Thus, the old pre-reqs are out: GPAs, transcripts, SATS. In fact, Google is beginning to disregard academic educations altogether: they're just not a good predictor of success at the company. Says Bock, "After two or three years, your ability to perform at Google is completely unrelated to how you performed when you were in school, because the skills you required in college are very different. You’re also fundamentally a different person. You learn and grow, you think about things differently."
According to the Times, Google is putting its money where its mouth is: they've actually increased their hires with no college education—14% of some of its teams have never been to school, according to Bock.
Instead, the emphasis is on hiring candidates who are leaders, and work well in teams. The only way to discover this, says Bock, is through "structured" behavior interviews that assess how a person makes decisions. The winning interviewees will be able to demonstrate that they are "consistent and fair in how [they] think about making decisions and that there’s an element of predictability." This is key to building trust among team members once hired, he explains. "If a leader is consistent, people on their teams experience tremendous freedom, because then they know that within certain parameters, they can do whatever they want. If your manager is all over the place, you’re never going to know what you can do, and you’re going to experience it as very restrictive."
Kathleen N on 08 Aug 09writing to participate\n\nWriting has never been more important but we must recognize this cultural shift. Educators must develop a new tool belt that supports the interaction and connectivity that our students now thrive upon. Our students text, comment, and tweet. Our job is to use the tools that they are familiar with to create an environment that develops the literacy skills Yancy mentions while building upon our students' communal interactions via social media.
