You Have a 0.2% Chance of Google Hiring You

Google gets around 3 million applications a year now, according to HR head Laszlo Bock, and hires 7000. That means only one in 428 applicants end up with a job, making it far more selective than institutions like Harvard, Yale, and Stanford. Those are pretty thin odds, but when Bock joined in 2006 from General Electric, Google’s hiring process was even more daunting—especially since the company’s future was by no means a sure thing.