Our Googley advice to students: Major in learning

Google招人最看重什么

from Official Google Blog by Karen

Management guru Peter Drucker noted that companies attracting the best knowledge workers will "secure the single biggest factor for competitive advantage." We and other forward-looking companies put a lot of effort into hiring such people. What are we looking for?
管理学专家Peter Drucke曾经说能吸引最优秀的知识员工的公司会巩固在竞争中保持优势的一个最重要的因素。和别的具有远见的公司一样我们也花了很大的力气雇佣这种人才。我们最看重那一点呢？
At the highest level, we are looking for non-routine problem-solving skills. We expect applicants to be able to solve routine problems as a matter of course. After all, that's what most education is concerned with. But the non-routine problems offer the opportunity to create competitive advantage, and solving those problems requires creative thought and tenacity.
从大的方面来讲我们比较看重非常规解决问题的技巧。作为基本要求我们肯定是希望申请人能解决一般问题，毕竟这是大部分教育所关心的。但是非常规的问题更能提供体现竞争优势的机会，解决这些问题需要创新思维和不屈不挠的精神。
Here's a real-life example, a challenge a team of our engineers once faced: designing a spell-checker for the Google search engine. The routine solution would be to run queries through a dictionary. The non-routine, creative solution is to use the query corrections and refinements that other users have made in the past to offer spelling suggestions for new queries. This approach enables us to correct all the words that aren't in the dictionary, helping many more users in the process.
这是一个现实中的例子，我们的工程师小组曾经面对过一个挑战：为Google的搜索引擎设计一个拼写检查工具。常规的解决办法是通过字典来检索搜索关键词。而非常规的创新的解决办法是利用别的用户之前对搜索关键词进行的修正和完善对新的搜索关键词提出拼写建议。采用这一方法我们可以改正所有词典中没有的单词，帮助了更多的用户。
How do we find these non-routine savants? There are many factors, of course, but we primarily look for ...
我们是怎么找到这些不走寻常路的高手的呢？有很多方面的因素，但是我们首先注重的是...
... analytical reasoning. Google is a data-driven, analytic company. When an issue arises or a decision needs to be made, we start with data. That means we can talk about what we know, instead of what we think we know.
...分析性推理 Google是一个基于数据分析的公司。提出一个问题或者需要做出一个决定我们首先看的是数据。也就是说我们只谈自己了解的，而不是我们认为我们了解的。
... communication skills. Marshalling and understanding the available evidence isn't useful unless you can effectively communicate your conclusions.
...沟通能力 整理和理解现有的证据没有任何用处，除非你能有效的把你的结论传达给别人。
... a willingness to experiment. Non-routine problems call for non-routine solutions and there is no formula for success. A well-designed experiment calls for a range of treatments, explicit control groups, and careful post-treatment analysis. Sometimes an experiment kills off a pet theory, so you need a willingness to accept the evidence even if you don't like it.
...乐于做试验 非常规问题需要非常规的解决办法，成功是没有程式的。一个设计完美的试验需要一系列的处理，明晰的控制分配和处理后仔细的分析。有时候试验会扼杀尚未成型的理论，因此你要坦然接受得到的证据，即使不是你希望看到的。
... team players. Virtually every project at Google is run by a small team. People need to work well together and perform up to the team's expectations.
...团队行动 Google几乎任何一个项目都是由一个小的团队负责。每个人都需要相互合作，努力达到团队的预期的结果。
... passion and leadership. This could be professional or in other life experiences: learning languages or saving forests, for example. The main thing, to paraphrase Mr. Drucker, is to be motivated by a sense of importance about what you do.
...激情和领导能力 这个可以是在专业上也也可以是在生活的其他的方面：比如学习语言或者是拯救森林。最主要的，用Mr. Drucker的话来讲，就是你认为你所做的事情非常重要，并因此受到鼓舞。
These characteristics are not just important in our business, but in every business, as well as in government, philanthropy, and academia. The challenge for the up-and-coming generation is how to acquire them. It's easy to educate for the routine, and hard to educate for the novel. Keep in mind that many required skills will change: developers today code in something called Python, but when I was in school C was all the rage. The need for reasoning, though, remains constant, so we believe in taking the most challenging courses in core disciplines: math, sciences, humanities.
这些特征不仅仅对我们的行业非常的重要，对任何行业都是如此，政府部门，慈善事业还有学术界。后来人面临的挑战是如何才能获取这些能力。教育通用人才非常容易，而教育创新人才就困难的多。要记住一点很多学到的技巧可能会改变：现在的开发者在用一种成为Python的语言写代码，但是我还在学校的时候C语言才是最火的。然而对推理的需要却出来都没有变过，因此我们深信学习最具挑战性的核心学科比如数学，科学和人文学科是必须的。
And then keep on challenging yourself, because learning doesn't end with graduation. In fact, in the real world, while the answers to the odd-numbered problems are not in the back of the textbook, the tests are all open book, and your success is inexorably determined by the lessons you glean from the free market. Learning, it turns out, is a lifelong major.
然后要继续挑战自我，因为学习不是到毕业就终止了。事实上，在现实社会中棘手问题的答案从来不会出现在教科书的后面，所有的考验都是敞开的书本，你的成功将会取决于你在自由市场上悟到的教训。学习实际上就是人一生的专业。
Posted by Jonathan Rosenberg, Senior VP, Product Management