Archives for Perfect Job

Are you curious about what it’s like to work at Google, Yahoo or Microsoft? You’re not alone.

Even people who work or have worked at one of these cyberspace giants speculate and debate about the merits of one versus the others. And there are media mavens, including yours truly, who keep tabs not only of which company’s search engine is first tier, but also of which company is the hottest place to work.

The Wall Street Journal jumped into the fray Thursday with an article called “Start-Ups Make Inroads With Google’s Work Force.” The article talks about why some Google employees may walk now that their options are vesting and the company is becoming rather large. On the other hand, company officials say that attrition is holding steady at a low five percent rate and they expect to receive some two million résumés this year.

There are several anonymous blog posts, including one apparent leak of a Microsoft memo, that are getting lots of play in the blogosphere. Web Worker Daily posted a link to the notorious and anonymous “Just Say ‘No’ to Google” blog today.

One of my favorite takes on MiGoYa, however, is found in a post called My Work Stories by a University of Illinois Masters student who interned at Microsoft and claims to blog as a form of procrastination from research. He gives us his impressions of the Search Engine Giants, including the woefully underappreciated category of computer monitors! Google serves the most food and offers the best monitors, but it offers the least personal space for programmers.

Another gem from his blog post was his recollection of his first interview for a Microsoft internship:

I did one screening interview as a freshman on campus where I was rejected without mercy. Apparently the answer to “Can you tell me what was the most difficult bug you faced while programming and what you did to resolve it?” isn’t “My programs don’t have bugs.”

MiGoYa is worth paying attention to because they are willing to improve the way they treat employees to stay competitive and successfully lure the world’s top talent. These are not the kind of employers who stand on ceremony and say ‘We have always done it this way.’ Innovations MiGoYa employers make will spread quickly around the globe.