Google’s New Hiring Exam In The Spotlight

The New York Times ran an article today about some new hiring procedures Google is using, most notably an exam that attempts to see how similar you are to other people already working at Google. Google is now looking beyond grade point averages and SAT scores (and the old joke about PhDs) to find more well-rounded candidadtes that might fit in well with the culture already established at Google.
Some details from the article:

Google receives more than 100,000 job applications a month.
Google may double in size over the next year to 20,000 employees, hiring 200 people a week.
Previously, engineers needed a 3.7 GPA, while ad sales required a 3.0.
It used to take up to two months to hire a candidate.
Last summer, Google asked every employee who had worked there at least five months to fill out a 300-question survey.
Sample questions: What programming languages are you familiar with? What Internet mailing […]

Original post by Nathan Weinberg