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I received this curious e-mail (just noticed it, I haven't logged in a while), and wrote it off as spam. But after googling it, it seems people have received similar unsolicited e-mails from google (search Hello from Google for more examples.) While I realize this is probably off-topic, I was curious if anyone has received a similar e-mail, especially since this one mentions my StackOverflow account.

enter image description here

The person finally replied:

Hi Remy,

No problem, thanks for getting back to me and I'm glad to have amused you :)

Apologies for the error in contacting you, as I mentioned I found your details on StackOverflow and saw that were a top user of C++ so thought it would be worth dropping you an email to find out a bit more about your experience.

If you are interested in hearing about opportunities at Google (perhaps in other areas!) then feel free to send me your resume and I can forward to the relevant colleague.

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  • 20
    This is a purely pragmatic comment and not meant to insult you in any way, but 500 rep is not a lot on Stack Overflow, and anyone who thinks it is is probably pulling your leg.
    – user102937
    Jan 2, 2014 at 23:16
  • The person really works at Google (though it could be a fake person).
    – hichris123
    Jan 2, 2014 at 23:17
  • 2
    I can check if the person is real or not... gimme a sec. (edit: The person is real. She's a Google employee.)
    – Mysticial
    Jan 2, 2014 at 23:17
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    @TheGrinch well, he does appear in the top users list for c++.
    – Shadow Wizard Is Sad And Angry
    Jan 2, 2014 at 23:27
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    @TheGrinch Bounties... But that doesn't make your point any less valid.
    – Mysticial
    Jan 2, 2014 at 23:28
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    @ShadowWizard: So do I, and I've never written a C++ program. :O
    – user102937
    Jan 2, 2014 at 23:31
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    @ShadowWizard Well, I appear in the top users for human-sacrifice. Where's my recruitment e-mail?
    – yannis
    Jan 2, 2014 at 23:38
  • 2
    @Yannis the Church of Satan will be with you shortly.
    – Pekka
    Jan 2, 2014 at 23:43
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    @Pëkka Oh, they already contacted me, right after I got a diamond on Politics.
    – yannis
    Jan 2, 2014 at 23:44
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    @Pëkka publicly available how? I don't see "Please send me job offers [here]" in the about me section. This is spam.
    – Shadow Wizard Is Sad And Angry
    Jan 2, 2014 at 23:51
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    @Sha show me one successful lawsuit anywhere against someone who contacted someone else over a possible job. Spam is, by definition, mass email which this incident was not.
    – Pekka
    Jan 2, 2014 at 23:57
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    @remyabel FWIW, That email you got is pretty typical not just for Google, but for a lot of companies. I got my current job at Google through an almost identical process. Somebody at Google sent me a similar email. I followed through on it and got the job. You seem to have received one of such emails. It's up to you to decide what you want do with it.
    – Mysticial
    Jan 3, 2014 at 0:02
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    @Pëkka /cc see comment to Martin
    – Shadow Wizard Is Sad And Angry
    Jan 3, 2014 at 0:17
  • 2
    @remy re being Google material - I remember Jon Skeet saying once that pretty much everyone there thinks they were the one lucky person who got in somehow despite not really being good enough. If they contact you, why not give it a shot, at worst you'll get an interesting interview experience out of it that you can one day share with your grandchildren
    – Pekka
    Jan 3, 2014 at 0:30
  • 5
    wait, are you using gmail and wondering how google knows your email address?
    – m0sa StaffMod
    Jan 3, 2014 at 8:40

2 Answers 2

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37

Pulling my comment into an answer...

That type of email you got is a pretty typical recruitment email. Not just for Google, but for a lot of other companies.

I got my job at Google through a similar process. Somebody liked one of my Stack Overflow answers and looked up my profile. After digging through a few links, he eventually found my email address and sent me a very similar recruitment email.

I decided to follow through on the email. And after a weeks, they flew me into California for an interview. In the end, I got the job.

As a Google employee, I can confirm that in your case, both the sender email and the person are legit.

So it's up to you to decide what you want to do.

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  • 1
    I think Jon Skeet is the only Google employee who's on StackOverflow all day. I certainly am not. Check my activity tab and you'll notice it's pretty slow. I do however keep a few tabs open as well as an auto-refresher on the homepage of SO. But I only occasionally glance over at it.
    – Mysticial
    Jan 3, 2014 at 0:28
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    Oh hey, I got a hat from this answer. Yay hats!!!!!
    – Mysticial
    Jan 3, 2014 at 0:30
  • @Mysticial and now you have another Nice Answer meta badge :-)
    – psubsee2003
    Jan 3, 2014 at 0:41
  • +1 for authenticating this - personally I would have written it off as yet another good-looking-but-ultimately-a-scam type email.
    – slugster
    Jan 3, 2014 at 0:46
  • @slugster It's usually good enough just to look at the sender email. There's no point in spoofing a sender email unless there's something that the email wants you to do (click on some link). Well written recruitment emails are personalized for the person that it is being sent to. So it's unlikely that a spammer will put that much effort into each target. (especially for people like us who are computer savvy and are less likely to fall for phishing scams)
    – Mysticial
    Jan 3, 2014 at 0:57
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    You know we've really moved the baseline for participation when someone like Mysticial refers to his as "occasional" and "pretty slow".
    – Shog9
    Jan 3, 2014 at 5:14
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I received a similar email message today. While trying to decide if I should take it seriously, I learned about DomainKeys Identified Mail (DKIM) and thought I'd add a note here for future readers.

DKIM uses digital signatures and public keys stored in DNS to allow recipients to verify that email did come from the claimed source. In the case of Gmail, it verifies the signature when it's present and presents related info when you click the down-arrow icon next to "to me". Here's the info Gmail showed me for my "Hello From Google!" message -- note the "signed-by" line.

Gmail "to me" info

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  • OK, so? It's already been agreed those emails are indeed from Google
    – Shadow Wizard Is Sad And Angry
    Mar 13, 2016 at 9:19
  • Some (not all) of those messages are from Google.
    – Bezewy
    Mar 13, 2016 at 18:07
  • I can't really see why anyone will impersonate Google? You have any proof?
    – Shadow Wizard Is Sad And Angry
    Mar 13, 2016 at 18:31
  • There are various scams related to job offers - search "job offer scam" for a long list of discussions on the topic. Many of the scams impersonate companies like Google because that's more likely to catch the attention of the target.
    – Bezewy
    Mar 13, 2016 at 21:11

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