Google's process is broken because it generally presumes job candidates know what specific job they want, and they don't. To put it in contrast, I also applied to Microsoft and they immediately assigned me a specific recruiter that I could email directly. Google needs to give job candidates a person to contact rather than expecting talent to go online and do that weird "job shopping cart" thing they have on their website.
The other reason the hiring process is broken is because it's totally backwards. The hiring process doesn't indicate any appreciation of talent. Talent in this industry consists of wanna-be rockstars. Talent wants the company to say "Hey, you're great. We want you. What's it going to take to get you here?" Google's approach, like many other companies, is "Go online, email us a resume, and we'll get back to you whenever we feel like it." Most people with talent are going to say "Forget that. You got it backwards. You need me more than I need you."
To put it in perspective, think of how professional sports teams recruit college athletes. The professional teams do every damn thing they can to get college athletes to agree to join the team. They send out recruiters that pay for meals, make the candidates feel special, and everything else to make the talent feel appreciated. That's how you recruit talent. Taking the approach of "Go online, do our rinky-dink job shopping cart thing, email us a resume, and we'll get back to you when we feel like it" doesn't attract talent and never will.
Google's counter to that is that since they tend to target only people from top companies and top schools (by their particular perception of what is "top"), so they'll tend to sweep up talented people anyway.
I re-read my comment. The flaw in my reasoning seems to be that Google still needs a way to know the talent exists. So you still gotta get Google's attention somehow before they can recruit you.
Still, though, that "job shopping cart" thing is lame. As somebody that's actually tried it, having to look all around the site and find a specific job just doesn't work. In simple terms, it would be better for Google to have a form that says "Tell us everything you know", let people just write everything they know and submit it, and then let Google match the skills up with a set of jobs that might be a good fit for the candidate.
This 'job shopping cart' thing is interesting to me, as is your desire to 'let Google match the skills up with a set of jobs', because basically I had the complete opposite experience when (successfully) applying for an internship with Google (Europe Middle East Asia (EMEA), btw, not American).
I was essentially unable to reply for anything other than "Software Engineer Intern". They took my resume, and a cover letter (which I am fairly sure was never read.) I then had two telephone interviews, after which I received an email asking me to choose two interests from a list of about two dozen (which was not an easy task!). From there, I was placed in a "pool" of possible candidates, and I believe that teams from within Google would browse through the pool and find a candidate they liked. Myself, I was in the pool for two and a half months, and had pretty much given up on getting anything when I suddenly heard back that I had a place.
So, it might be different for "real" jobs with them, but in the case of my internship they did exactly a skill-set matching (in a way), and there was no "job cart".
FWIW, when I applied to Google, a recruiter gave me a personal phone call within about 2 hours after my resume was submitted, and then guided me through the whole process. I suspect that "talent" gets similar treatment.
Google still think it's the Google of old days where stock options were plentiful and Google ruled the press. But the truth is that their stock isn't moving anywhere, so you are working for a paycheck in a has-been company with over 20,000 employees. And just Bing "Google is evil" ;)
The other reason the hiring process is broken is because it's totally backwards. The hiring process doesn't indicate any appreciation of talent. Talent in this industry consists of wanna-be rockstars. Talent wants the company to say "Hey, you're great. We want you. What's it going to take to get you here?" Google's approach, like many other companies, is "Go online, email us a resume, and we'll get back to you whenever we feel like it." Most people with talent are going to say "Forget that. You got it backwards. You need me more than I need you."
To put it in perspective, think of how professional sports teams recruit college athletes. The professional teams do every damn thing they can to get college athletes to agree to join the team. They send out recruiters that pay for meals, make the candidates feel special, and everything else to make the talent feel appreciated. That's how you recruit talent. Taking the approach of "Go online, do our rinky-dink job shopping cart thing, email us a resume, and we'll get back to you when we feel like it" doesn't attract talent and never will.