Tuesday, March 06, 2007

Google lost in translation?

I think there is this one experience I'd like to share; if you adore Google, read on.

After spending a long time on education and working aside of it to finance the whole idea, I wondered whether I should try and apply for a job. So, one sets out and tries to figure out how to get one.

(Author's note: Right. At some moment in time one needs to realize that it isn't economically feasible writing code and designing architectures for Open Source alone, at least if you aren't employed).

First stop along the road is collecting your "experience assets" into a resume.
In English, certainly.
Now, let's see, probably these ten (10) years of Java hands-on Java experience, doing some really nice Open Source and commercial stuff can be considered as such. Last but not least some companies like Sun, Cisco and Atos Origin even dropped some of the OS code into their products.

Next stop is about dropping off your resume for a nice Job, so somebody reads it and invites you to an interview.

(Author's note: Is it really just me that would like to search for the right type of job first and then decide the location?)

So who might be an interesting employer? Hmm, probably Google. they are looking for a lot of people....right. Nice jobs down the road, probably an idea for the next stop.

(Author drops the resume in Google Mailbox; automatical answer arrives and he feels at ease, everything is fine.)

Some days pass and then a mail from Google appears in the Inbox.

(Author's thinks "Wow, quick..." and reads on....eyes wide open...)


We received your application for the job entitled '....'.
However, this job requires that you include an English resume.
Please resubmit your application with an English resume.


(Author panics and checks his resume, starts to read the letter of presentation....summarized:)


I want to introduce myself as creative and interdisciplinary
engineering graduate with technical, methodical and social
competence, which I acquired over the time through
education, professional and extracurricular activities.


(Author wonders.)

So far so good. Probably they are not interested.

(Ok, why not tell it straightforward?)

They want to express that the English you used isn't good enough.

(Author's thought: Yeah, it's not my native language, but well, it's English anyway.)

Google messed up.

(Author's thought: How they heck do they manage to index billions of pages and mess up with applications that come in thousands?)

You tell me.

Ah right, sorry, you only speak English, so you never found this using Google and you couldn't read all of the above anyway.

1 comments:

Dieter said...

Meanwhile the situation is a little bit clearer. Don't send them zipped archives or resumes that are more than a single document; this seems to mess with their automatic processing system.
Also, after repeating the exercise for good, I received the standard reply that they don't think I am a "match" for the position.
That's allright, go find others; fare well, Google.

Post a Comment