I've interviewed with Google a couple of times for PM type roles over the last few years. I found the interviews pleasant enough, a few brain teasers hidden as algorithm questions and some very basic experiential questions...that sort of thing.
I had the distinct feeling that the outcome of the hiring process really had nothing to do with the interview so long as I answered competently enough.
One interview I nailed, got to the second round phone interview nailed it and then didn't get a call back...ever.
Out of curiosity I send some emails off, turns out the recruiter had quit or "was no longer with the company" or whatever and they had filled the position, please feel free to apply again.
Regardless, it didn't really matter, I had a good time, it was fun, I didn't get the job, but meh. I didn't have to go through the hassle of relocating either.
The few other SV type company interviews I've been on have been similar. Not terribly hard, a few brain teasers, lots of vocalized processing of my thinking process, but even with the ones I got an offer for, came away with the distinct impression that the interview particulars just didn't matter all that much. They were simply confirming some predisposed hiring assumptions and would probably go with whoever went to the best school or whatever arbitrary metric they were using.
They were looking for X, using a hiring process that looks for Y, and it all ended before a committee that hired for Z anyways.
I think this is the most important factoid that's come out of this all is this realization that Google finally had after crunching years worth of data (which was already common knowledge among the rest of the world):
"G.P.A.'s are worthless as a criteria for hiring, and test scores are worthless. ... We found that they don’t predict anything."
Well, they do predict that people who are given near term ranking and validation of their work will work their asses off to get that ranking and validation.
A little etymology: valedictorian, from valediction, from Latin valere
validate from Latin validus (see valid) from valere
So it's no wonder that valedictorian and validate have the same root. A high achiever is by definition somebody who's efforts have been validated against the measure of achievement (whatever that measure might be) and confirmed to be valere "well", "strong".
It's too bad that what a company needs is an employee that does their job, not one that needs to be constantly validated in their efforts.
And thus a hiring system, put together by validators, who designed the hiring system to validate and filter for people who focus on validation, forgot to look for people who get shit done and don't need to be thanked for it.
And as a result, Youtube becomes more and more unusable every single day.
I think being a valedictorian has a lot more to do with saying goodbye (vale) than it does being validated, but I do think you might be right about Google's bias toward those who seek validation.
Valedictorian used as a noun in 1832, adj in 1834. American English. From Valedictory adj. and -ian variant of -an, Middle English -ien from French loan words, -an "pertaining to" from Latin -anus.
Valedictory first used in the 1650s, from the Latin valedictum from valedicere and -ory from Latin -orius, -oria, -orium "to have a quality proper to the action accomplished by the agent".
valedicere from vale, imperative of valere "be well" and dicere "to say". See also "Valediction" from 1610s.
Validate v. from 1640s from Latin validatus, from validus, from valere "be well", "be strong" (connoted)
I stand corrected--I had understood the original comment as something that contradicted mneary's reply, and I knew the specific etymology of "to bid farewell" just didn't look at the full derivation.
No problem, I missed the edit window on my reply when I realized it might be a little bit terse sounding in tone. I meant it as being helpful.
I'll add that the Latin vale can be used to mean "farewell", which is usually how it's translated, but if you dig down the etymology rabbit hole, they come from two different language families and not surprisingly don't mean the same thing.
"farewell" is from somewhere between 1200 and the 14th century middle English, a composite of faren "fare" and wel "well". The phrase used to be "fare thee well" but was contracted later. All have Germanic roots.
"fare" is old-English fær means "to go forth on a journey" and still hangs around in some words like "sea-faring", "wayfarer" and "farewell" ("fare" eventually turned into the more modern meaning "payment for passage or conveyance", but that's a digression).
"well" in the sense of "farewell" these days connotes good health (as in "are you well?") but originates also in Germanic tongues to mean "satisfactory".
"thee" is also proto-Germanic in origin and I won't belabor it.
Swedish speakers may recognize this in the modern form as "farväl" and Dutch as "vaarwel"
A "valedictory" is usually translated as "a farewell address" and the act of the speech the valedictorian gives is called a "valediction" (a farewell). But this isn't strictly correct. "valedictory" means something more like "words for good health".
So it's more like we commonly translate "hope you feel well!" to "have a safe trip!" which isn't really quite right.
It's interesting then that:
a) "well" has come to adopt the Latin meaning "health" in the sense that "valere" means "well" i.e. "health" (similar to "valetudo" or "valetudinis"). "valere" more strictly translates to "health" (which all the other meanings connote e.g. "strength" "well" etc.). Also found in words like "convalescence" with the "strength" connotation ending up in words like "valiant" and "validity". When we "validate" something, we are proving it to be strong, which is a connotation of "healthy". So it really means "to prove to be healthy".
b) We define Latin words in terms of Germanic explanations, but not the other way around. e.g. if you look up "farewell" in the dictionary it's not defined as a "valediction". Which would come as no surprise to those that know that English is a Germanic language.
I had the distinct feeling that the outcome of the hiring process really had nothing to do with the interview so long as I answered competently enough.
One interview I nailed, got to the second round phone interview nailed it and then didn't get a call back...ever.
Out of curiosity I send some emails off, turns out the recruiter had quit or "was no longer with the company" or whatever and they had filled the position, please feel free to apply again.
Regardless, it didn't really matter, I had a good time, it was fun, I didn't get the job, but meh. I didn't have to go through the hassle of relocating either.
The few other SV type company interviews I've been on have been similar. Not terribly hard, a few brain teasers, lots of vocalized processing of my thinking process, but even with the ones I got an offer for, came away with the distinct impression that the interview particulars just didn't matter all that much. They were simply confirming some predisposed hiring assumptions and would probably go with whoever went to the best school or whatever arbitrary metric they were using.
They were looking for X, using a hiring process that looks for Y, and it all ended before a committee that hired for Z anyways.
I think this is the most important factoid that's come out of this all is this realization that Google finally had after crunching years worth of data (which was already common knowledge among the rest of the world):
"G.P.A.'s are worthless as a criteria for hiring, and test scores are worthless. ... We found that they don’t predict anything."
Well, they do predict that people who are given near term ranking and validation of their work will work their asses off to get that ranking and validation.
A little etymology: valedictorian, from valediction, from Latin valere
validate from Latin validus (see valid) from valere
So it's no wonder that valedictorian and validate have the same root. A high achiever is by definition somebody who's efforts have been validated against the measure of achievement (whatever that measure might be) and confirmed to be valere "well", "strong".
It's too bad that what a company needs is an employee that does their job, not one that needs to be constantly validated in their efforts.
And thus a hiring system, put together by validators, who designed the hiring system to validate and filter for people who focus on validation, forgot to look for people who get shit done and don't need to be thanked for it.
And as a result, Youtube becomes more and more unusable every single day.