Around Yandex in 59 days

Not so long ago I had a burning need to find a job in Moscow. One of the options under consideration was Yandex. I have always been sympathetic to this company, considering them to be something like the Russian Google (although Yandex Yandex always start to get nervous about such a comparison).

Accordingly, I sent them my resume and even received an invitation for the first interview. About what and how happened next, I want to tell.
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The story will be interesting to people who consider Yandex as a potential place of work, well, or to whom it’s just interesting “how is it with them”. Also, the article should be of interest to the staff recruitment service of Yandex itself.

I was prompted to write an article by the fact that when searching on Google (nothing personal, I'm always looking there) for information on the topic “employment in Yandex” , there is only one article from 2007 (there is exactly the same thing when searching in Yandex). In addition, this article is about a vacancy of the “Something's a Programmer” type. Information about applying for a job on the position "Manager of something interesting" is not at all.

On the other hand, there are many representatives of Yandex at Habré, and I hope that the comments on the recruitment process in their company will not go unnoticed.

I came across the Yandex job on HeadHunter and immediately caught fire to try my hand. Although the topic of the vacancy was new to me (“Search Projects Manager”), I had no doubt that it would be interesting to work in this area. So, I sent a resume. What next?

Day 0

I received a letter from HeadHunter, saying that my resume seemed to Yandex “very interesting” and that they would like to invite me to an interview. It was also suggested to call the telephone number indicated in the letter. It was about 19 o'clock. I immediately called, which caused a considerable surprise to the HR manager (although it seemed to me that it was just so promptly that people who are actively looking for work respond). During the conversation, it turned out that I had to go to the Yandex website in the vacancy section and fill in some questionnaire for the indicated vacancy.

At this point I caught a small cognitive dissonance: in a letter I was called for an interview, and in a telephone conversation I was sent to fill out questionnaires on the site. However, this is a trifle, and I went to fill out the questionnaire .

Upon completion, the system informed me that the company's response time to this questionnaire is “two weeks”. While filling out the form, I found a vacancy on the site, much closer to me in spirit and professional skills ("Manager of interaction with social networks"). I filled out the questionnaire for her too, to the heap.

Day 4

At the previous stage, I was honestly warned that the waiting time could be up to two weeks. Therefore, without any complaints, only with the desire to clarify this period, I called my HR-manager. Suddenly it turned out that they had already looked, they liked it, and they want to call for an interview. “So call me!” I told them. "Yes, yes, now just time to send a letter no." I was sincerely grateful to them for their promptness and went to wait when they had time to write.

Day 5

Here it is, the long-awaited letter of invitation. It's a pity that the interviews wait for almost a week.

Day 11

The first visit to Yandex. Everything is cute, everything is beautiful, everything is like in the photo reviews of their offices. A lovely girl from the reception took me to the fourth floor and put me in one of the meeting rooms with the name “some kind of allegory-with-digit-four”.

Two quite young guys came up and one very bearded one. Since I sent my resume to two vacancies at once, the interview came from two directions at once. Two young guys were from the "search" direction, bearded - from the "social". They politely introduced themselves and suggested switching to “you” (I mention this for a reader who has read the 2007 article).

The first questions were about previous work experience, achievements, reasons for leaving, the reasons for joining Yandex and similar typical questions. We briefly discussed what was expected of a manager in the company: analytics, monitoring of a subordinate area, development of new ideas, coordination of ideas and control over their implementation. In general, nothing unexpected. As I was told, “the manager in Yandex is the person who needs the most.”

Then there was a certain general problem about the system, consisting of a large number of interconnected modules, and the need to optimize this system for the time of work. Here we spent some time refining the problem, because I did not understand what resources and tools I had, and what opportunities in general to change this system. After that, I proposed options such as scaling, allocating more powerful iron for the system, introducing two phases (the first fast pass of the system gives an approximate result at the output, the second is long to clarify the result), parallelization of the system, issuing rods to developers, issuing rods to managers and so on . The comrades made it clear that they were waiting for another decision, and I gave the option of finding and optimizing the most time-consuming chain of related modules. Here we also spent some time agreeing on a decision, since they expected a term like “critical chain” from me. I did not give up the term to them, but they seemed to accept my decision.

After that, the bearded guy said that he would soon run away and offered to talk a little on social issues. We briefly went over my answers to the questionnaire from the Yandex website and spent a rather long time discussing the nuances of the work of the Facebook ribbon. In general, it was an exchange of opinions, and not the solution of any problems. After that, the “bearded man” said that he would send a task to the post office (such as the next stage) and left.

After that there was a task to change the design of Yandex search results. Then the remaining two guys wanted to hear what criteria I can offer to evaluate these changes. How can you understand what people like more: the new issue or the old one. How to evaluate the ergonomics of the new solution and stuff like that.

After that, there was a task related to the fact that I want to make some changes that run counter to the opinion of the old experienced developer Yandex. Here I had to offer options for getting out of this conflict situation. In the course went everything: persuasion, bribery, blackmail, analytics, comparative analysis (in particular with Google). In the sum of the decisions I mentioned about 9. The comrades agreed with them.

The logical development of the previous task was the task of making the changes that I pushed through in the previous step. Here I had to build interaction with the managers of other projects, and somehow get into the task queue for the development department. Here the methods were similar to the methods of the previous stage, but meant a greater emphasis on communication skills, and less on physical influences.

As a result, the interview lasted about 1.5 hours. We parted quite friendly. The guys promised to think and send the task to the next stage. I got the impression that in the “search” direction I moved to the next level. Just in case, I specified how many guys plan to think. "Three days".

Day 15

Less than three days, four days passed. I decided to clarify how things are going. As it turned out, my impression was wrong. “With the search direction, you and I will not succeed,” HR-manager told me, hesitating. “And on the social they promised me a task, but have not yet sent it. Just about the other day. ” I agreed to wait.

Day 17

The task has come. What can I say? Friends, this task, or rather one paragraph of poorly formatted text, I can make up in 6 minutes. But not in six days. Especially since this task was fairly easy to follow from the tasks of the questionnaire and the questions that we discussed at the interview. The task was associated with the difficulties and prospects of creating a social aggregator. I decided to approach her decision seriously and with all care.

Day 19

I spent two days on the task. During which I had more interviews and a personal life. The result was a three-page document. I sent this document to the HR-manager with a letter in which I also asked for clarification of the time frame in which my decision would be considered.

Since I did not receive a written reply from them, I called and clarified whether the letter reached and what the deadlines were. The letter reached the deadline promised less than a week.

Day 26

Having decided that a week is 7 days, I called the HR manager. She recognized me by her voice already. She apologized and said that the person responsible for the “social” direction had not yet looked. But she remembers and reminds him. He said that we need another couple of days.

Day 29

I called again and asked about the state of the question. The question was in the same condition. And I was already in a state of indifference to Yandex.

Day 33

I received a letter in which I was asked to come for a second interview. As I understand it - this is the last stage. The only thing that upset was that it was necessary to wait for him for 13 days.

I must say that at this moment I already found a job that I liked more than all the parameters of the Yandex job (yes, including the speed and thoroughness of the work of the recruitment service). However, the real Jedi have to go all the way, and I decided to go for a second interview.

Day 46

I almost forgot about the interview (no joke - two weeks!), I went to Yandex. “Everything is cute, everything is beautiful, everything is like in the photo reviews of their offices. Pretty girl from the reception ... ”, well, you understand - I ended up in the next meeting room.

Two young guys came. No, not the first time. And the bearded among them was not. The guys introduced themselves, but did not say who they were and what they were doing, so I was at a loss in guesswork. Of the interesting features it can be noted that one turned on “you” and the other on “you”, causing the pattern to break. For most of the meeting, I made sure to address each of them appropriately.

We talked about my document - the solution of the previous problem. I must admit that technically I made a few mistakes there, not finding the right opportunities in the description of the social networking API. But they do exist. However, the guys are not at all focused on this. They were more interested in the terms that I indicated in the document on the implementation of a particular function, the demand for such a service, and so on.

The issue of compiling preferences for a spherical Yandex-mail user in a vacuum was discussed separately. We discussed various ways of obtaining the zones of interests of this user, the possibility of supplying interesting content to him, and the like.

In general, I felt freer than at the first interview (I already had an interesting job, and the desire to get into Yandex was already gone). Several times drew parallels between Yandex and Google. It seemed to me, but the guys did not like this comparison.

This time I was promised to inform my decision within a week.

Day 56

10 days have passed. Remembering that no answer was sent to me, I sent a letter with a question. No reaction followed.

Day 59

On this day I was going to call Yandex. I really do not like to leave hanging business. However, the letter itself came. The letter was a standard text, which is written in cases of refusal. No details - well, it's like at all. As I understand it, if I approached them, then this letter would be an invitation to design.

Results

The whole process took 59 days. It consisted of two "homework": the first questionnaire of 3-7 questions and an intermediate task between the interview. Two interviews. That is characteristic, no problems for logic , fantasy, non-standard solution, which are so scary when passing the interview for programmers. The assessment of the applicant is on personal qualities and on the skills of system thinking.

And what?

Never mind. Maybe I'm an idealist, but I expected another from the largest, most famous, most popular, IPO-hers and others-hers-Russia companies. So what I did not like? Here's what:

1. Uncertainty of timing. Man is looking for a job. This is the case when his time he values ​​most. Tell him when the result will be. You see that you do not have time - call / write about it with the indication of new terms.
2. Procrastination. 59 days - what is it? Do you really need a specialist? Are your employees so busy? I do not believe. The intermediate task example is indicative. You can think of it by taking the elevator to your fourth floor.
3. Lack of feedback. This is, of course, a wish. Nobody gives us detailed feedback in case of failure. But you are not like everyone else? You can and do.
4. Unprepared staff. Of those with whom I spoke, only two people were able to communicate effectively with strangers. This also applies to speech literacy and some non-verbal signals. It didn't bother me, but the guys were obviously tormented.
5. The opacity of the procedure. I speak both about the general sequence of actions (one interview, another, a test), and about each interview in particular. Not visible structure and forethought. And if they are, then the applicants are not heard.

In my opinion, the task of the HR-service is continuous contact with a potential employee. It is their task, to provide the applicant with information, to create the impression that they are engaged. I believe that this work is poorly performed by the Yandex HR service.

Yandex is a bright and strong company. So be like that from all sides.

At last

In the first interview, the discussion raised the question of salary. One of the guys told me the amount is 20% lower than what I indicated in the resume and asked: “But for so much you do not agree to work for Yandex ?”, Exactly, with an emphasis on the last word. I would not be ready. And you?