The case discusses the approaches used by Google to select its employees. Google is arguably one of the most successful online companies in the world. The company specializes in a wide range of internet-related products and services. As a matter of fact, Google is a fast growing company that operates in a highly competitive environment where players are eager to outperform each other. In that case, the company needs to employ every applicable tactic to ensure that it retains its sustainable competitive advantage in the global market. Going for the most qualified and competent workforce is actually one of these tactics. As a matter of fact, selection of the best employees from the incoming pool of applicants is the biggest challenge that faces Google today.
Owing to their vast engagements aimed at ensuring that people across the world get the best in terms of internet products and services, the multinational corporation employs a large number of staff to serve in all its units worldwide. Google places job advertisements for as many as 200 positions in a period of one week, and this usually attracts thousands of applications every month. In such cases, it has always been the role of the HR department to identify and select only the best people out of these applications. This, however, has never been an easy way to go about the selection, since most of these applicants are qualified, but only a certain number is required to fill the positions.
In their attempt to effectively address this challenge, Google has come up with a number of strategies over the years. The first approach to be applied by the company was setting a higher bar on education qualification for different positions, and even though this would help in narrowing the number of applicants, it later turned out that it was not the most appropriate way to predict success in the organization. Secondly, the company HR department also conducted surveys to existing staff members on a number of key characteristics that would be useful in identifying the best applicants. However, despite these approaches, Google is still experiencing challenges in finding the most competent people to employ out of its large pool of applicants.
Instead of putting a lot of focus on academic qualifications and surveys to determine the appropriate qualities for potential employees, Google should integrate other more effective ways into their employee selection process. For instance, apart from the qualifications given for different positions in the company, the company’s HR department should also consider only those who have experience in software development and computer programming, among other significant computer applications. Creativity and innovation are both an integral part of online businesses today, and there is no way these can be achieved without involving great minds in computer technology and other related disciplines.
Moreover, on top of the application forms which the company offers for applicants use, there is also a need to include a set of questions in the application process to help assess the applicants’ suitability in their areas of interest. For credibility purposes, online application is the best option here, where the test will follow immediately on a timed mode after one has submitted their application letter. This strategy will not only help in narrowing the number of applications received by the company, but it would also ensure that only the best candidates are selected for the jobs.