Like everyone else, we did reference checks, but we also built an applicant tracking system that would check a candidate’s resume against the resumes of existing Googlers. If there was overlap—say you went to the same school in the same years as a Googler, or worked at Microsoft at the same time—the Googler would often get an automated email asking if they knew you and what they thought of you. The idea was that since references the candidate provides are almost always glowing, these “backdoor” references, we thought, would be more honest. And this approach would screen out people who “kiss up
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