DC Native Considering Job in Silicon Valley while Living in SF (San Jose: 2013, rental)

[skyao]

yes that the bait. He has been on 1-2 six month contracts and is hoping for a full time job, but that looks doubtful. He is actually a lawyer, essentially working as a paralegal because he couldnt find a stable law firm job out of law school. So i understand why google does this and I understand why he is sticking around.

I know the google hiring process is notoriously long, but it isnt this long. Also, i know the process can be different for non core employees like admin, finance, and legal. They dont run you through the same rigorous process if you work in cost accounting as opposed to development.

Originally Posted by silverkris

I know of some recruiters at Google who work on contracts, so it's not unheard of. Given that Google's process of hiring regular full-time employees is pretty time consuming, I can understand why for some short term tasks/jobs they would want contract hires.

[silverkris]

Originally Posted by skyao

yes that the bait. He has been on 1-2 six month contracts and is hoping for a full time job, but that looks doubtful. He is actually a lawyer, essentially working as a paralegal because he couldnt find a stable law firm job out of law school. So i understand why google does this and I understand why he is sticking around.

I know the google hiring process is notoriously long, but it isnt this long. Also, i know the process can be different for non core employees like admin, finance, and legal. They dont run you through the same rigorous process if you work in cost accounting as opposed to development.

Yes, you have a good point. I think Google puts their candidates in the core areas through a lot of rounds because they feel they have a very unique culture and take a lot of pains to find people who "fit". For functions such as finance, legal, and administration, it's not such a priority.

[silverkris]

Originally Posted by mayorhaggar

Being close to downtown is cool if you work downtown, but he supposedly works way the heck down in MV.

Most of SOMA just doesn't have much going for it at all when compared to classic SF neighborhoods where you can walk out the door and have a ton of bars and restaurants and shops within a few blocks. There's some stuff in SOMA but it's sparse and scattered around. All the streets are wide one-way feeders on or off of the highways, so there's a ton of very fast and noisy traffic. And it's desolate, so it just kinda feels rough around the edges, especially at night. "Mayorhaggar! It's not desolate! I drove through there and saw a cafe there! You're full of crap!" Yeah actually it is desolate. It used to be nothing but warehouses, and a lot of blocks are still just a bunch of warehouses with a cafe here and there and maybe an apartment building or two. A lot of the warehouses are just abandoned, and others are some kind of wholesale shop. A few have been converted to clubs but not many and they are scattered around rather than bunched together.

Maybe there's more crime on paper in the area around Dolores Park, but at least there's a lot of people around there so it doesn't feel nearly as shady. The eastern part of SOMA would be cool if you were a rich yuppie who can afford a condo there and wants to live in a sterile plasticky condo district, but we're talking about a guy making 50k. Yeah there's a few big box stores, but if living next to Costco and Trader Joe's is that important to you, might as well live in the burbs. Yeah there's Caltrain but living anywhere near the stations will cost an arm and a leg. Overall it's just a weird neighborhood and doesn't feel like the rest of the city, it's just a place you live so you can be close to downtown or Caltrain, or because you're rich and want a condo, or because you're just driving through on your way to somewhere else. It's not a destination is what I'm saying.

Honestly if you're going to live in SOMA and commute to Mountain View everyday, you might as well just live in Mountain View and save yourself the commute. If you're going to bother with such a long commute and really want to be in SF, live in a real SF neighborhood, like the Western Mission, Hayes Valley, whatever. A couple other decent nabes in south-central-eastern SF are Glen Park and Bernal Heights, they'd probably be convenient for getting to Google Buses as well.

Great point. I'm always an advocate of trying to live as close to your workplace as possible. Why not live in MV to start? You'll be able to do more networking in and around the Googleplex which can help with future opportunities. Will save time...and let's face it, with the current starting salary you're not really going to be able to afford to partake in the nightlife that SF has to offer. One can always choose to move to SF later.

And yes, MV has a Trader Joe's and Costco.

[Ruth4Truth]

Originally Posted by skyao

yes that the bait. He has been on 1-2 six month contracts and is hoping for a full time job, but that looks doubtful. He is actually a lawyer, essentially working as a paralegal because he couldnt find a stable law firm job out of law school. So i understand why google does this and I understand why he is sticking around.

OMG, he's a lawyer? OP, use the Google gig to get yourself out to SF, but once you're there, for heaven's sake, apply to the law firms in town for a lawyer job! The longer you remain in paralegal purgatory, the worse the effect it'll have on your career prospects. I can see now why you're determined to get out here. Good luck. Report back to us on how it all settles down.

He had a reason for wanting to be in SF, silverkris. He likes the big city life, and besides, being a lawyer, he'll have tons of job prospects in SF, more than anywhere else. If he's going to be interviewing for lawyer jobs on the side, he'll need to be located where the most opp'ties are.

[ssmaster]

Originally Posted by Ruth4Truth

OMG, he's a lawyer? OP, use the Google gig to get yourself out to SF, but once you're there, for heaven's sake, apply to the law firms in town for a lawyer job! The longer you remain in paralegal purgatory, the worse the effect it'll have on your career prospects. I can see now why you're determined to get out here. Good luck. Report back to us on how it all settles down.

He had a reason for wanting to be in SF, silverkris. He likes the big city life, and besides, being a lawyer, he'll have tons of job prospects in SF, more than anywhere else. If he's going to be interviewing for lawyer jobs on the side, he'll need to be located where the most opp'ties are.

my understanding was that job prospects for lawyers were very weak. it is so bad law schools are being sued for graduating so many lawyers who cannot find jobs.
Law schools face lawsuits over job-placement claims - U.S. News
"Besides Brooklyn Law, the schools named in the latest round of lawsuits are Albany Law School, Albany, N.Y.; Hofstra Law School, Hempstead, N.Y.; California Western, San Diego, Calif., Golden Gate University, San Francisco; Southwestern Law School, Los Angeles, Calif.; University of San Francisco School of Law, San Francisco; IIT Chicago-Kent College of Law, Chicago; DePaul University College of Law, Chicago; The John Marshall Law School, Chicago; Florida Coastal School of Law, Jacksonville, Fla.; and Widener University School of Law, in Wilmington, Del.Last year, similar lawsuits were filed against New York Law School, Thomas M. Cooley Law School and Thomas Jefferson School of Law

Last year, Sen. Barbara Boxer, D-Calif., and Sen. Tom Coburn, R-Okla. , asked the Department of Education to investigate the “job placement rates of American law school graduates; indicating whether such jobs are full- or part-time positions, whether they require a law degree, and whether they were maintained a year after employment."

[Ruth4Truth]

^^^ I had no idea it was so serious. Thanks for posting that, ssmaster.

[Mack Knife]

Originally Posted by Ruth4Truth

Sounds painful. But SF has lots of full-time w/benefits jobs for paralegals. All those law firms there. But the paralegals I met there couldn't afford to live on their own (in the city), they lived in communal households.

Wow. So Google cheapskates people. Good to know.

Based on this thread you've decided Google cheapskates people. Lets pass it on.

Unbelievable.

[Ruth4Truth]

Originally Posted by Mack Knife

Based on this thread you've decided Google cheapskates people. Lets pass it on.

Unbelievable.

Why are you blaming me? Fixate on the person who posted that Google does temp hires so they don't have to pay benefits.

[silverkris]

Originally Posted by Ruth4Truth

OMG, he's a lawyer? OP, use the Google gig to get yourself out to SF, but once you're there, for heaven's sake, apply to the law firms in town for a lawyer job! The longer you remain in paralegal purgatory, the worse the effect it'll have on your career prospects. I can see now why you're determined to get out here. Good luck. Report back to us on how it all settles down.

He had a reason for wanting to be in SF, silverkris. He likes the big city life, and besides, being a lawyer, he'll have tons of job prospects in SF, more than anywhere else. If he's going to be interviewing for lawyer jobs on the side, he'll need to be located where the most opp'ties are.

True. For the OP, maybe not so much, at least initially.

[rich blackman]

It's amusing how derailed this thread gets. For the sake of remaining on topic, what's a livable salary in SF? Apparently a few people in the program tend to rent houses together, I might follow up when I hear back from the other recruits.

And in terms of entertainment how expensive or cheap are Giants tickets? (I'm not a baseball fan but have always had fun at Nats games).

And the main reason why I was interested in SF is because I'm used to the city life, I spent the weekend during my interview in San Jose and was miserable.

And like I said earlier I see this mostly as a stepping stone, most people who go through the program stay with Google, many others end up joining start ups or other SV companies like Facebook.