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Blogoscoped's Phillip Lenssen reports that Google's hiring policies — and Shona Brown, Google's senior vice president for business operations — get a breathless thumbs-up in The No Asshole Rule: Building a Civilized Workplace and Surviving One That Isn't by Robert I. Sutton, PhD. Here's how Brown and Google (allegedly) keep the asshole count so low at Google. (Ironic, since Brown is among the most despised executives at Google, a fact Sutton doesn't mention.)

  1. Interviews: First, candidates are scored on technical ability AND cultural fit. Second, interviews are done by a wide range of people who have little-to-no incentive to hire a person just because they can do the job. That is, there is very little downside for the interviewer to low-score a candidate for either inadequate technical ability or poor "cultural fit", since the interviewer is rarely interviewing someone to fill a position on his/her own team.
  2. Reviews: Your performance review includes visible feedback and may include invisible feedback from your peers. So, if the people you work with don't like working with you, you could find it difficult to get a good review and/or be promoted.