Zhe himself said in the announcement on this incident that he resigned because he did not defend Alibaba's values.
In Redefining the Team, Laszlo mentions a case in which Google practices an extremely transparent culture, and they disclose information that many companies appear to be “confidential” to all employees at the staff meeting. Including new products that are being secretly planned inside, the company's major decisions, they will try to disclose to employees. I used to work in the pea pod and experienced this almost completely open and transparent culture: at the end of 2012, the pea pod got $120 million in financing, which was the startup with the most financing. After the financing was confirmed, the founder of the company first announced the news at the internal meeting of the whole staff. Only one month later, the news was officially announced in the media.
You have to know that for the company's management and the board of directors, this has to bear a great risk: once the employee leaks the news in advance, it will immediately trigger outside reports and interpretations. At this time, the report will be extremely inaccurate and distorted. Interpretation leads to a lot of unnecessary guesswork and trouble. The outside world’s perception of the company is bound to be affected.
Every year, Google leaks employees. Once it is leaked, the company conducts an investigation. Once the evidence is found, the leaked employees will be expelled immediately. Schmidt, who was the Google CEO of the year, also told everyone at the staff meeting: Someone leaked the information in our meeting and we fired the party. Even if it is compromised, Google still insists that its internal information is open and transparent, because only when every employee knows enough background information, they know how to make judgments and choices in the context of large information.
A friend who worked as a middle management manager in Ali told me that he used to be the president of a traditional software company. In the management of that software company, a lot of work is usually done to keep the information gap, and the information difference can be obtained. Better resources and opportunities. After arriving in Ali, they are extremely open and transparent inside, and it is basically difficult to survive. At this time, they can only do one thing: speak by performance. He said that he likes Ali's culture very much, which makes him more purely at work, and does not need to spend energy to use the careful machine to get resources and opportunities. He also said that their internal internal control is extremely strict, and they are not allowed to accept the hospitality of customers. If they eat outside, they must pay for themselves. The gifts they receive cannot exceed 50 yuan, and more than 50 yuan must be handed in.
A few years ago, I heard that there was a so-called "smelling official" role in Ali. All of them went to Ali to interview candidates. In the final round, they were all "smell-smelling" by the interviewer. At that time, it also caused a lot of discussion in the technology media circle. Many people think this is too ridiculous. A technology company interviewer still wants to smell it? Too unscientific, right? At the time, I saw these discussions and I felt very strange. I even laughed at Ali’s system. After I started my own business, although I have not experienced this interview process personally, I can fully understand the practice of Ali.
The "taste" here is not the body's body odor, but the "taste" of a person doing things for people, that is, whether the cultural values match, whether it is like an Ali. If you are not like the Ali, even if you are strong, you will not be recruited. If the candidates are very similar to the Ali, they will be considered even if they do not necessarily match their professional abilities. At this point, Ali is very similar to Google. They value one's fundamentals, and professional competence is not the most critical consideration.
I have seen this in the public name "Emperor" who specializes in music. "Emperor" went to see a singer and used two words to distinguish: technology and mind. For example, Zhang Jie's singing skills are first-class, but they are not liked; Sun Yanzi's singing technique is not the best, but his heart is simple and moving, so he is very popular with fans and passers-by. If you use purely technical expertise to discuss, you have to say that Zhang Jie is better than Sun Yanzi, in fact, it is very boring. The human underlying operating system is first of all sensibility, then rational. A person's heart/taste is the sum of all the experiences, experiences, thoughts, and environments that have been created in the past. Even if you deliberate again, it is difficult to disguise yourself as another person.
In Google’s hiring, they also look at whether a person is like Googler, that is, whether it has Google’s taste, temperament or heart. The so-called odor is not only the choice of your partner, partner and friends, the more great the company, the more it will match whether a person is "scented".
In recruiting, Google can be said to have exhausted all kinds of methods, come up with various creative ideas to advertise, constantly improve the internal recommendation bonus, ask employees to recommend their friends, ask external companies to recruit talents for themselves, and post recruitment on the recruitment website. Information …… even includes the acquisition of a good startup to get the best talent. However, all of these methods have a very limited effect on the efficiency of recruitment.
Posting job postings on job sites is basically the worst; because Google’s talent requirements are too high and the standards are too unique, it’s hard for outside companies to help;
I came up with a particularly creative advertising idea, and many people came to invest in resumes, but it is difficult for someone to get into their final round of exams; the internal recommendation bonuses are constantly being improved, but the effect of internal recommendations has not changed significantly;
The talents acquired through the acquisition are indeed very good, but many of them have lost their product ownership and ownership. After changing from the role of a founder to the staff of Google, the mentality has changed a lot: many people are waiting The contract expires, re-do the new project or re-start the business. In other words, they have spent a lot of money on the acquisition of talents, but they have not invested in the products and work after the acquisition.
After all the ways have been tried, Laszlo found a more critical problem: excellent talent does not come out to find a job. Excellent talents have a sense of accomplishment in the current job, they also have satisfactory rewards, and they have their own space. They don't want to go out to find a job at all. Google has a senior manager in order to find a good talent, from the beginning of the contact with the other party, to the other party during this period changed three jobs, after a decade to finally join Google.
Even so, Laszlo still said in the book that no matter how difficult, since two principles must be adhered to:
To recruit the best talent, the best recruitment skills are: there are a number of core talents. He has a colleague who always puts 200 resumes of Google employees in the office. When a candidate is on the sidelines of joining Google, he will throw the resume into the other side: you must work with these people. Good people want to work with good people.
There is a movie called "Beautiful Mind", which tells the story of Nobel Prize winner John Nash. Nash had suffered from severe schizophrenia and was even seen as a madman by many people during Princeton. At the beginning of my business, I was thinking, if I saw such a madman at the then Princeton campus, could I identify him? Do I have the ability to talk to him? In the process of talking to him, can I help this person a little, or I should at least not treat him as a madman, treat him as an ordinary person, or even a genius, can he give him a little bit better? Impact? If this answer is ok, then I feel that my entrepreneurship has a little value.
Before I read this book, I was trying to make myself better every day. After reading this book, you have to work harder. Because the best talents are impressed by the same outstanding people.
More
I used to write a column, even if my own subjective feelings will be presented in a more objective way. In the end, write a little more about your feelings:
I highly recognize Google's talent concept. Because I used to work in pea pods for nearly a year, the internal culture and talent concept of pea pods almost "re-enacted" Google's culture, so I also regarded Google's culture and talent concept. Have personal experience and understanding. After that, I went to LinkedIn and I also saw LinkedIn's culture and talent concept.
It is also a well-known technology company in Silicon Valley. The two companies are very similar in terms of talent measurement and screening methods. But after joining LinkedIn, I found that LinkedIn’s employer image is very good. Many of my colleagues at LinkedIn told me that Silicon Valley, if they get the offer of Facebook, Google and LinkedIn, they will definitely choose LinkedIn.
Later asked, why? They said that because LinkedIn is the hardest to enter. If you ask again, they say that LinkedIn's canteen is the best to eat, in contrast, the work pressure is not that big. Haha, maybe for this reason, LinkedIn doesn't have a good development of Google and Facebook. (joke)
Note 1:Ma Yun also played iron fists: tears and defends
Note 2: "Google" is more rigorously expressed in the text because Google represents only the Google search engine and is a wholly owned subsidiary of Alphabet. Because the full text of this book is expressed in terms of "Google", this expression is also used in the text.
User comments