The Dark Side of GOOGLE

If you graduated number one in your class from the following list of colleges with a Computer Science major and wrote a 1,000 page thesis all in binary then you might be eligible for a few the jobs posted on the GOOGLE web-site.

Stanford University
Massachusetts Institute of Technology
University of California - Berkeley
Carnegie Mellon University
Cornell University
Princeton University
University of Texas - Austin
University of Illinois - Urbana-Champaign
University of Washington
University of Wisconsin - Madison
Harvard University
California Institute of Technology
Brown University
University of California - Los Angeles
Yale University
University of Maryland - College Park
University of Massachusetts - Amherst
Rice University
University of Southern California
University of Michigan - Ann Arbor

If you do not fit the description described above and you are looking for a non-hi tech position at GOOGLE, then you will be entering the dark side of GOOGLE.

In many of my blogs I promote GOOGLE as being a leader in the technology and environment arena’s and I applaud them for that accomplishment, but when I went looking for non-hi tech job at GOOGLE I found it to be an impossible task. There is NOTHING on their web-site for these types of positions and then I began to question their self acclaimed “community” service.

Start here “GOOGLE Jobs”.

Then click on “Life at Google” link.

Then under “Why work at Google?” click on all or some of the links and as you go through each link, count how many folks you see over fifty. If you get to double digits, please post a comment, because I did not see very many. I would have thought that the “Google celebrates Diversity” Link would show a few older folks, but all I saw on that link was one possibility. So where is the “diversity”? I guess the diversity in not in the people, but in the business applications.

Then go back to the “GOOGLE Jobs” page and click on “mission” and “values” and all you find is talk about technology.

When you are done with those two links click on the “Jobs” link, pick a location, and then continue on and look for jobs like Mail room, Executive Secretary, Janitor, Window Cleaner, Housekeeping, guru, etc. And if you find any at all, please do let me know.

Your next challenge as you wonder aimlessly through all the links is finding an email address to contact someone at GOOGLE to ask a simple question about your search for the non-hi tech positions. I did not find one! Even on the “About GOOGLE” link there is a “contact us” and that does not have a pure email link, what it has is GOOGLE “forms” for specific product information, but NOTHING for any kind of “outlook” email format for your questions.

Here is a prime example of using the “form” as an email notification to GOOGLE and not having an email address. My wife uses GOOGLE extensively and has found spelling and grammar errors several times on various pages. To notify GOOGLE of the errors she has to use the “Form” and, based on the feedback, the error does not get “fixed”. So far she has sent at least 10-15 suggestions and she has received back NOTHING, not a “Thank You”, not a “Great Catch”, zip, Nada, NOTHING. (Maybe they don’t want to know or don’t really care).

Based on this information I can only conclude that GOOGLE should changed the wording on their site and anywhere the word “community” is found change it to “Exclusive Community”. Then under jobs they should add a paragraph that says “If you are looking for a non-hi tech position, you have to know somebody that is already employed with GOOGLE or is a personal friend of the founders and they you might get an interview. We do have a diverse Exclusive Community, but if you look old, your chances for a position here are nil.” (“nil” being the total opposite of Googol).

Finally I remember way back when GOOGLE was a “start-up” and they had an office on University Ave in Palo Alto we were going to dinner and saw a GOOGLE sign on a door as we were walking. We then took the time and went up the stairs to the GOOGLE Office where we met the founders and several other people working. We said that we were big fans of their new search engine and we just wanted to stop by and say “hello”. From those humble beginnings, they’ve emerged as one of the most powerful entities in the world.

As a search engine of the highest order, try to find something on their massive site. It might take hours, even worse, you may never find what you’re looking for. You may come up with NOTHING. Is it too simple for them to realize that a directory might help us and them? Sometimes the average “Joe” can be a lot smarter than the Stanford hi-tech grads.

I have NOTHING to add except I wish all of you out there in cyber space good hunting