Google's hiring binge

Did you know? Google hired 2,130 people last quarter? A recent article in USA Today says it all:

There are signs that Google is up to something. The company hired 2,130 employees during the quarter, for a total workforce of 15,916. (Rival Yahoo has about 13,600 employees.) Google CEO Eric Schmidt said many hires were recent college graduates who received job offers earlier in the year. Others came from acquisitions. Still, many analysts were surprised, because a staffing glut in the previous quarter caused Google to miss earnings estimates. "They're continuing to hire like drunken sailors," says equity analyst Gene Munster at Piper Jaffray. (PJC) "They have a bigger plan in play."

Google is the poster child for employment branding. I just attended a recruiter conference in Washington DC and several of the speakers mentioned Google a lot in their presentations as a company who knows how to recruit.