Days after former Google CEO Eric Schmidt criticised the company’s remote work and work life balance, now Nolan Church, a former Google recruiter, has shared useful advice for job seekers. Church, who has become the CEO of FairComp, urges people to avoid asking about work life balance during interviews. He argues that such questions could signal to recruiters that the candidate might be less committed to their work. Church advises that it’s better to focus on questions like “what is the company’s north star for the next 12 months?” and “what is the common trait of your top performers?” However, he recommends saving questions about personal benefits after receiving a job offer.
In an interview with CNBC Make It, Church claims that asking about work life balance “indicates to me that you don’t want to work hard. It’s a red flag. This needs to come after you’ve received an offer. I don’t think you’ve earned the right to ask.” Instead, one should be questioning the company’s goals and mission during the initial interview process.
According to Nolan Church, such a question may shift the focus to your personal needs rather than showing your interest in making a contribution in the company’s growth and in the team. He also feels that the question is too general, which can lead to unclear answers from the interviewer and won’t help understand the company better. The ex-Google recruiter suggests that more specific questions, like asking about the key qualities of the company’s top performers, could be a game changer.
In a 2021 interaction with the Wall Street Journal, Google CEO Sundar Pichai had discussed how to achieve a good work life balance between office and home. He suggested that three days at the office and two days working from home each week is the perfect setting. Pichai mentioned that in cities like New York and San Francisco, long commutes are a major issue. He believed that employees working in the office for three days a week is crucial for teamwork.
Meanwhile, Eric Schmidt, who stepped down from his role at Google in 2020, recently criticised the company’s remote work policy. Speaking at Stanford University, he argued that employees are not spending enough time in the office, which he believes is delaying them to advance in the AI field.
Schmidt said, “Google decided that work life balance and going home early and working from home was more important than winning. And the reason startups work is because the people work like hell. I’m sorry to be so blunt. But the fact of the matter is, if you all leave the university and go find a company, you’re not gonna let people work from home and only come in one day a week if you want to compete against the other startups.”
The discussion about working from home and maintaining work life balance began when remote work became a norm during the peak of the COVID-19 pandemic.
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