Google's Barbie Doll recruitment approach.

I read an article today by Matt Asay, which makes me wonder if Google are turning to blatant sexual stereotyping to aid their recruiting? Surely not I hear you cry, Google exploiting certain market sectors to get what they want?
Matt mentions that one of his friends was in San Jose for a corporate event. While waiting at the Marriott, he ran into a "swarm of beautiful young girls" that were "uniform in their good looks" and "Vogue like" beauties, coming out of the nearby Fairmont Hotel.

Bet you can't guess who they worked for? Google of course! And even better when asked what they did at Google the response was, "We're recruiters! Do you know Python?" So no shallowness there then!! I wonder what the response would have been if he replied yes? Would they have sat him down and given him one of the impossible (and I mean impossible) Google tests (for engineers of course!)?

Using the "attractive young female" recruitment ploy in a male orientated market is nothing new, but with their position and status in the industry, do they really need to lower their standards and 'low-ball' their competition by using real life Barbie dolls to help them recruit staff? Maybe they should try the using the Stepford Wives next?

Comment by Lynn Kindler on March 14, 2008 at 2:59pm: This doesn't surprise me Andy. Thanks for blogging about it. There's nothing as obvious as seeing a pretty young thang used as a shiny object to attract the birds. With that said, for more of the higher level serious technical jobs -- most guys -- tend to look beyond the veneer and want to hear about the nuts and bolts of a position/job/company from someone who really understands. Luckily, the lure of the tools used is often times a bit more powerful than the recruiter telling them about it.

Comment by Steve Sill on March 14, 2008 at 7:16pm: One thing that you need to understand it that last year Google was hiring lots of recent college grads, and trained them on sourcing and released them on the world. Many were women and many were men. My guess is he was luck enough run into the women. Having worked with many of them I can assure you that most of them are very smart, very energetic and since they are so young will tilt towards vogue model side. Many of these people have found and recruited the kind of talent that Google is known to favor. No Google does not only hire barbie dolls as contract recruiters... just take a look at my ugly mug. What ever you do... do not judge a book by its cover... you may end up working for them some day.