When Everybody Wants To Work For You....

There's no way to sort out the applications without being arbitrary.

TalkLeft observes that Google is (as usual) hiring, but sets very high standards for applicants.

Memo to Google: Think outside the box. Rather than look for people who can sell your product, look for people who can enhance your product.

What you need are people who can separate the wheat from the chaff and find the best, not the most, of the web. Don't ask people to apply for specific jobs. Just let them take the test and then devise an algorithm to decide which job they're most suited for. The results would probably astound you.

Do people still "think outside the box"? (It was at least six years ago that I heard somebody quip that anybody who describes themselves as 'thinking outside the box' is certain to be stuck way inside the box.) But enough about boxes... she has a point. But it probably doesn't matter.

Google seems to pride itself on its highly degreed workforce, and that's not likely to change. Holding an advanced degree is not incompatible with being creative, and to the extent that Google values creativity it should be able to find many creative individuals within its applicant pool despite requiring advanced degrees and experience.

But there is still something to be said for recognizing that there are other valuable aspects to job applicants, beyond their academic credentials, and that sometimes those other factors should take a more prominent role in the hiring process. That's not just true for Google, but for pretty much any employer. Often the academic credential is used as an artificial means of narrowing a candidate pool, simply because there would otherwise be too many job applications to reasonably process. But it seems rare for companies to question if those academic qualifications are truly the best measure of qualification for the job.