Jeepers! I MADE THE FRONT PAGE OF THE WALLSTREET JOURNAL

From PAGE ONE of today's THE WALL STREET JOURNAL

Talent Search Google's Growth Helps Ignite Silicon Valley Hiring Frenzy

Here is a snippet...

To compete against its larger rivals, Google beefed up its recruiting effort, retaining veterans like Shally Steckerl, a contract recruiter who runs a consulting firm called JobMachine, and Eric Jaquith, a free-lance recruiter who runs Recruiting Choices. Both began working as in-house consultants for Google in September 2004, when the company had more than 80 full-time and contract recruiters in-house, says Mr. Jaquith.

Messrs. Steckerl and Jaquith say they were instructed to diversify Google's engineering pool by hiring more female engineers. They called their team "Zion," after the underground city of humans in "The Matrix" movies. Mr. Jaquith says he was assigned to track down all women from the top 50 universities world-wide who had graduated after 1980 with Ph.D.s or master's degrees in physics, math or computer science. By last December, the end of his stint at Google, he had made thousands of phone calls to female engineers, he says.

Jim Stroud, a contract recruiter involved in the effort between December 2004 and June, says he unearthed several hundred names of female engineers. He estimates that fewer than 10 of those were hired during his tenure. Google's job-interview process is "like a Senate committee hearing," says Mr. Stroud. "You have to get approved by 14 people at least before you get hired."

Mr. Steckerl says the Zion group hired more than 45 engineers during the last quarter of 2004, and increased the total to more than 100 in the first quarter of 2005. Google declines to comment on Messrs. Steckerl, Stroud and Jaquith or the percentage of engineers who are female. Google says it doesn't have 300 recruiters, but declined to elaborate.

'They Went After Us'

Other tech companies have made runs at Google employees. Mr. Steckerl says Microsoft approached him earlier this year. In April, he joined Microsoft as a full-time employee. Within weeks, he says, Microsoft had hired away three other Google contract recruiters from the Zion team, including Mr. Stroud. "They knew who they wanted and they went after us," says Mr. Steckerl.

Click here to read the rest of the story.