Want to Work at Google?

Among many IT professionals, working at Google is seen as a dream job. And no wonder. The flourishing company is a driving force in Internet development. Working for Google means working for an organization that’s extraordinarily well funded. It also means working alongside top talent. With as many applications as Google receives, the company has its pick of the best.

The good news is that Google is hiring. The bad news is that getting hired at Google isn’t easy. It requires a unique set of characteristics to land a gig with the search giant.

As per Google’s Director of Staffing, this is what you need to have, if want to be a ‘Googler’:

• Entrepreneurial spirit - While working in the IT department of any large manufacturing facility might not require entrepreneurial spirit, working at Google most certainly does. With the search giant’s rapid growth and its aggressive moves in arenas held by competitors, the need for smart, self-motivated and self-starters seems clear. It is also important from company’s “20 per cent time policy” point of view. As per this policy, employees are free to pursue projects they're passionate about on company time. It takes an entrepreneurial (and disciplined) spirit to use this unstructured time in ways that benefit the bottom line.
• Business skills – Google prefers to hire a candidate with business skills, because such a person can relate business and technical aspects and look at the mission-critical needs to the company, and really understand some of the context around why we’re building some of the infrastructure.
• Technical skills – Learn programming languages like C++, Java, Java Script, CSS etc. Understand algorithms and data structures. Get to know operating systems.
• Problem solving skills – Google wants to hire candidates who have handled analytically difficult problems. They want someone who has actually interacted in a real-world situation and during an interview; the interviewers get a sense of what the candidate considers to be difficult.
• Analytical skills – The skills that that differentiate you from rest of the pool. Google doesn’t care much about GPAs. According to them, in schools, people are trained to give specific answers. But they want people who like figuring out stuff where there is no obvious answer. They believe that GPAs and test scores don’t correlate with success at the company.
• Leadership skills – They want people, who at the appropriate time, step in and lead when faced with a problem.