Google admits 'unrealistic expectations'
Peter Crush, 18 September 2008
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2 comment's on this article.Google's HR and staffing director, Liane Hornsey admitted she may be doing her Irish employees a dis-service, after revealing she still had not found a head of HR for Ireland after 18 months' of searching.
The off-the-cuff revelation that she had been looking for a year and a half was made to delegates attending the CIPD's closing keynote panel debate. Human Resources asked her at what point holding out for the perfect HR head was doing staff a dis-service.
Hornsey replied: "I might be doing the people there a dis-service. I have possibly unrealistic expectations, but I believe this should always be the case if you want to hire the right person."
When challenged again about whether Google deems no-one in the HR industry to meet its strict - we asked snobbish - expectations, she added: "In the Google culture we would never hire anyone who was not quite right. Even if one person on the [interview] panel did not like the [HR head] candidate, we would not hire them."
Later in the discussion, Hornsey said: "We would always take people on their fit with the culture, rather than their fit with the job. A talented person can do many different roles."
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Nicola Gilmore - 19 September 2008
I am not surprised that Google are still looking for an Head of HR in Ireland after 18mths. I applied for an HR role at Google via the website in May of this year. Although I received a confirmation that my email had been received, I am still waitng to know if my CV was of any interest. I assume not but, Google should inform anyone who is not suitable. It has given me a poor view of the HR function at Google and is not how I would deal with applicants.
If it takes this long to filter candidates, the good ones \(like me) will be gone by the time Google get back to them !!
DENIS BARNARD - 20 September 2008
Perhaps they should re-examine the staff currently employed by Google and see if they would be deemed "suitable" under their current criteria.
Alternatively, it looks like that role is redundant.
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