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Comment by Guest42 | Hacker News Reader

With the amount of resumes they get, I'd question how important it is for tier 1 companies. I have gone to career fairs and learned a great deal about companies I had never heard of, but it seems as though Google would just receive thousands of applications per opening and approach it algorithmically anyways. Although I've had contacts get poached via LinkedIn or given challenges from Googling certain tech topics.

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Google is one of the most sought after companies, but this is due to them actively advertising Google as a great place to work. Actually talking to someone who works at Google makes it more real and attainable in candidates minds and reinforces Google as a desirable place to work

If Google were to stop attending, they risk newer generations of engineers shifting their perspective on Google, especially these days when most portrayals of Google in the media are negative.

The point of Google attending these events isn't for recruiting. It's to advertise their brand to job seekers. Seeing a bunch of candidates flocking to the Google recruiters triggers FOMO is candidates who might not have been as enthusiastic

Sounds about right. The OP sounds like "Why does coke advertise their product so much when they are the most well known product in existence"

Because that status will decline without advertising.

I always thought about this, but not about Coca-Cola, since people actually need to want to buy it to acquire it, but Visa and Mastercard have huge advertising budgets, notably for events like the World Cup and the Olympics, and I never met someone who actively pursued a specific card flag when getting a new card and instead just get whichever their bank has to offer.

But then someone at the bank has to decide between Visa and Mastercard.

And this persons surely thinks "ok, the conditions are roughly the same, what is going to make sure none of my clients even bother to ask why we chose this".

So the bank picks something they know that for sure their clients won't question, and here you are. Even if a newer provider emerged with better conditions, they probably wouldn't pick it because they don't want to deal with the inevitable questions.

But they're not getting Amex or Discover.

Plus, thanks to all the ads they might be pulling out that Visa or Mastercard when they pay for something, rather than using cash. Or they might use the Visa or Mastercard online rather than Paypal. etc etc...

I wonder if this is not a good argument to actually make all kind of advertising illegal.

There is no way that ensuring huge entities with enormous capital are able sustain their dominant position thanks to flushing cash at ads is healthy.

I've yet to see a situation where advertising was better than word of mouth, personal experience or expert feedback.

It seems it's all gain for them, no gain for us.

I recall Google coming to our career fair (maybe 10 years ago now...) and they weren't taking resumes or doing interviews, it was just them talking for a minute and telling you to go online to apply. Still had a queue of people probably 30-50 deep waiting all day.

I think that’s a fair take although my expanded position was more along the lines of whether spending 9 figures on this particular channel was the most effective use of resources given the extent of industry domination, when perhaps other channels could promote the brand for marketing and recruitment purposes.

Unsolicited resumes are the most noisy channel of all. TBF I'm somewhat surprised it is even cost effective to keep reading them. But, send an engineer to spend an hour talking at a university and you get a bunch of very promising leads every time.

Source: I've been an interviewer in Google for a number of years and talked at a university at some point.

How do you determine promising leads among hundreds?

Let’s say for example you send someone to UMinnesota or UMD.

What’s the process here to get leads for internships or new grad roles?

The folk hanging around to ask follow-up questions are my bet. Some of the questions really show the person is sharp enough to suggest you can put them into the system.

Obviously this misses the good leads that simply don't care about your today's topic. That's in line with Google's approach being fine with a lot of false negatives.

It helps because they can also do the initial screening round with basically the entire graduating CS class in-person at the university.

That is practical. Wouldn’t have thought of that.

Companies compete with each other for the best talent, and often lose. They could always stop spending on recruiting and hire anyone from the pile of resumes, but they aren’t looking for just anyone.

One could argue that the money spent sending people to career fairs would be better spent on bigger signing bonuses. I assume Google uses data to make these decisions, but it could just be keeping up with the Joneses.

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