According to a piece by Saul Hansell in the New York Times, Google is even holding its own in the Human Resources department.

While the Internet giant previously aimed to hire those "with straight-A report cards and double 800s on their SATs," the company is now in pursuit of well-rounded candidates. Receiving over 100,000 job applications per month, Google recently started presenting candidates with a list of questions online meant to foresee "how well a person will fit into its chaotic and competitive culture." For example, when applicants "first got excited about computers," whether they "have ever tutored," or "ever established a nonprofit organization." Ultimately this test is scored on a 100-point scale and is intended to measure "attitutes, behavior, personality and bibliographic details."

Says Laszlo Beck, Google Vice President for People Operations: "With traditional hiring methods, we were worried we will overlook some of the best candidates." Furthermore, Beck noted that: "As we get bigger, we find it harder and harder to find enough people." Presently,

Google has around 10,000 employees, anticipating that this number may double by the end of 2007, as the company's number of workers has done over the past few years.

Not everyone is a fan of these methods, however. According to Yahoo spokeswoman Jessie Wixon: "Yahoo does not use tests, puzzles or tricks, etc., when interviewing candidates." Michael Mumford, a psychology professor at University of Oklahoma, agreed somewhat, believing that "You have to know or at least have a hypothesis why having a dog makes a good computer programmer." Dr. Todd Carlisle was on a similar wave acknowledging: "It's like telling someone that you have the perfect data about who they should marry."

Time will tell whether this sticks with Google, and if other growth-minded Silicon Valley companies will follow a similar path. But it does show that Human Resources does not always have to be "by the books" when a company is in need of new and well-rounded talent.