If you’re going to send a guy a survey to find out his impressions of your recruiting/interviewing methodology, you might not want to send it to somebody who has been waiting two months for you to pay his travel expense claim. Because he might just think that you’re a bunch of disorganized fuckwads. Just sayin’.
And a bit of further advice – you might want to make sure your expense spreadsheet actually prints out correctly using Google Docs and doesn’t require one to steal a copy of Microsoft Office in order to use it.
You mean that richer-than-god google had you pay for your own interview travel (and have to ask for reimbursement later) instead of doing it themselves?
Holy god, that’s amazingly declasse.
They paid for the plane ticket, but I had to pay for the hotel (and like everything else in Manhattan, it was fucking expensive) and the taxi rides and meals. They only allow $30/day for meals, and just *try* to get even one meal for under $30 in Manhattan. I think my claim is for about $950, but I suspect they’re only going to pay for one night in the hotel not two.
Oh, I *dream* that they’ll send a survey to me. I’ve got a few choice words to say about their lying turd of a recruiter. On the other hand, my expense claim did get paid pretty quickly (and they didn’t try and stiff me on anything) so they’ll probably get a slightly higher rating from me than from you.
“Disorganised fuckwads” describes pretty much any part of Google not directly related to technology, though. They need a good administrative reaming, stem-to-stern.
David: I did find it a bit odd that Google wasn’t able to lay a corporate card on the hotel and hire car to save me the hassle, but I suppose some people might take advantage of the corporate largesse and raid the minibar or spend 12 hours on the phone to Guatemala or something.
I remember years ago, when I interviewed at Tektronics, that the company paid for my airfare from Wisconsin to Oregon, paid for the hotel, paid for meals, and gave a friend of mine who already worked at Tek permission to take some work time to show me around the Portland area. The only thing I had to buy was a suit for the interview.
Tek didn’t hire me, but they didn’t leave me chasing their human resources department to get my money back.
(I think of all the trips I’ve taken for interviews the closest I’ve come to paying is that I had to buy the tickets, but the HR people wrote me a check before I left the building after the interview. And some of these companies were tiny. So you can imagine my jaw-dropping astonishment to read about richer-than-god google acting like Scrooge McDuck here.)
See my experiences getting Google to pay me: http://benjamingolub.com/2007/02/16/google-can-i-get-my-100-back/
I finally did get my money from them. Seems that the team responsible for it was reorganized and my report got lost in the shuffle. Just keep emailing them and you’ll eventually get it.
(Found this on http://planet.lugor.org, I just moved to Rochester a few months ago)
I have been waiting for six months for my reimbursement to get processed by Google Australia. The person who set up my interview is not responsive when I ask her about the status of my reimbursement. They owe me about $500. The amount is not that big but what annoys me is the lack of accountability from their end.
Again, this could be just one rotten apple and not the entire HR dept. Still, I wish I knew an alternative email to send my receipts to. Any suggestions?