Nine days ago, Google announced with some fanfare that it intended to hire at least 6,000 new employees this year.  Now, it turns out the response was immediate and almost overwhelming, as a representative’s said over 75,000 people submitted applications last week.

Google of course has a lot of things working in its favor, from a market cap of $195 billion to a reputation for being a great place to work.  The combination of high pay, dogs, and free food (among other things) should appeal to a wide range of people.

No one seems to have seen this response coming, however.  Brian Womack wrote this afternoon, "The flood of resumes topped a previous high set in May 2007 by 15 percent, said Aaron Zamost, a spokesman for the Mountain View, California-based company."

And even if you figure that Google will hire exactly 6,000 people out of 75,000 (ignoring the fact that the company’s sure to seek out some folks on its own and conduct this process throughout the year), that would leave 92 percent of the applicants out of luck.

On the bright side, at least everyone who knows an HR worker at Google stands a chance of getting a muffin basket or three as thousands of applicants try to make themselves stand out via yummy gifts.