According to Max Rosett, writing for The Hustle, he was Googling programming terms—”python lambda function list comprehension” if you’re curious—when suddenly the results page folded back to show a question.
Deciding that it wasn’t some sort of virus and ignoring that the question (and possible answers) seemed like something out of The Matrix or Saw, Rosett decided to go for it and clicked, “I want to play.”
He ended up on a page called “foo.bar.” where he started solving programming challenges. After the sixth one, Rosett had the option to submit his contact information. Long story short, Rosett ended up spending a day at the Google headquarters for a more formal interview which led to a job offer.
If you access foo.bar for the first time, you’ll encounter a log-in page. Your Google account won’t work if you try to access it—the page will just tell you, “To log in, you have to have logged in before,” which means that you need to have gotten there via Googling something.
“Foo.bar is a brilliant recruiting tactic. Google used it to identify me before I had even applied anywhere else, and they made me feel important while doing so,” Rosett said. “At the same time, they respected my privacy and didn’t reach out to me without explicitly requesting my information.” — Bea Montenegro/TJD, GMA News
source: gmanetwork.com
