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Ask HN: Am I right to be angry about the interview process?

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Re: Ask HN: Am I right to be angry about the interview process?

#51

Post by urahara »

rcymerys wrote: post #6

Are you angry about wasting 2 hours of your time or not getting the job? Keep in mind that a lot of companies use automated tests to filter candidates, not necessarily in the most fair way. They're simply not able to do a whole interview with everyone as it's extremely time consuming. I'd say don't worry about it too much. If you have the skills you'll find plenty of good companies that will want to work with you. Un…

It's not your problem if a company doesn't have a correct respectful hiring process. requirements for potential employees on the market are crazy, companies definitely should live up themselves to the professional and cultural quality they demand from other participants. Companies tend to never excuse even slightest fails of generally well prepped candidates, no reason for candidates to excuse pure disrespect of their time and effort.

Re: Ask HN: Am I right to be angry about the interview process?

#53

Post by notforgot »

poikniok wrote: post #41
notforgot wrote: post #26

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I was on the job market recently and similar things happened to me. It's worse when you don't get feedback after you go to an interview. Two days ago I thought of making a job site that requires the employer to provide feedback, and the candidate to sign a form that says they won't sue the employer over the interview process. This way the employer has no excuse for not giving feedback. Would you use this?

The form will not be legally binding, so the premise of your site is broken.

Why would the form not be legally binding?

Re: Ask HN: Am I right to be angry about the interview process?

#54

Post by AnimalMuppet »

khedoros1 wrote: post #27
greyostrich wrote: post #11

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I don't like the zero feedback loop. I passed the test, yet I failed it and don't know why.

I've had things like this happen more than once: 1. HR/recruiter-ish Phone screening 2. Engineer-ish phone screening, sometimes with a coding session 3. Another phonecall as a prep for further rounds of interviews 4. Travel that requires me to take at least one day off of work and travel to another city for an in-person interview 5. Rejection with no reason, and "We have a policy of not providing that information to…

4. This in some ways is worse than greyostrich's situation (because it cost you more), but in another way, it's better. It cost the company, too - the cost of the flight, hotel, and time for their people to interview you. They didn't just waste your time to try to spare themselves any effort; they had skin in the game too.

5. In the current legal climate, if they tell you why, they may be exposing themselves to a lawsuit. They therefore impose a company-wide policy of never saying why they reject anyone. It stinks for the rejected applicant, but it's not because they're being jerks to the rejected applicant. It's because of lawyers. If you want to fix it, you're going to have to fix the law.

Re: Ask HN: Am I right to be angry about the interview process?

#55

Post by Clanan »

notforgot wrote: post #26
greyostrich wrote: post #11

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I don't like the zero feedback loop. I passed the test, yet I failed it and don't know why.

I was on the job market recently and similar things happened to me. It's worse when you don't get feedback after you go to an interview. Two days ago I thought of making a job site that requires the employer to provide feedback, and the candidate to sign a form that says they won't sue the employer over the interview process. This way the employer has no excuse for not giving feedback. Would you use this?

I see very little value for the company in agreeing to something like this. A user could still sue (even after signing the form) by claiming the given feedback is discriminatory or something similar. No company would voluntarily take on that sort of liability when there are countless alternatives.

Re: Ask HN: Am I right to be angry about the interview process?

#56

Post by fspear »

khedoros1 wrote: post #49
fspear wrote: post #32

Earlier quoted context omitted.

>Maybe the discussion on their hiring team was "Well, if he pulls out some magic in the coding challenge..." This is an unreasonable expectation. If it gets to that point then it should be a no-hire, don't waste the candidates time.

People often don't act reasonably, and "should" isn't "will". That was part of my point. OP is looking for a reason, and sometimes there isn't a reason that could be supported logically.

You are absolutely right. I guess the point I was trying to make is that companies are not considerate when it comes to a candidate's time. IF after making a candidate go through a coding test or several interviews you still have doubts then don't hire him, simple as that. Nowadays companies/hiring managers/interviewers are used to treating us like crap, sometimes for their own amusement.Expecting candidates to pull out magic in a coding challenge is becoming more and more common, even when they know that a candidate won't be able to pull it off, it's almost as if interviewers enjoy turning people down and watching people struggle during interviews has become a (sadistic)leisure activity for them.

Re: Ask HN: Am I right to be angry about the interview process?

#57

Post by jfrisby »

flukus wrote: post #40
jfrisby wrote: post #21

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It's a combination of two things: 1. We're bad at hiring, as an industry. We just aren't very good at identifying good candidates. 2. We're an industry where the average skill level is below the minimum threshold of competence for even low-level roles. I.E. there are lots of people looking for jobs, but most of them either couldn't code their way out of a wet paper bag -- and identifying the good candidates is time c…

> I.E. there are lots of people looking for jobs, but most of them either couldn't code their way out of a wet paper bag I wonder if the average skill is that low (kind of) or if it seems that way because only the most desperate are willing to jump through the elaborate hoops we create for hiring.

i suspect that even without the ridiculous hoops, the incompetent will always spend a disproportionate percentage of their time job hunting, and thus making the hiring process challenging.

Re: Ask HN: Am I right to be angry about the interview process?

#58

Post by jfrisby »

fspear wrote: post #31
jfrisby wrote: post #21

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It's a combination of two things: 1. We're bad at hiring, as an industry. We just aren't very good at identifying good candidates. 2. We're an industry where the average skill level is below the minimum threshold of competence for even low-level roles. I.E. there are lots of people looking for jobs, but most of them either couldn't code their way out of a wet paper bag -- and identifying the good candidates is time c…

>1. We're bad at hiring, as an industry. We just aren't very good at identifying good candidates How do we fix this? It seems that everyone who claims to be actively working to fix hiring in tech is only exacerbating the issue (see hacker rank, codility, etc).

I've now worked at two companies in that space -- a startup I cofounder in 97, and a much later-stage startup I recently joined -- and all I can say is... shrug

The company I'm currently at is certainly making things better for a subset of candidates, but what we do is largely orthogonal to these issues.

Re: Ask HN: Am I right to be angry about the interview process?

#59

Post by khedoros1 »

fspear wrote: post #56
khedoros1 wrote: post #49

Earlier quoted context omitted.

People often don't act reasonably, and "should" isn't "will". That was part of my point. OP is looking for a reason, and sometimes there isn't a reason that could be supported logically.

You are absolutely right. I guess the point I was trying to make is that companies are not considerate when it comes to a candidate's time. IF after making a candidate go through a coding test or several interviews you still have doubts then don't hire him, simple as that. Nowadays companies/hiring managers/interviewers are used to treating us like crap, sometimes for their own amusement.Expecting candidates to pull…

I take your point, and I agree with it.
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