HAVE you ever made a profit from walking a dog? Do you like working alone or in groups? Have you ever set a world record in anything?



Answer those the right way and you could land a job at Google.



In its desperate search for more engineers and sales representatives for its rapidly growing business, Google has created an automated way to look through the more than 100,000 job applications it receives each month.



Instead of simply looking for people with straight-As, it's starting to ask applicants to fill out an in-depth online survey that examines their attitude, behaviour and personality.



Questions concern everything from the age the applicant first got excited about computers to whether the person has ever tutored. They also seek out non-traditional information. This can include what magazines the applicant subscribes to or what pets that person has.



The answers are fed into a series of formulas created by Google's mathematicians that spit out a score ? from zero to 100. This is meant to predict how well a person will fit into the freewheeling, competitive company culture.



"Google has doubled its number of employees in each of the last three years. As we get bigger, we find it harder and harder to find enough people,' said Laszlo Bock, Google's vice-president for people operations. "Interviews are a terrible predictor of performance. With traditional hiring methods, we might overlook some of the best candidates," he said..



The online survey is based on the answers to 300 questions sent out last summer to every employee at the head office in California's Silicon Valley. Now about 15 per cent of applicants take the survey. It will be used for all applicants starting this month.



Whether this method will help Google find the right people is yet to be seen.



"We wanted to cast a very wide net," said Bock. "It is not unusual to walk the halls here at our office in Silicon Valley and bump into dogs. Maybe people who own dogs have some personality trait that is useful."
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