I agree fully, Google has one of the most convoluted and non-sensical recruitment models I've ever come across.
When I was in university I was doing a cross-discipline degree in mechanical and electrical engineering. Not your usual hacker program to say the least. I, however, coded like mad in my spare time (and have since primary school), and even found ways to incorporate a lot of software into the decidedly mechanically-slanted work I did in school.
I worked at numerous software companies during this time as an intern - Apple, Amazon, and a couple of smaller ones people have no doubt never heard of :) They seemed to like the work I did as well, since all of them invited me back for a second go.
Google, however, never touched me. I applied to their dev positions again and again (for internship and full-time) and never got a peep back except the occasional "you don't fit anything we have right now, but thanks!" message. I even got recommended by someone who worked there, and that was still no dice.
I also noticed that, despite the number of interns Google was hiring from my school, almost all of them were CS students, very few engineering students, and certainly none outside of the traditional computer engineering departments.
In the end, near graduation, I was courted by Microsoft, Amazon, and a few smaller companies, and Google still hasn't given me a dev interview ever :P
When I was in university I was doing a cross-discipline degree in mechanical and electrical engineering. Not your usual hacker program to say the least. I, however, coded like mad in my spare time (and have since primary school), and even found ways to incorporate a lot of software into the decidedly mechanically-slanted work I did in school.
I worked at numerous software companies during this time as an intern - Apple, Amazon, and a couple of smaller ones people have no doubt never heard of :) They seemed to like the work I did as well, since all of them invited me back for a second go.
Google, however, never touched me. I applied to their dev positions again and again (for internship and full-time) and never got a peep back except the occasional "you don't fit anything we have right now, but thanks!" message. I even got recommended by someone who worked there, and that was still no dice.
I also noticed that, despite the number of interns Google was hiring from my school, almost all of them were CS students, very few engineering students, and certainly none outside of the traditional computer engineering departments.
In the end, near graduation, I was courted by Microsoft, Amazon, and a few smaller companies, and Google still hasn't given me a dev interview ever :P